ANARCHONQUISTADORES

+ 2010 Battles 03 & 04: Tau & LatD +

2010-01-23T16:16:00.005-05:00

These next two battles aren't going to be covered in remotely the same depth as that last GK one, but I figured I should toss them up for completion at the very least. Briefest of background: I rampaged PA last week and got in rematches against two good friends that live down there. First one marks the 8th or 10th game between my Chaos boys and these particular Tau - we're pretty sure I was up 1 win overall, so this would be a chance to pull ahead or tie it up.

Anarchonquistadores vs Tau [2000]

I ran my list from the tournament back in November, and he ran something like this:

Shas'el - frag launcher, plasma gun, meltagun
3 Crisis - plasma, melta, multi
3 Crisis - plasma, melta, multi
12 FW
12 FW
10 Kroot + 10 Kroothounds
1- Kroot + 10 Kroothounds
5-6 Pathfinders w/ warfish
5-6 Pathfinders w/ warfish
Railhead
Railhead
3 Broadsides - plasma, targeting arrays

Game: 5 objectives, pitched battle

I figured I had lost this one as soon as five objectives were rolled up vs Tau, and I was pretty much right. How about a by-the-unit summary?

Deathscreamer & 1k Sons - Stumbled painfully slowly towards some pathfinders in a building directly across from them, and were ignored until around turn 3 when the entire unit evaporated under SMS fire, save the 'Screamer. However he was doing his best to be useless, taking a wound from jamming his weapon, having the pathfinders make 100% of their cover saves and finally reaching the objective building on turn 5, when his robots were finally put down. Either he was killed or he simply cowered 6" under the objective at the top of the building.

Plasma Termies - Dropped early and dropped 1 broadside. Were brutally wiped out by a counter-dropping crisis team next turn.

Plasma Dread - After he outflanked all 40 kroot things down the eastern flank and gutted a rhino CSM squad (which killed 10+ kroot hounds on the way down), the plasma dread reserved on and eventually pounded through a building to pounce on one of the kroot packs. Needless to say heavy flamer + being invincible in combat killed that unit and got them off an objective, but it drew the attention of a crisis remnant and a railhead, which were able to drop the dread before he could kill the other kroot unit sitting on another objective. Really, he almost pulled this one back out single-handedly!

Missile Dread - Reserved on and scampered up the hard west flank behind a very tall building, eventually exploding a warfish that he caught stationary. Then he ate broadside railguns and died.

Melta CSM - Boosted their rhino at both railheads, but managed to only knock the gun off one of them before a crisis team arrived. They lost 8 members to AP1/2 fire, though the fist and a meltagunner survived for vengeance! Ish. The meltagun missed @ 1" range, and the fist flopped entirely as well. Both marines were clubbed to death by the tau suits. Guh.

Flamer CSM - Tried messing with some pathfinders in the NE, but were jumped by 40 kroot. As noted they took out over a quarter of them, though twas all for not.

Shooty CSM - Sat on my SW objective, but lost an inordinate number to the 12 FW in a ruin across from them. As in, 12 shots = 12 hits = 12 wounds = 6 dead marines. After that opening volley they hid until game end, when the autocannon marine clinging to the objective (hidden behind a wall) had his point contested by crisis suits.

1k Sons - See above (recap: shot pathfinders in cover, walked very very slowly, died)

Demons - I have no idea what the girls did. I think they helped the flamer CSM kill all those kroot, but were eaten along with them.

Havoks - Stood atop a building and pumped missiles into a railhead for 3 turns (immobilized it only, even with a sterling 3 hits a turn). Then switched to frags and pounded kroot to hell, though their going to ground in hard cover made that a moot point.

Defiler - Nestled down behind a wall and threw shells at those 12 FW turn after turn. Only 1 of 3 templates didn't scatter off (...), but that one mashed ~4 and broke them - they rallied and returned late game, but meh. Note that the defiler took 4 turns of railgun attention from the broadsides, but they somehow kept missing, having their shots cover saved or didn't do anything the defiler cared about. Oh, the defilotron also lobbed a shell at 3 crisis suits standing in the open (OMG SO DELICIOUS!!) ... and scattered away. A horrible trick to tempt me so :(

Oblit - Missed a hammerhead, was instant-deathed in return. Le shrug.

CHAOS LOSS

Well played by the Tau dude, and the CSM were well and truly out-maneuvered this time around. Also as usual I got the feeling of too few guns killing far less often then they need to to work. Ah well.

Second game was against my host's Lost and the Damned army, built using Codex:Orks. Totally awesome army modeling-wise, with quite a bit going for it in game too.

Anarchonquistadores vs Renegades of Sanctus Fornax [2000]

(Wehr, forgive if that army name is off, but I remember something to that extent)

Warboss - mega armor, attak squig
5 Meganobz - kombi-skorcha
Battlewagon - deff rolla, red, big shoota, etc

Zogwort
20 Shootas - rokkit, nob w/ klaw, armor, bosspole
Battlewagon - deff rolla, red, big shoota, etc

Snikrot + X kommandos - 2 burnas
12 Sluggas - rokkit, nob w/ klaw, armor, bosspole; trukk
12 Sluggas - nob w/ klaw, armor, bosspole; trukk
12 Sluggas - nob w/ klaw, armor, bosspole; trukk
15+ Stormboyz - Zagstruk
Battlewagon - killkannon, etc

Aye, something like that anyway!

Game: 3 objectives, cleanse

So there would definitely be fighting! He won The Roll and deployed very aggressively with all his armor, ready to smash forward and tear chaos faces off. Once again, let's do some unit-by-unit summarizing, as I don't quite want to recreate the game at the moment:

Deathscreamer & 1k Sons - Ork first turn, Zogwort looks at Chaos Lord Severus Gaal, a bit of green lightning tzaps between their eyes ... and Gaal is SQUIGGED! There's a pic of this somewhere, but regardless it was both hilarious and so so so unfortunate. The deathscreamer squig would meet his fate next time the 1k Sons received fire, as Neugog the sorcerer, now acting army commander, pushed the ex-lord into the incoming bullets. The 1k Sons would be pounced by a trukk squad and ripped limb from limb, save for Neugog who stuck around for another turn before succumbing to the choppa maelstrom.

Melta CSM, Flamer CSM & Plasma Termies - I knew that I needed to apply a LOT of force to have a chance at dropping that meganob squad (which is scoring, do note), so the rhino CSM led the charge. Both units stayed in their rhinos after boosting up on either side of the warboss's battlewagon, with the melta boys only able to immobilize it. Both rhinos detonated after being assaulted by various trukk mobs and/or meganobz, and so the CSM fell out and threw themselves in against the nob-star. A lot of average dice later and the CSM lost (both held), after killing a couple nobz and suffering heavy loses. Counter-charges by trukk mobs saw the CSM (and nearly 1/2 my troops) mashed into paste, but only the warboss (1 wound) + 1.5 meganobz had made it out alive. A tactical drop by plasma termies saw off the 1.5 nobz, and when the warboss charged in they crumped him too - for the loss of their own lives, 6 S10 klaw attaks hurt!

Shooty CSM - They had deployed a bit farther back behind some debris with the intent of providing fire support into board-center, but Snikrot's early arrival made things difficult for them. The CSM managed to drop ~4 kommados before they struck, with burnas flopping meaning they drew combat. Next round CSM began to disappear ...

Defiler - ... but the defiler mobilized and jumped on the kommandos, smashing the unit (which couldn't hurt it) even as the last of the shooty CSM were gutted. The demon engine continued to excel at fighting things that can't hurt it, as it was able to twin-heavy flamer the stormboyz (who, forced to deep strike with Zag, failed to make it into combat the turn before) and crump them up nicely. I actually complained about how the defilotron never hits, after which he switched from rolling 0-1 hit as usual to rolling 3-4! So after breaking and catching the kommandos, breaking and catching the stormboyz, the defiler went on to ransack the middle of the board, killing off the trukk boy remnant claiming the central objective. Not too shabby!

Havoks - Bounced krak off battlewagons until Zogwort's shootas turned their guns their way, ripping their meatshields off. For those trying to piece the game together, around this point I had lost ALL of my power armored troops and ALL of my icons ... except for the one on the havoks. With the demons due to hit table ASAP, all available enemy fire went into the havoks, but they held on and summoned the girls down into Zog's squad. After that they switched to frag and slammed missiles into various mobs with varying degrees of success.

Demons - So ladies show Turn 4, and kill Zog's unit handily. From here they waded through a lot of ruin to the eastern objective, being depleted to 2-3 girls at game end. They spent their last turn going to ground out of LoS, handily claiming 1 objective for chaos.

Oblit - Did nothing to Zog's battlewagon despite being ~12" away for 2 turns, then was killed by a trukk boy fist.

DREADS - Ah yes, can't forget the twins. They showed up later than I wanted, and missile dude was less than impressive - walked on and helped the defiler burn up stormies, then helped the defiler a little more by fire frenzy frag missiles into him ... He fragged some mobs too, but was a bit too far east to do much. However plasma dread was on it, powering into the parking lot of busted vehicles in the board center, exploding the boss battewagon sitting on the central objective and holding those few trukk boyz (so the defiler could get to the squishy insides) and then continuing his rampage into the final turn, where he nabbed the killkannon bw too.

In the end, the Renegades held 1 objective with a few trukk boyz, and the Anarcho lads had another with a couple demons. Nothing else was alive except for a couple dreads and defiler playing amongst the vehicle carcasses.

DRAW

Great game with so much carnage. The early squiggening was disheartening, but the demons and dreads once again pulled things out for me!

Painting: N/A
Building: Soulgrinder

+ 2010 Battle 02: CSM vs GK +

2010-01-20T17:58:00.010-05:00

Technically I've played a lot more than two games this year, but this is the second not involving my Warriors of Tzeentch square-basers, and the first for my thrice-cursed CSM. Up against a fully painted Grey Knights force, for which I took an entirely painted (minus 1 rhino) army of my own ...

Anarchonquistadores vs Grey Knights [1500]

Grandmaster
4 GK Terminators - psycannon
8 GK - psycannon
8 GK - 2 incinerators
Land Raider
Land Raider

vs

Deathscreamer Lord
Plasma Termicide
Dread - PC, HF, XA
9 CSM - IoCU, flamer, AC w/ PF, combi-flamer; rhino w/ XA
10 CSM - IoCU, lascannon, plasma gun, AC w/ PW
6 1k Sons - AS w/ warptime, icon, melta bombs
10-11 Demons
Defiler
Oblit

Defiler was an odd choice, but I've been using him more of late, and figured if the PA GK ever stepped out of their rides I could punish them for it. I definitely forgot about the aegis armor thing though :P

Game: 4 objectives, 'cleanse' deployment

Chaos won The Roll, took it and didn't have it stolen from them.

Defiler View of the Battlefield

Deployment:
GK terminators + grandmaster hung out behind the NW objective ruins, and both power armored GK squads started in land raiders on either side of that ruin.
Shooty CSM took the SE ruin and its objective, with oblit nearby, defiler providing extreme ranged support, 1k Sons + deathscreamer ready to head NW and the fighty CSM rhino likewise ready to go N and W. Dread, termies, demons all in reserve.

Turn One
Rhino rocks north, 1k Sons trip west, lascannon CSM + oblit + defiler all do nothing to the east raider.

GK respond by shuffling their tanks and having the termies stomp into that ruin. Land raider fire manages to immobilize the incoming spiky rhino.

Turn Two

X Marks the Objective

Dread scampers onto the scene mid-table, and plasma suicide team goes for the GK termies over yonder. The 1k Sons stumble forward, the driver of the rhino furiously beats on it but couldn't re-mobilize, the dread is out of spotting distance on the termies (aegisssss), and the termiciders, despite a stunning 5 wounds, only drop 1 terminator after he passes 4 inv saves. Vom-it. Defiler and both lascannons do nothing to the east raider again.

Token movement by GK raiders again. Two termiciders are gunned down by their counterpart's stormbolters (let that sink in: 6 S7 AP2 = 1 dead GK, 8 S4 AP5 + 3 S6 AP4 = 2 dead spikies), and the chainfister is sliced in half by the grandmaster. The termies consolidate back into cover, just in case chaos pulls more shenanigans. The raiders bounce their laz off the immobilized rhino or 1k Sons or something.

Turn Three

The demons decide it's a good time to take the east objective, so summon down and head for it - no rush, there's no way they're losing that thing. 1k Sons stump forward and throw rounds into the termies for no luck (deathscreamer = 4), rhino crew batters away, defiler + lascannon do nothing to the east raider. The dread chooses to fire frenzy rather than shooting the enemy termies, and slams two plasma rounds into the 1k Sons, scattering badly and keeping the automaton closest to him in one piece despite his best attempts. Rage begins to build in the chaos general at this point.

Ordo Malleus deign to move at all, to spite the angry dark marines. Small arms fire knocks down 3 1k Son robots, a raider immobilizes the dread, and the other one splatters the oblit.

Turn Four

The fighty CSM finally get out of their busted rhino and run for the SW objective, which unfortunately will bring them in fire frenzy range of the dread ... The 1k Sons have achieved range on the termies, so hang out for now, spraying AP3 bullets just because (deathscreamer = 2). The girls easily nab the eastern objective, CSM lascannon and defiler boomer do nothing to that east raider as usual, and the dread's template scatters off the termies.

And then the Grey Knights make their move! East raider dumps its squad into the NW objective, and west raider slams it south and disgorges its delicious power armored insides into the SW ruin. The deathscreamer takes a wound from somebody's bolter, a robot falls (leaving just 1 + sorcerer + lord), and members of the fighty CSM squad begin to evaporate under elite stormbolter fire and the attention of various raiders.

Turn Five

The forces of chaos are well aware at this point that the game is officially a draw, and has been for some time, but they decide to shoulder on. Then the dread fire frenzies on cue, looking at the poor CSM wanting nothing more than to pass by and finally punch some Imperials ... So the fighty boys back off and climb into the shooty marines' bunker, and let the dread fire frenzy into the GK squad, dropping 3 marines! Result! The remnants of the 1k Sons climb into the rhino, which remobilizes at long last! Sadly the deathscreamer had previously decided to go rambo and shoot down some of the power armored goody goods sitting on the NW objective - you know perfectly well what he rolled for shots, but the jam is saved by his inv. Ridiculous. The CSM lascannon did nothing as usual, and the defiler sneakily shot for the corner of the east raider so as to splash aegis-shielded marines with his template, but the scatter was immense to say the least.

Happily sitting on 2 objectives at this point, the GK are content to mostly just mess with the chaos guys until time is called. The termies scamper forward under cover of the east raider, the west raider gets LoS on the dread and detonates him, and a bunch of fire reduces the fighty CSM to the AC + 2 friends. And the deathscreamer dies in a blaze of stormbolter fire, with a nauseating feeling of deja vu at yet another death to small arms.

Turn Six

The game continues, ish. The rhino bearing the 1k Sons slams it 12" for the NW objective, but are so very very far away. And the lascannon tries for one more shot into the raider, but continues to suck. 6 turns of nothing, wow. The defiler mobilizes to bring some spotting range on the NW ruins, but his template either is out or scatters badly. With GK being fearless he would have had to kill ALL of them, which wasn't going to happen.

Termies stroll along, raiders shoot things, etc. Mostly, the defiler lived! Pyrrhic victory!

Objective Round Up

DRAW

A bit of a non-starter really, though he did play it as intelligently as possible, being cagey and staying at range until a late game objective grab. I don't believe he could have gotten a win with just 2 troops, without being very very aggressive, which would have brought him into the Chaos Zone of Dismemberment. True, a frustrating game for me, but my army struggles against even 1 raider - and this list had 2 lascannons, twice as many as usual for me. For once the havoks would have been better than the defiler, but I'm running the defiler for all comers more so meh.

Two more games to go from last weekend: 2k rematch vs Tau, 2k throwdown vs Orks Counts As Madness!

Painting: N/A
Building: Soulgrinder

+ 2010 Battle 01: Skaven vs Brets +

2010-01-03T12:26:00.007-05:00

Got that game in against magic-heavy brets yesterday, and I think it was a learning experience for both of us, but deployment and the vermin lord tipped things heavily in my favor. I used the 10 pd list from the last post, and he used something that looked a lot like this:

L: Prophetess - level 4, silver mirror
H: Damsel - level 2, warhorse, scroll
H: Damsel - level 2, warhorse, chalice of malfleur
H: Paladin - BSB, sword of might, gromril great helm, shield, barded warhorse

C: 8 KotR - full command
C: 8 KotR - full command
C: 9 Errants - full command
C: 8 Errants - errantry banner, full command
C: 20 Men at Arms - full command
C: 20 Men at Arms - full command
C: 10 Bowmen - skirmishing
C: 10 Bowmen - flaming arrows, stakes

S: 3 Pegasus Knights - full command
S: 5 Yeomen - musician, shields

R: Treb

Damsels rode in the back of the KotR units, prophetess hung out with some M@A, BSB with the errantry errants (and the only unit I was worried about actually taking my HPA down).

Spells:
Prophetess - bear's anger, crow's feast, hunter's spear, wolf hunts
Damsel - mistress of the marsh, master of the wood
Damsel - healing touch, master of stone

Vermin Lord - pestilent breath, bless with filth, wither, cloud of corruption
Plague Priest - pestilent breath, cloud of corruption [he never cast anything]
Engineer - warp lightning, scorch

Game was pitched battle, deployment as the pic:

Brets prayed, so Skaven took it away!

Skaven 1
HPA scooted forward ~9", clanrat blocks shuffled a bit, ratters moved up a bit for range, slaves tooled up for irritation next turn, globies moved up the flanks on intercept courses and the vermin lord slammed 16" forward around the woods to bring the heat. First round of magic saw the stake bowmen lightninged down 3 and paniced back, and the VL wither the peg knights and get off his first blast of corruption. The cloud tagged the pegs, skirmishers, treb and mounted yeomen (missed the M@A with level 4 on a 1), but wounds were minimal - 1 yeoman, 2 bowmen and solid wards on the pegs. The WLC lasered out a shot at the tightly packed KotR units, but strong deviation meant just 2 knights were tagged off the back of the unit - yay for no partials! Jezzails did nothing to those KotR.

Bret 1
The bretons began with much lamenting of the peasants blocking in all the knights behind them ... The line bowmen rallied and the prophetess jumped in with them, and other movement was cautious shuffling about to primarily keep the VL from flank charging anybody. The pegs flew down by the right woods, with LoS on the WLC. Bret magic was squashed, except for a crow's feast which was let go on the VL, trusting to the dice to see him through. 11 hits later he took just 1 wound. Shooting flopped, with the treb scattering 10" into nothing and the skirmishing bowmen unable to wound the VL.

Skaven 2
The VL charged the skirmishing bowmen, with the intent of carrying into the treb in line with them - the peasants fled, ran 4" and were caught, and the VL slammed into the treb instead. The HPA scooted 9-10" towards the action in the middle of the table, with globies trailed along with it. The right globies moved up into the woods near the pegs to toss stuff at them, but I didn't trust that the pegs would take the globadier bait, so the WLC was scooted up behind the impassable ruin to block LoS to the pegs. And the slaves moved up to be irritating, baiting charges from both M@A and a couple knight units.

Magic saw a lot of nothing, but drew a scroll. Shooting saw the ratters grind down a good number of M@A from the left unit, the jezzails failed to hurt the errants headed their way, and the right globes gas 3 wounds off the pegs. As expected the VL creamed the treb crew, but left one alive to autobreak, and the VL failed his restrain roll and chased it off the table edge.

Bret 2
The slave baits were taken, with the left slaves fleeing a KotR + M@A charge (they fled 3+1", escaping the M@A but being trampled down by the knights, while also drawing them into counter-charge position by some character-less clanrats), and the right slaves taking the charge from a somewhat-depleted M@A unit. The remaining knights played it more or less cagey, out of fear of the HPA and VL, though the left errants readied for a charge on the jezzails next turn. The pegs forgot to move entirely ...

Magic this turn was a lesson in the importance of going for fewer but better casts than sheer quantity of attempts - brets threw 5 2-dice casts on 7 or 8+ spells, but only got healing touch off on the damsel who had poisoned herself with the chalice last turn (I let it threw in case he was going to put serious dice into wolf's hunt on the KotR who ran down the slaves). The flaming archers failed to hurt the HPA. In combat, the M@A fluffed against the slaves, but despite using their halberds, the peasants managed to save both slave pokes on 6's. Shockingly the slaves won by 1 (outnumber, nat') but the M@A held.

Skaven 3
The HPA gribbled after the M@A that had chased the slaves, but they failed terror and fled away, exposing the A-bomb's flank to the BSB and her S6 errants ... The characterless clanrats charged the overrun KotR, and their ratter had to as well to get out of the way (where's my doomflayer conversion when I need it??). Meanwhile the left globes prepared to rock the errants descending on the jezzails, the right globes sat tight and readied another volley for the pegs, the BSB made sure the HPA was in his 12" bubble, and the VL zoomed back onto the scene, positioned to wither, vomit and fart all over the BSB's errants.

Only the last of those happened, with cloud of corruption claiming 2 more yeomen (panicing them south), 5 slaves (!), 0 errants (great wards continue), maybe a M@A, and all but 2 of the bowmen that the level 4 was sheltering with. Wither did draw out the silver mirror too, though the S6 hit was warded by the VL. Shooting saw the combined might of 7 globadiers, 6 jezzails and 1 ratter kill 3 of the errants headed down the left flank, which was enough to panic the young knights back. The right globes fared less well and killed 1 of themselves for 0 wounds to the pegs. Combat time and the clanrats + ratter managed 0 wounds as expected, but admirably blocked all the S3 attaks in return. The KotR lost by 2 but held. The slaves, having lost a rank and outnumber thanks to the Vermin Lord, lost to the M@A and detonated, taking a couple down, as well as a couple from the M@A fleeing in terror from the HPA. w00t?

Bret 3
With a mighty 'HUZZAH!' the BSB's errants spurred into the abomination, though their heroics weren't entirely shared by the rest of the knights - the other errants failed to rally and ran off the table, the yeomen failed to rally as well and ran into an impassable ruin, and the level 4 left her 2 bowmen bodyguards to face the VL alone and ran off by herself. The full strength KotR lance jockeyed for position around the HPA/errant fight, trying to squeeze between them and the wood, and the pegs finally got it together and flitted over to look at the WLC again.

Magic saw a damsel succeed in crushing 3 jezzails with master of stone (she had tried all game now, tenacious chick that she is) and paniced them off the board, as well as the level 4 focusing a lot of aggression on the VL. I let through crow's feast hoping to get lucky again, and was rewarded with 1 wound that was warded. A failed dispel against hunter's spear made me worry, but his T5 kept him safe. After the two bowmen missed the towering daemon in front of them (?!), it was time for fighting. The errants slammed 4+ wounds onto the HPA, but all but 2 were regen'd. In return the huge gribbly rolled up 10 attaks and put them all into the BSB. He was surprised, but probability did what I thought it would: 10 attaks -> 6 hits -> 6 wounds -> 6 5+ rerollable saves -> 2 5+ wards -> 1 wound. The HPA held easily on stubborn 8. In the other fight, the clanrats continued to hold their shields up like good minions and beat the KotR by 2, but this time the knights broke (BSB no help) and were crossfired by the Abomination.

Skaven 4
Only in the second half, but things were looking pretty end game for the brets. The gutters finally showed up and swarmed the prophetess, ready to spit throwing stars all over her. The VL boosted way up to glare at the fresh KotR lance, while globadiers mobilized for table quarters and clanrat blocks just rearranged in case those KotR survived or the HPA fell.

Magic flopped, which was probably for the better - the VL's corruption bomb would have hit a lot of tiny skaven units and the HPA, not to mention the bret stuff. Shooting was mostly sad - ratters failed to hurt KotR or pegs, the warpfire thrower turned on for the first time all game and detonated (!) taking out 3 clanrats from the bus (30 clanrats + BSB + engineer) though panic was passed on a shaky 9. The WLC, in its last action before being ka-pegged, dropped a 2" guess onto the M@A in front of it, but a massive scatter later nobody died. However, the gutter's earned 5x their points by taking out the prophetess with a hearty round of throwing stars - 6 shots, 3 wounds, 3 failed wards. In combat the HPA took no wounds and decided to feed, devouring the errant champ but failing to wound the BSB. It held no prob.

Bret 4
Opening terror tests sealed the deal, as the KotR lance fled from the VL and was crossfired by some globadiers in the foods. With that the Brets conceded.

SKAVEN MASSACRE

A fun game, if one that I feel I was in control of from the VL's rush up the right flank on. I feel like I was let down pretty hard by my magic, or at least the VL was in position to do a LOT of damage, but 6 dice at his disposal weren't enough. The priest literally never did anything with his 2 dice, and the engineer's 2 tossed into warp lightning were easily dealt with by damsel's with MR(1) or absorbed by MR-less peasant fodder. This was my first experience with cloud of corruption though, and definitely dig it on the VL when he's going Rambo like that.

Also it should be said, playing against an opponent who is still playing the Psychology Game is somewhat startling after all the ItP armies out there. Better certainly, and it makes my pretty minimal firepower seem almost adequate, with panic a possibility. And terror certainly drove that last nail into the coffin, as it has for me in a number of games.

All the same I wish my WoT were painted. This skaven army feels too tiny and underpowered to be really competitive, but I don't want to drop the Big Boys, even if the VL sucks up so many fakking points ...

Painting: Nurglettes
Building: N/A

+ SKAVEN 2.0 +

2009-12-31T12:18:00.005-05:00

My new skaven list has changed a bit, particularly after a disastrous game against dragon-led khorne mortals in which I managed to do everything I told myself not to do, including engaging with the vermin lord by himself and slamming the abomination into the frenzied dragon. Neither of those combats were pretty, with the a-bomb being 1-shoted and Vermy barely escaping the red knights with his life.

Here's where I'm at now. The biggest changes from the list against khorne is the inclusion of a BSB, who was sorely missed, and a 10th power die (the engineer was level 1 before). These came at the cost of 2 rat swarms, 3 gutters and the spikes off the HPA, all of which won't be missed too much.

L: Vermin Lord = 500
H: Plague Priest - foul pendant, flail, level 2 = 169
H: Engineer - dispel scroll, level 2 = 125
H: Chieftain - BSB, warpstone armor, shield = 102

C: 30 Clanrats - full command, shields, warpfire thrower = 225
C: 25 Clanrats - full command, shields, ratling gun = 187.5
C: 25 Clanrats - full command, shields, ratling gun = 187.5
C: 20 Slaves - musician = 42
C: 20 Slaves - musician = 42

S: 6 Jezzails = 120
S: 6 Gutter Runners - deathrunner = 84
S: 7 Globadiers = 70
S: 7 Globadiers = 70

R: Abomination = 235
R: Warp Lightning Cannon = 90
------
2249
10/6

Thoughts so far? The WLC is very hard to hit with, jezzails losing skirmishing is pretty huge, rolling to hit with ratling guns sucks (and both of mine misfired more often than got to shoot), the abomination is not auto-win, and the vermin lord takes as much finesse as I thought he would.

I've got a game against brets tomorrow, where we're both running 10 pd of magic for the first time in our warhammer careers. I expect mass miscasting ... but read all about it next year!

In the meantime, here's the BSB I smashed up last night:

He's got a marauder horsemen shield that goes on the arm holding the standard, but it'll be painted separately. Scheme will be mostly bleached bone armor, so I added that tatty loincloth for some kind of green on the model.

Happy New Year!

Painting: Nurglettes
Building: N/A

+ UPDATES: 40K RTT & FANTASY MADNESS +

2009-12-10T11:04:00.007-05:00

Definitely don't want to work on this paper right now, so let's get you all caught up to speed on the little warhammer I've been up to that isn't forum surfing or endless list making ...

40K

Back in November I played in a 2000 point 40k tournament, which turned out to be 3 games of pure KP games, much to the chagrin of pretty much everyone. Here's an ultra-quick rundown of the event.

Me:

Deathscreamer Lord
Plasma Termi-ciders
Plasma Dread
Missile Dread
Melta CSM in rhino
Flamey CSM in rhino
Shooty CSM
1k Sons w/ warptime sorcerer
10+ Demons
Missile Havoks
Defiler
Oblit

Pretty close to 100% painted, and I'm really hoping to get them back to that level, particularly after the strong showing in the games to come ...

ONE:

IG w/ Creed, infantry blob, melta vets in valks x2, plasma vets, outflanking demolisher, russ, basi, etc, etc

Essentially I crushed him to pulp, gaining a staggering KP total and giving very little away. His dude messing with my reserves was irritating, but otherwise I was able to hold my points well and just smash away. We actually ended turn 4 on time, but since other people kept playing we could have continued, which would only have given me more of a KP lead over the other players. This was the only IG player at the event - and again, no one knew it was all KP all the time - and there was some bitterness at my early KP boost.

+14 KP

TWO:

CSM w/ 2x lash princes, greater demon, 5x melta plaguers in rhinos, defiler

A great and incredibly bloody game, where his plague marines proved their resilience in spades. My 1k Sons also showed what a 3/4+ save with fearless can do, as the tizz boys + deathscreamer locked down 2 plague squads round after round, deathscreamer reaping away. I didn't play as well as I could, throwing my dread plasma cannon away early and not popping a single rhino despite those being far and away the easiest KP available. He eventually beat me by a couple KP, but I didn't do so bad considering I went for the hardest targets possible.

+8 KP

THREE:

CSM w/ tizz sorcerer + tizz possessed in raider, 2 big CSM squads (1 rhino), berzerkers in rhino, 10 demons, 2x vindis

Ironically I had actually designed this list for the guy, out of the models he had available ... Despite being very very afraid of the double vindis, I was able to start stunning or destroying them fairly early on, letting my rhino squads perform a heavy flank of his force, with deep strike troops adding their weight in timely fashion. My dreads deserve commendation for this game, as they were able to lock down units that literally couldn't hurt them - possessed + sorcerer, demons - and grind them apart. Another fun game that turned my way once the wall of steel was cracked. The berzerkers proved to be a real thorn, costing about 14 CSM to put them down.

+9 KP

All told I earned 31 KP, which handily nabbed first place and $90 in gift certs (!!). I was well chuffed, though a comment on the IG player and my 4 turn brutalizing of him. It's not like the dude quite or changed his army or something after me - 2 other players got to go up against him (including the CSM I played final round), and nobody walked all over him like I was able to. So there.

Special commendation goes out to the deathscreamer - 1 jam all 3 games?! - and the dreads, who tenaciously held up through all games, often needing to be completely disassembled before giving up a KP, and were able to get some real stomping in due to judicious use of reserves. Very happy to see my weird toys work for me.

FANTASY

Rather than start more blogs I won't keep up to cover my fantasy exploits, expect to see some squarebase content cropping up here, as the new skaven book and a new escalation league at the FLGS have me really buzzing. Last week I finished the modeling for my skaven army redux, which mostly involved building some big bads:

VERMIN LORD

ABOMINATION

TRETCH CRAVENTAIL

Unfortunately the coming of winter means I won't get these primed and painted until probably Spring, barring I borrow somebody's basement to spray in ... But expect to hear of some exploits, I'll be painting to 1k once the semester ends, with just the big dudes waiting for the thaw.

Painting: Nurglings
Building: ???

+ MEQ SMEQ: MOAR FIGHTING +

2009-10-29T09:18:00.005-04:00

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! +

2009-10-18T13:42:00.002-04:00

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 +

2009-10-12T13:28:00.004-04:00

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 +

2009-10-05T11:59:00.003-04:00

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!

+ DREADTASM ROLLS ON: CHAOS VS SISTERS +

2009-09-24T11:09:00.002-04:00

As mentioned in the previous post, the on-going conflict with the Witch Hunters continued yesterday, with another 1850 battle. This time we started working through the missions for Da Boyz GT over in Rochester, NY in mid-October, rolling up the "Escort the VIP" mission. Essentially, we each had an extra VIP model (T3, W2, 4+ inv) that had to be attached to a squad (which became Fearless) and walked off the enemy table edge, taking his escort with him.

Anarchonquistadores vs Sisters [1850]

I used the same dreadtasm + deathscreamer list from last time, he used a tweaked up version of his last list:

Cannoness - MC blessed weapon, book, auto-pass faith thing
Cannoness - eviscerator, jump pack, 2+ armor, mantle
5 Dominions - 5 storm bolters, priest; 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
7 Seraphim - 2x flamers, VSS w/ eviscerator
5 Seraphim - 2x inferno pistols, VSS w/ power weapon, melta bombs
Exorcist
Penitent
Penitent

Might have been another Sister rhino squad in there, but I think he had to drop it to buy more seraphim. Regardless the mission was looking bad for him, as his only options for moving the VIP up was to attach to the big foot squad (which he did, with Cannoness along too), dismount an embarked squad and walk it, or walk the seraphim (who wanted to strike as usual).

Deployment: Table edges
Primary: Escort VIP off the enemy's edge. If he dies, his body becomes an objective that if claimed counts the same as walking the VIP off.
Secondary: Have more units above 50% in the enemy deployment zone.
Tertiary: Have more scoring units within 3" of table center.

Bonus points for not putting the VIP in a transport, killing the enemy, walking off the table with your most expensive unit, etc. All pretty low compared to the primary.

Sisters win The Roll, give it to Chaos so they can go second at end of game.

Early Game
Deathscreamer stomps the yard with the shooty CSM squad, so that the VIP can ride with the flamey CSM in their rhino. They advance up the western flank, under cover of the noise marines, havoks and an obliterator, thoroughly discouraging the enemy from intercepting (a penitent rushes the rhino, doesn't kill it and is kraked for his troubles). 'Screamer, shooty CSM and melta CSM in their rhino push the center, removing the dominions and their ride turn one, the other penitent turn two (at the cost of the melta dudes' ride) and immobilizing both rhinos. Retaliation by the other two mounted sister squads is fierce, reducing the melta CSM to 2 models (AC + melta), but the arrival of the demons adds even more pressure against the middile.

Dreadtasm got off to a fine start, rolling 2 fire frenzies and unloading 4 plasma blasts into the lone sane dread, who popped smoke and survived the lovefest with just a shaken result. They would remain mostly sane for the rest of the game, with no more fire frenzies rolled ..

Mid-Game
The flamer CSM's cruise up the flank was interrupted by the inferno seraphim, who wrecked the rhino but would be clubbed to death the following turn, putting the VIP and friends within easy reach of the board edge. The deathscreamer and his squad assaulted the remains of the foot cannoness' crew with VIP (they had taken a brutal blastmaster shot turn 1, losing 7 girls), and over a few rounds of burning faith chaos came out on top, leaving the deathscreamer (1 wound taken from his own weapon), the autocannon and the power weapon AC to take up firing positions amidst the corpses.

With furious rolling the demons repeatedly broke one sisters squad, eventually wiping it out (leaving 4 demons, not enough to occupy his edge but enough to grab the center), whilst a blood raging dreadnought + the remnants of the melta CSM broke the other 10 woman squad (losing the dreadnought very easily to the eviscerator), but failed to catch it. The other dreads contented themselves with throwing out the odd plasma template between assaults, which was all the one immobilized by the exorcist could do. Also at this point the exy had pasted the obliterator whose lascannon couldn't hit or pen it all game.

Late Game
The other seraphim finally showed and attempted a daring table edge drop to stop the flamer CSM, but a mishap allowed the forces of chaos to misdirect the angelic flyers. They were plopped down amidst the fire lanes of the noise marines / havoks / obliterator, and despite SotM being as irritating as possible the squad was hammered down to 1 girl, who fled and would be tagged by the autocannon marine. The eviscerator cannoness struck solo, absorbed a turn of aggressive fire with 2 wounds (2+ inv is DRUNK) slaughtered the havoks and ran them down, charged a dread and copped a giant chainsaw to the chest.

With little in the way of opposition left, the flamer CSM walked their charge off the table, the melta CSM legged it when the lone eviscerator VSS shot the AC in the head, the demons stabbed that VSS to death and would end the game happily frolicking on the center of the table. End game saw only 1 immobilized rhino and the untouched exorcist vs a good number of angry chaos boys (and 1.5 dreads).

CHAOS WIN: Primary, Tertiary, Random Bonuses

A sterling performance by the deathscreamer, with a good selection of rolls (just 1x 1, but 2x 6 and several 3-4), which is quite nice vs T3 power armored opponents (SotM or not). The dreadtasm had it's usual idiotic start, but besides the double blood rage turn (the immobilized dread wasn't angry enough to overcome his shattered legs) were remarkably behaved. As to what they actually did in the game, I suppose it was far less than 360 points worth, and I realized this game that the way I run them so close to each other makes it somewhat easier to limit their damage from fire frenzy (they just shoot the sane one, who can smoke) but also means they hardly move at all, not being able to consistently either march and fire or run up in a pack. Meh, I still like the lugs, and what would I take otherwise? Well, 1 unit of termiciders, and probably my possessed ;D Another excellent elites choice!

Painting: Irongut
Building: N/A

+ SEVERUS GAAL 2.0 +

2009-09-24T00:16:00.005-04:00

Finally found the time to bash together the powerfist version of my chaos lord, Severus Gaal:

Not a super crazy conversion (Huron + chaos lord head - iron halo on power axe), but I really like the Huron sculpt, with its "shattered soldier" bionic deal and the badass "stride forward and demand my money, ho!" pose. I'm torn on what backpack to give him when I get to that point, cause I don't think it will be Huron's. I like the huge iron halo (good for the 4+ MoT inv), but I dislike how giant the pack is, and the height clashes with the horns of the headswap. I may simply use a CSM backpack, though maybe chop the stalks off to create a faux-RT era pack ...

Here Gaal 2.0 is next to the increasingly infamous deathscreamer lord:

And some more shots of Mr. Minigun:

I do love the hell out of this model, and I like the concept of the demon weapon in more mundane form, as minigun + power axe + some insane(ly masochistic) combat skills. This model is also my fastest turn around from idea to build to paint to table, taking I think 2 days from inception to battle. Makes me even more proud of how he turned out.

Funny thing, had another game against the Sisters today, and the deathscreamer seemed to sense his possibly imminent replacement - he rolled just one 1 for number of attaks (and wounded himself), but otherwise was hammering 4-6 shots at range and 5-9 attaks in combat. Nicely done Gaal, maybe you can hang around ... until 2.0 gets painted!

Speaking of painting things for this army, here's a quick snap of the last thing I painted for the boys, for Games Day Baltimore back in the summer:

Kringa, the Greater Demon! The idea of that beasty climbing out of a chaos champ's chest is pretty excellent :D

Painting: Irongut
Building: N/A

+ EMP'S KIDS SCOUT TITAN +

2009-09-18T19:51:00.005-04:00

Viscount Vash over on the Emperor's Children forum blew my mind earlier today with his 40k-scale Questor Scout Titan. Here's some shots of where the titan was at of May 26:

Hopefully he had a chance to finish and/or paint the big guy up! Check out the rest of the thread for the buildup, the way he sculpted the thing is IMO pretty intense.

Painting: Irongut
Building: Powerfist Lord

+ CHAOS & MORE CHAOS: TRIPLE BATREPS +

2009-09-16T19:12:00.007-04:00

Two more weeks means three more slaughterfests! Because last week's is getting fuzzy - and grad school means I've in fact got papers to grade - we'll be making these shorter and more brutal than usual ...

Anarchonquistadores vs Sisters [1850]

Chaos Space Marines
Lord - MoT, deathscreamer, melta bombs
Dreadnought - plasma cannon, extra armor
Dreadnought - plasma cannon, extra armor
Dreadnought - plasma cannon, extra armor
10 CSM - IoCU, 2 meltaguns, AC w/ powerfist; rhino w/ extra armor
9 CSM - IoCU, flamer, AC w/ powerfist, combi-flamer; rhino w/ extra armor
10 CSM - IoCU, autocannon, plasma gun, AC w/ power weapon
6 Noise Marines - blastmaster, icon
10 Demons
6 Havoks - IoCU, 3 missile launchers
Oblit
Oblit

Witch Hunters
Cannoness - MC blessed weapon, 2+ armor, 4+ inv, book of stubborn, paper of auto-pass faith
Cannoness - eviscerator, jump pack, mantle
8 Celestians - meltagun, heavy flamer, VSS; rhino w/ smoke
5 Dominions - 4 flamers, VSS w/ brazier; priest w/ brazier; immolator w/ MM + smoke
10 Sisters - meltagun, flamer, VSS; rhino w/ smoke
10 Sisters - meltagun, flamer, VSS; rhino w/ smoke
10 Sisters - meltagun, flamer, VSS; rhino w/ smoke
15 Sisters - meltagun, flamer, VSS
7? Seraphim - inferno pistol, hand-flamer, VSS w/ power weapon
Exorcist
Penitent
Penitent

Game: KP, Dawn of War

Highlights:
- Chaos steals initiative! And takes it (to get around first turn of night fight whilst heavy guns get in place)!
- All sisters save the exorcist are beaten to a pulp, through combination of CSM rampage + demon slaps.

Lowlights:
- Shooty CSM not deploying on the board in woodland cover, and spending 2 turns running back to where they should have been.
- All chaos firebase deploying in one corner, and completely running out of targets by turn 3/4.
- Deathscreamer rolling a 1 (no wound) for its first volley, another 1 in combat (wound), a 2 in combat, then a 6 in turn 6 to vaporize the last sisters squad, when a half dozen units were ready to assault them anyway.
- Seraphim + eviscerator canny absorbing an ENORMOUS amount of firepower before the blastmaster levels the squad, leaving the eviscerator to be finally punked by the deathscreamer.
- Dreadtasm (all 3 dreads marauding in posse) shenanigans: first turn, reserve on and keep it together; second turn, 2 fire frenzies & 1 sanity, resulting in 4 dead sisters from 1 plasma, a shaken dread with a trashed plasma from 2 PENETRATING plasma shots from his buddy, and another shaken dread from another sterling plasma pen. From here the dreads kept it in their pants more or less, with 1 patrolling the backfield, 1 dying to exorcist, and another ripping apart a pentitent, an immolator, and a sister squad before sheltering behind the immo hulk from the exorcist's rockets. He was, of course, the dread who double-penned the sane dread earlier ;D

CHAOS WIN

A fun game for sure, where victory was never assured, but the sisters lack of combat teeth meant that while he could button up and ride out my AP3 and power weapons with SotM, eventually he was losing the stat game and raw attaks were beating him apart. He's since upped all his VSS to eviscerators, which makes none of those squads quite the easy KP they used to be.

Also, while the dreadtasm I just have to distance myself from and learn to laugh a bit, the deathscreamer, particularly if I'm wanting to run him in a rhino instead of providing fire support, really is irking me. Great model + versatility means he's not leaving soon, but I have been doing a lot of thinking about alternative models. I really like the Huron model, and powerfist leaders seem to be a doable thing, so I was thinking about something like:

Chaos Lord - MoT, powerfist, combi-flamer/melta

Some possibility there, and cheaper than the deathscreamer currently - also, been thinking about counts-as-ing Huron himself, but while he does have 2 things I love (warptime + heavy flamer), I really want the 4+ inv and don't think he's totally worth dropping 20 points from somewhere in the list.

But back to the carnage! Now with 300% more demons!

Khorne Demons vs Sisters [1500]

Khorne
Skarbrand
Gorefiend - unholy might
16 Bloodletters - icon, render
16 Bloodletters - icon, render
8 Bloodletters
8 Bloodletters
Demon Prince - breath of chaos, unholy might, iron hide
Demon Prince - breath of chaos, unholy might, iron hide

Nuns
Cannoness - eviscerator, jump pack, stubborn book, autopass faith paper
10 Celestians - heavy flamer, meltagun, VSS w/ eviscerator
5 Dominions - 4 stormbolters, VSS w/ stormbolter; rhino w/ smoke
10 Sisters - heavy flamer, meltagun, VSS w/ eviscerator; rhino w/ smoke
10 Sisters - heavy flamer, meltagun, VSS w/ eviscerator; rhino w/ smoke
10 Sisters - heavy flamer, meltagun, VSS w/ eviscerator
8 Seraphim - hand-flamers, inferno pistols, VSS w/ eviscerator?
Exorcist

Game: 2 objectives, table quarters

Khorne's back for some rompin' & stompin', and the girls got in the way ... I feel like mech sisters are the perfect anti-demons (especially khorne demons) army, so this was gonna be a dicey affair ...

Turn 1
Khorne wins The Roll and makes the sisters go first, and so they faff about and wait for the demons to show up, whilst the seraphim chill in low orbit.

The chaos gods agree with my decision and send down the first wave: both big 'letter squads, a wee eighter squad and the gorefiend. Scatters are minimal, and the big 'letter blobs try to keep close to the sister's corner without drawing the fire of every sister next turn (just most of them). The fiend scatters unfortunately closer to the girls, right in the path of the exorcist, and the eighter plops down near my own objective in the opposite corner.

Turn 2
Girls start brutalizing them some demons, vapping the fiend with rockets and cooking the closest big squad down to 7 or so. The dominions tanked toward the khorne objective, and got some help when the seraphim + canny dropped back there and killed 4 of 8 bloodletters. With no backup really intended to save those 'letters I mostly complained about SotM and invincible seraphim ...

Skarbrand didn't feel like playing, though a demon prince and 8 more bloodletters did, crawling out of the blood-soaked ground near the closest icon to the sisters. The prince yelled at the foot sisters squad, exploding 5 heads and sending them fleeing (but not quite to the edge), whilst the 7-of-16 bloodletters charged the rhino that slewed to a halt in front of them (cooking them with flamer fire in the process). With all those attaks they could only manage to shake it. The 4 letters by the khorne objective charged the seraphim with no high hopes, but despite SotM loads of sisters died for 1 dead demon, leading to a failed -3 break test and a caught seraphim + canny squad! Result!

Turn 3
Fleeing girls rallied, girls in the shaken rhino hoped out and completely wiped the fresh 8-demon squad (heavy flamers bad!), a few bloodletters died from the other big squad, the DP took two wounds from the exorcist, and the dominions dismounted and started hammering the last 3 bloodletters on the khorne objective, killing 1.

Skarry B continued to forsake joining the battle, though the other prince joined his twin brother, dropping with a nice line to yell at the sisters who trashed the 8-demon squad last turn. Which he did, but only popped one. They were charged by the 7 demons from the original big squad, only to lock them down for minimal loses due to SotM love. The wounded DP yelled at the exorcist and blew its tracks off, then charged in and detonated it, with no wound caused to him or his brother. The other big bloodletter squad, still at 11 strong, charged the last loaded rhino and exploded it, killing a girl in the inferno for no demonic loss - AND pinning the squad in the burning crater. The 2 'letters down by the other objective cowered inside the building sheltering the objective ...

Turn 4
The girls were running low, and the greater demon had yet to show up ... The rallied squad from earlier advanced on the wounded DP but couldn't wound it, whilst the celestians continued raining fire down from their perch in a building near the objective, this time wounding the other DP once. The Dominions succeeded in dropping another bloodletter, while their rhino slammed through both walls of the infested building (because it could). Combat continued to lock the demons down, with some bloodletters dying from the larger squad and the other squad gutted entirely, leaving 4 girls free near the objective (and an angry DP).

Skarmaster continued to be a tool and not come play, as the number of models who could benefit from his reroll dwindled ... The DP with 2 wounds piled on the previously rallied squad (after yelling at 1-2 of them), managing to take a wound but not get through the SotM invulns. His brother climbed into the celestians' building and screamed 7 of them to puddles, then assaulted the other 3 and was locked down similarly. And the other bloodletter squad continued to smack the girls, with little result (but not too many dead demons).

Turn 5
- RECAP -
Objective 1: 1 bloodletter vs 5 dominions + 1 rhino
Objective 2: 2 bloodletters (fighting) + 1 DP (fighting nearby) + 1 DP (fighting farther away) vs few girls (fighting) + few more girls (fighting) few celestians (fighting) + 4 girls + 1 rhino

THIS COULD BE IT! So the girls continue along, with only the dominions being able to move, looking into the building's windows to bring the last bloodletter into their sights - they miss / fail to wound / hit the building. With faith severely drained, SotM only goes up on one of the DP fights, leaving the one sisters to die by bloodletter (leaving 2 free) and the other to be smacked by the other DP (leaving the eviscerator). The other DP can't quite stuff the celestians with their inv save.

With no choice, Skarbrand finally appears, off the icon held by 1 of only 3 remaining 'letters on the board. He yells at the 4 sisters sitting on their objective, rupturing 2 of their skulls, but they easily pass their break test. With faith running low, the demon princes are largely free to finish of the nuns and then stomp on their corpses out of sheer spite. And then the last bloodletter down on the khorne objective pounds through the objective 1 building and slams into the dominions, killed 2, taking no wounds back, breaking and catching them! Delicious.

Turn 6
The battle continues! Two sisters + 1 rhino hold the WH objective and a rhino contests the CD one, and after shooting the final bloodletter the rhino triumphantly does wheelies with that objective secure. The last two sisters shoot and assault the final two bloodletters, easily dispatching them and denying the demons any ability to score.

Skarbrand however is unimpressed and orders his demon princes to yell at the women, and the insolent whelps crumple unconscious.

DRAW

100% happy with a draw vs mech sisters, and it was a fun game to be sure. Khorne demons kind of drive me mad with how slow they are, but when you drop all up in the other dude's junk (o_O) I guess that's in fact kinda speedy. Skarry not showing until he had no choice was kinda irksome, and ultimately his rerolls mostly helped the eviscerator chicks hit the DPs more (hitting on 5+ vs WS7). Epic lumberjack action by that bloodletter vs dominions though, high five to that goaty demon.

Khorne Demons vs Tau [1500]

Tau
Shas'el - missiles, plasma, shield, multi, target, 2 shield drones
3 Crisis - twin missiles, target, 2 marker drones
12 Fire Warriors - uberwarfish (SMS, etc)
12 Fire Warriors - uberwarfish (SMS, etc)
Hammerhead - uber (SMS, etc)
Hammerhead - uber (SMS, etc)

Game: 2 objectives, pitched battle

Mech tau then? Yowza ... This could be very bad, with all those fast tanks loaded with a lot of high rate of fire or template guns. Ah well, don't think I've ever faced tau with kr0n, so here goes ...

Unit Breakdown:

Skarbrand - showed up turn 2 as planned, distributed rerolls like a champ, bellowed a fire warrior unit off the table (killed 3, they failed break and ran like fishmen), ran down the table and gutted the crisis team in one go, ran back the other way and tore the shas'el a new one, caught a railgun slug with his 4+ inv but then copped 2 wounds off 2 SMS wounds
Gorefiend - dropped with the first wave, absorbed an epic amount of firepower with his 5+ ward (seriously, so many 5's and 6's), lasered in and assaulted the crisis team before Skarry could get to them and killed 1 suit + 1 drone before being clubbed to death (should have gone for a hammerhead and trusted in Skarry's reroll power to hit it)
16 Bloodletters - dropped first wave, absorbed a DRUNK amount of fire (including 24 fire warriors) whilst keeping the icon waving for the big guys in coming turns, evaporated the other fire warrior squad in vengeance and would die when assaulting the shas'el after being reduced to just 3 models (hey, they killed his drones!)
16 Bloodletters - scattered on top of a hammerhead in the first wave and died :'(
8 Bloodletters - dropped first wave on the chaos objective, and spent 6 turns kissing the dirt and enjoying a 3+ cover save against the attention of the tau grav tanks, but holding it in the end
8 Bloodletters - kindly dropped turn 2 and shook a warfish before cowering on the tau objective for several turns, eventually holding it with 2 bloodletters
Demon Prince - dropped turn 3, chased devilfish around and succeeded in wrecking one by yelling it's engines off (immobilized) and eventually catching and destroying the other with its ten foot long brass sword
Demon Prince - dropped turn 4 with mostly just vehicles left, so followed Skarry around and managed to yell 1 wound off the shas'el before S-Brand tore its face off

CHAOS WIN

I was seriously worried about the battle, but the pressure I exerted so early in the game made him pop his fish-o-fury too soon, leaving his troops very vulnerable to a horrific death. Khorne obliged, and from that point it was a question of him trying to wipe bloodletters out and force a draw, while Skarbrand and his noisy friends chased them around. Frankly he might have tried to power some tanks in and contest an objective in Turn 5 or 6 and chance a draw that way, though I guess I did have a lot of MC waiting for him around the objectives. Entertaining game though, enjoyed.

Painting: Ogre Irongut
Building: N/A

+ CSM VS SISTERS: FIRE BAD! +

2009-09-02T22:25:00.004-04:00

School's back in session, but that just made the wait for my last game all the longer ... Threwdown against my friend's fledgling Sisters army, which is so WIP that he had to proxy two rhinos with cardboard squares. It would be his very first outing with C:WH, and maybe his 3rd game of 5th edition.

Anarchonquistadores vs Sisters [1000]

I brought along an entirely undivided bunch of maniacs -

Sorcerer - MoCU, warptime, doombolt, familiar, melta bombs
10 CSM - IoCU, 2 meltaguns, AC w/ powerfist; rhino
9 CSM - IoCU, flamer, AC w/ powerfist, combi-flamer; rhino
10 CSM - IoCU, autocannon, plasma gun, AC w/ power weapon
Oblit
Oblit

- and he met me with more rhinos and power armor:

Cannoness - blessed weapon, artificer armor, rosarius, auto-pass-faith book
Priest - flamer, power armor
10 Sisters - meltagun, flamer, VSS; rhino
9 Sisters - meltagun, flamer, VSS; rhino
9 Sisters - meltagun, flamer, VSS; rhino
5 Seraphim - melta-pistols, hand-flamers, VSS w/ power weapon
Penitent Engine

Game came up a pitched battle capture and control, and he won The Roll and took it. I was looking at a rhino (sisters + priest) & penitent making a run for the objective near my zone, the other two rhinos prepping to take 'his' objective, and the seraphim in orbit. In response I deployed oblits to the left and right, the shooty CSM center and near 'my' objective, and both rhinos revving their engines to intercept the Inquisition rhinos on the right. The sorcerer joined up with the flamey CSM, pimp hat and all.

Sisters 1
The penitent raced forward 16" or so (rage + move + run), while the left rhino moved forward 12" in support and the right rhinos advanced more cautiously, keeping their own objective nearby. It was here that I was reminded of how awkward not automatically having smoke on rhinos is, and since he didn't spring the 3 points he couldn't pop any ...

Chaos 1
As obliterators shuffled around to draw beads on transports, the two spiky rhinos slammed forward 12" and discharged their own smoke launchers. The shooty marines locked, loaded and managed to stun the penitent (which it ignores), though the oblit came through and wrecked it with a lascannon beam. The other oblit however failed to pen the rightmost rhino with his own laser cannon.

Sisters 2
Playing a cagier game than the eevil marines, the Imperial rhinos responded to chaos' show of force - the left rhino advanced and put the penitent's smoking corpse between itself and the shooty marines, and the right rhinos moved 6" or less to park in front of their objective, while allowing the specialists within to fire. And melta they did, stunning the sorcerer's ride (smoke fail) but being unable to hurt the chopped-top rhino (smoke win). This turn the seraphim arrived as well, striking behind chaos lines and unloading on the right obliterator - but a shakey 5+ inv later and the melta-pistol was shrugged off.

Chaos 2
Time for killing things! All marines disembarked their transports and moved up to the two right rhinos, and the sorcerer started out strong by rolling an 11 to cast warptime for melta bomb fun later ... But shooting first: the left oblit las'd the left rhino, immobilizing it, which left the shooty marines to happily turn in place and shower the seraphim with lead, killing 2, which the oblit brought to 4 with twin-linked plasma fire, leaving just the VSS. The melta CSM failed to hit the rhino right in front of them, which meant they'd have to make things personal ...

The Huntsman was happy to oblidge and smashed his love-glove through the rhino, detonating the Sisters' sacred stock of hairspray and showering ALL the rhino-borne marines in fire - an amazing four hardened killers would succumb to the flames!! Dirge repeated the show in his squad's assault on the other rhino, wrecking the vehicle and disgorging the Sisters within. The oblit had less luck with the seraphim VSS, who popped faith, wounded the oblit (!) and coasted through his fumblings with her 3+ inv save.

Sisters 3
Retaliate! The Sisters from the wrecked rhinos readied flamers and pistols to blaze into assault, but first the sorcerer did his warptime dance ... and rolled a 12, wounding himself (and I learned how nasty PotW is, having to reroll my successful 5+ save :P). Unphased the chicks cooked a few marines and charged in - cannoness & friends into sorcerer & flamey marines, other sister squad into melta marines.

Before fighting ensued, two sisters from the squad hanging out in their broken rhino took pot shots at the left oblit, combining with the stormbolter to put 3 wounds on the beast. Thankfully a 2-2-2 to save kept him from an embarrassing end.

Fighting, and a lot of faith, finally went down. The seraphim kept up her 3+ inv save jig, drawing combat vs the oblit. The unassisted sister squad was beaten up by the melta marines, broke and the VSS / melta / flamer were sent running. The cannoness & crew popped +2I, but thanks to the sorcerer distracting the cannoness (5+ saved the only wound through) and the CSM shattering haughty cheekbone the girls lost by 3, only to hold on 7.

Chaos 3
With targets few and mostly locked in combat, the chaos boys got right to business, starting with the sorcerer casting warptime (!!) for once. The left oblit tagged the immobilized rhino and zaped off its stormbolter, and the melta marines (6 left now) and both rhinos hammered the fleeing sister squad, who had popped SotM in fear of the meltaguns. The flamer chick dropped, then the other two were pulped when the melta marines charged in shortly after.

In sadder combat news, the oblit was killed by the (still inv) VSS, freeing her to do irritating things. The sorcerer was stuck fighting the cannoness, who's 4+ skills absorbed his force weapon attaks, and the combat was looking bad for chaos - Big Sister chopped down 2 marines and her underlings accounted for another, with chaos scoring a big 0 from sorcerer and normal marines. Thankfully Dirge stepped up his game and fisted 2 sisters into submission, making the -1 break test easily passed.

Sisters 4
Time, and options, were growing short for the chicks. The priest-led girls finally left their rhino and moved for the chaos objective, dropping a CSM from the shooty marine squad with a single rapid fired bolter. The seraphim VSS hopped behind the shooty marines, aiming to get in the way and possibly contest the objective in Turn 5.

Combat drug on with the invinco-cannoness, who popped SotM for the hell of it, easily absorbing the sorcerer's attaks - who, it should be noted, rolled a 2 for his warptime this turn, wounding himself again. Wow. Despite this incompetence, Big C's squad all but vanished, leaving just the cannoness against the sorcerer, the fister and two spiky marines.

Chaos 4
Sisters needed to die, so the forces of chaos mobilized a bit to make that happen. The shooty marines scooted up and rapid fired into the ex-rhino sisters, killing 3-4 girls and wounding the priest, while the remaining oblit rapid-fired plasma into the VSS that had killed his new friend. Alas SotM once again saved her supple buttocks from certain death and defilement.

In combat the chaos gangbang resulted in a flamer marine eating blessed weapon and the cannoness' 2+ inv save keeping up with the flurry of attaks, except for 1 slap from Dirge which crushed her irritating skull. What was left of the squad booked it 6" through central ruins to get at the remaining squad of girls.

Sisters 5
One objective firmly in chaos' talons meant the jig was all but up, but the Imperium might at least annoy the spooky marines a bit yet. The last sister squad popped Divine Guidance and bathed the shooty marines in 10 hits of flamer ... 5 wounds but 0 6's meant the dice were in my hands now, and 2-2-1-2-1 meant half the squad was dead! The panic test was easily passed, but the odds for the coming assault had been evened up some. However The Reaver showed how it's done and killed 3 chicks with his 3 power weapon attaks, which combined with solid armor saves from the other marines meant the girls had lost by 3 - they broke and were caught.

The seraphim meanwhile suicide charged into the sorcerer to try to tag off his last wound, but he lashed out with his power staff and caved her 3+ inv save skull in. This after rolling another 11 to cast warptime.

The Witch Hunters called it at this, as only an immobilized, weaponless rhino was left on the field.

CHAOS WIN

Post Game Thoughts:

The sorcerer was ridiculous, managing to fail to cast warptime twice, get PotW twice, and successfully cast only once. Easily worse than the deathscreamer, who vs sisters is pretty good (S4 is only so-so against the world of T4) barring 1's. Eh, I suppose if I run any HQ that can hurt itself, it will. I still like what warptime does for my bad-dice problems, if I can ever get it off!

I appreciate the free smoke launchers / grenades a little more after fighting somebody who has to pay for all these little extras, or more so doesn't pay for them and suffers a bit for it. Makes your troopers seem more properly equipped, while making your points go further and be less odd-number-y.

My friend asked what he could have done differently, and I'm frankly not sure. Maybe been more aggressive with the rhinos? But he was trying to cover his own objective too ... I clearly had him out-gunned as far as ranged AT goes, but he might have come off better had he swapped his two wings, sending the two rhinos full out for my objective and leaving the other sisters to hold his, with the penitent as counter-assault or along with the two rhino wing as distraction / support.

My new big, square, translucent green dice make me happy. They aren't totally amazing, and there were a couple BAD rolls (the 5/5 armor fail one!), but they're either somewhat hot overall (hence sorcerer rolling HIGH on his tests no doubt) or I was getting the feeling that the luck was more even, rather than being a suckfest through all the phases.

Somewhat of a random aside, but there was also a newbie kid there with his chaos, running an interesting (if model-dictated) list, including 5 possessed and something like 6-7 spawn. He was basically playing his first game of 40k, and I so wanted to help the little blighter out, with a little list tweakage and in-game guidance. Maybe next time I'll be able to show him the ropes, though I did encourage him to keep the painting up and not jump armies quite yet ...

Painting: Sorcerer
Building: Pyre Troll

+ Bring on the 1000 Pointers +

2009-08-29T18:35:00.004-04:00

A bunch of the (fantasy) dudes I play with are looking to mess around with 40k again, and have around 1000 points available, painted, etc. Once upon a time I was a real proponent of 1000 pointers, as you could both try new things out but also have more tactical games on a larger board, AND get more of them in in less time. However my chaos boys have been cooking along at such high points (1500-APOC) that I haven't actually made a 1k list to cruise along with ...

HQ
Chaos Sorcerer - MoCU, warptime, melta bombs

ELITES
3 Terminators - IoCU, 3 combi-plasma, 2 powerfists, chainfist

TROOPS
10 CSM - IoCU, 2 meltaguns, AC w/ powerfist; rhino
9 CSM - IoCU, flamer, AC w/ powerfist, combi-flamer; rhino
6 Demons

HEAVY SUPPORT
Obliterator
Obliterator

TOTAL
998 / 9 KP

My first list, using the new stuff I'm adding to the army - 2nd oblit, melta marines, rhino transports. The sorcerer I've been meaning to try for a long long time and have a model ready, though I've been rocking the deathscreamer for so long I never got around to it. I like how cheap he is, and warptime might get around my total inability to roll dice - as well as my propensity to roll 1's with the 'screamer.

Part of me wonders if the list is too high powered though, with so much plasma and powerfists everywhere. I could swap out the termiciders & 1 demon for my standard noise marine squad (6 w/ blastmaster, icon), giving me a troop choice actually intended to hang back on my own objectives and provide fire support. The BM I don't trust to hurt tanks, but it does make a mess of things with bases. Hmm ...

Edit: It doesn't matter to how I make lists, but I'll note that most of the guys here play Guard. No surprise I suppose, though in my experience my termies kinda scrath their heads when it comes to things worth plasma-ing. They cleaned up in assault last Guard game though, which was groovtastic, and the ability to strike wherever has always been invaluable.

Painting: Chaos Sorcerer?
Building: Pyre Troll [Gorger]

+ REDUX: WIP II +

2009-08-25T16:14:00.010-04:00

Here we go!

RIOT, having been captured and re-fabricated no less than four times, houses a paranoid but suitably homicidal machine-daemon ...

VOXX stands tall after the acid bath used to scour off the caked gore and fuchsia heraldry of his service with the Emperor's Children. Time will tell if the incipient insanity of the other Anarcho dreadnoughts infests the newest murder machine.

GurG joins Cithorax in bringing ranged death to enemy armor, and the triple-melta shown manifested here certainly looks promising. [Unfortunately I got the angle of the arm wrong when puttying it in place, so if he's indeed killing tanks they're standing about ten feet away ...]

The enigmatic aspiring champion Huntsman is joined by Seven, one of the original Iron Hydras upon which the Anarchonquistadores were built. Huntsman served in The Reaver's brief-lived mutant uprising, while Seven had previously been assigned to havok bullet-soak duty before the squad was trimmed down due to budget cuts.

Heinrich and Wilhelm, the squad meltagunnners, appear courtesy of the Iron Warriors, though little else is known about the Germanic tank killers.

Din and Fader bring the heat with dual-wielded boltguns - note the internal magazines and lack of suppressors on Fader's customized sidearms. With their reduced weight and length the chaos marine is able to wield them in combat to great effect, removing limbs at point-blank range.

Tex has recently had his stalwart service rewarded with a demonic bone overgrowth on his power armor's torso, while Sinne enjoys a brutal clawed gauntlet for his battlefield atrocities. Sinne also carries a captured greenskin shoota that fits him perfectly - loud, obnoxious and undisciplined.

Killer Bunny and Gläd, the third of the fallen wolves, make up Huntsman's combat specialists. Rumor has it that Bunny hasn't fired his boltgun in the last half dozen conflicts, preferring to bludgeon his enemies to death or fall back to his trusty knife when things get serious. While he lacks Bunny's ferocity, Gläd's raw skill and relentlessness make him an equal threat at close quarters, amputated arm or not.

The boys spill out of their ride and deliver hell, while VOXX provides covering fire. GurG has apparently already succumbed to return lascannon fire at this point.

Painting: Ogre Maneaters
Building: CSM backpacks

+ REDUX: WIP +

2009-08-21T18:46:00.005-04:00

Snapped some quick-n-dirty webcam shots of what I've been working on yesterday and today ...

Rhino #2 - Years ago was built as a generic spiky chaos rhino, then had its top chopped to drive my GorkaMorka gang around in, then went back into storage to be resurrected yesterday. Robo-combi-bolter + smoke launchers + AL front plate I had lying around and voila! Sweet salvaged ride, indeed!

Oblit #2 - Bought this dude with his bro years back, but lingered until today. Originally he was slated to ride a "Throne of Obliteration" (counts as Silver Tower) for APOC games, but I'm happy to have him stomp the yard in more sane games. Loads of GS work goes down tonight, to integrate that triple-melta arm.

Dread #4 - Top pic shows what this Empy Kids dread looked like when I traded him off my brother for a leman russ executioner I had from an old army. Two soaks in the simple green hot tub and he was mostly clean, though some scrapping time and general clean up still had to happen before reassembling to the state in the middle pic. Note that the plasma cannon is stuck on there good, so I won't be able to paint it separately as I usually would. Bottom pic shows the rod spacer I'm trying to get to the right length to give the dread his waist back - he previously had a magnet in place of his waist joint, but I tore that off in favor of something more secure.

Looking forward to getting some GS onto that oblit arm, lots of gribble ahead of me tonight!

+ 1850 Anarcho Redux +

2009-08-20T19:01:00.002-04:00

Well Internets, my 40k blood is up and it's feeling like time to revamp the Chaos boys at long last. Seeing as how I've never really played 1850 points but that's pretty standard fair, I figure that's a good level to shoot for.

HQ
Chaos Lord - MoT, deathscreamer, melta bombs

ELITES
Dreadnought - plasma cannon, extra armor
Dreadnought - plasma cannon, extra armor
Dreadnought - plasma cannon, extra armor

TROOPS
10 CSM - IoCU, 2 meltaguns, AC w/ powerfist; rhino w/ extra armor
9 CSM - IoCU, flamer, AC w/ powerfist, combi-flamer; rhino w/ extra armor
10 CSM - IoCU, autocannon, plasma gun, AC w/ power weapon
6 Noise Marines - blastmaster, icon
10 Demons

HEAVY SUPPORT
6 Havoks - IoCU, 3 missile launchers
Obliterator
Obliterator

TOTAL
1850 points / 14 KP

More Deathscreamer Nonsense
The demo-cannon is still around, despite the shenanigans of the last few games. Losing the 1k Sons means the S4 AP3 is especially delicious, and having a lord who can use his BS5 is pretty groovy, despite embarrassing jam rolls. The unfortunate thing about tossing the Sons means I've got some thinking about where the main man goes - most likely in the rhino with the 9 CSM, though he could sit with the noise boys or the shooty marines for pure fire support.

More Dreadtasmic
Yea for silly toys! Target saturation with the rhinos should help keep some alive though, and going with just plasma cannons keeps the cost down and keeps the heavy flamers away from cooking my boys. Hilarious ANGER! chart and all.

More Undivided
Bolter-bait 1k Sons finally get replaced by more renegades, with meltas as the metagame demands. Noisy boys back the CU lads up with their blastmaster (and because I like my models), though their icon is only there because one of the marines has one ... Rhinos finally make an appearance too, forcing me to paint a vehicle that isn't a walker :P Demons continue rocking out, though I'd like to run my new demon princess too. Points difference isn't much, but the girls are a bit more tactical and troops to boot.

More Obliteration
Havoks stick around, and a second oblit joins the fun to quasi-replace the lascannon marine that had to leave the fisty CSM squad to make room for the 'screamer lord. Side effect is bringing the number of plasma cannons in the list to a healthy 5!

Today I went bitz-diving and have some fun-filled conversions in the works. In all, this list means building / painting:

- 10 CSM
- 2 rhinos
- 1 dreadnought
- 1 obliterator

WIP pics coming?!

Painting: Ogre maneater
Building: Rhino 2

+ New Guard Grind +

2009-08-12T22:44:00.003-04:00

Popped out to 40k night for another random game. Though things looked dead at first, I found another dude who had all but given up on getting a game that night ... My boys in black and brown were up against new guard, but a nice guy with a far from optimized list. Still a lot of guns though!

Anarchonquistadores vs Imperial Guard [1500] - I was definitely worried as IG have never been easy for my lads, as they always involve walking into all their guns. And in the new edition they have more of them, as well as loads of AV14 tanks my low-AT army can't handle. His list thankfully did turn out fairly soft:

Command HQ
3x lascannon squad
2x lascannon + missile launcher squad
3x mortar squad
3x autocannon squad
2x heavy bolter + autocannon squad
Platoon HQ - powerfist, boltpistol
10 guard - plasma
10 guard - melta
10 guard - flamer
Platoon HQ - power weapon, laspistol
10 guard - plasma
10 guard - melta
10 guard - flamer
Demolisher - lascannon + heavy bolters
Leman Russ - lascannon + heavy bolters
Basilisk

That sounds about right to me. I took my standard 1500 list (so the previous one but with havoks not the defiler - i.e. no vehicles).

Game turned out to be KP with table quarter deployment. CSM won the roll and took it, choosing a quarter with 2 low buildings + crater in it and giving the guard a two story building and a couple craters. Chaos deployment saw the havoks + oblit in the building farthest from the guard corner, with noise marines bunkered in the other building, shooty CSM in the crater 12" from the board center, 1k sons + lord to their left in the open and fisty CSM poised to push into the adjacent corner and move through the cover of a building to go deliver some demonic love.

Guard responded by blobbing up the platoons into two 30 man squads and pushing them as close to the 12" from-center mark as they could. Russ went west and demolisher north in support of the infantry, and all the AT weapon teams were north behind the demolisher. The anti-infantry fire teams went in the building, the mortars behind the building and the CHQ inside the building. PHQ squads stayed near their big blobbed up friends. Finally, basilisk hunched half behind the building, ready to go direct or indirect as needed.

Chaos 1

Feeling woefully under-gunned, the Anarcho crew took a deep breath and got to it. Fisty CSM move + run (3") west, 1k sons advance towards all those lasguns, and everybody else gets ready to dakka. 1k sons open up with their expensive AP3 guns on the north blob, resulting in a few dead guard - and the deathscreamer rolls a 1, but the wound is saved. The noise marines join in too, with the blastmaster splattering a number but failing to cause a pining check, and the break test is passed as well. The shooty CSM open up on the western blob, and with some solid firepower break the squad and it falls back behind the russ. The havoks and the oblit attempt to dent the russ but bounce off its armor.

KP 0-0

Guard 1

The western blob rallies, then uses the RUN! order to get in front of their tank again. With troublesome movement over, it was time to show those evil marines how shooting really works ... The north blob used LASGUN HELL! to wash the 1k sons with a drunk number of shots, which resulted in 6 wounds and 4 dead robots (yep, my dice-rolling skills in action). Happily the squad absorbed the other, clearly less deadly fire directed at it. The tanks (which scattered perhaps once all game) accounted for a dead fisty marine (4,1,1,1 to wound with the basi), a dead shooty marine or two (russ) and a couple dead noise marines (demo). AT fire was absorbed by cover or missed, AI fire couldn't find purchase against the power armor, though the mortars in fact killed 2 shooty marines! Pining and break tests were batted aside across the board.

KP 0-0

Chaos 2

No reserves wanted to play, which was fortunate as they didn't really have good icons or targets yet. The fisty CSM remedied that by powering 12" west and north into a ruined building, and the 1k son remnants (lord, sorcerer, robot) stumbled towards the north blob pretty certain they were dead meat. Unfortunately when it came to exact bloody revenge, the doombolt failed to wound, the robot killed a guardsman and the deathscreamer rolled a 1 (but no wound through). Blastmaster and shooty CSM smacked that blob all the same, accounting for some dead guard but no failed pining or break tests. Over in the heavy support bunker the oblit missed the russ, and the havoks opted for frag and brutalized the rallied guard blob. It passed its break this time though, which was nice as the fisty icon was just over that ruined wall ...

KP 0-0

Guard 2

An aggressive movement phase this time around, as the northern blob descended upon the 1k sons and the demo ground up onto the crater in front of it. Thanks to the FIRE A LOT! order the sorcerer turned to ash and the lord took 2 wounds, to be finished off by an autocannon in short order. The lone 1k robot battled on, absorbing an inordinate amount of fire and living to the next turn. Other fire knocked the fisty CSM down to 4 members (Mr. Fister, Las Man, Flamer Dude, 2x Chainsword Guy) and put the hurt on the shooty CSM squad in the crater (AC, autocannon, plasma, a grunt or two living on).

KP 0-1

Chaos 3

Friends in orbit leapt into the fight, with the termies hitting behind the russ but scattering up into the guard's building (no dangerous 1's) and the girls summoning off the fister and ready to molest guardsmen (two twisted their ankles on the rubble though). The only other movement involved the robot jerking 3" in a suicide drive for the blob that killed his father(s), rapid-firing two mammals down but with no chance to reach combat (7" away). The autocannon from the shooty CSM popped an autocannon from the triple auto squad (break passed), the blastmaster crunched yet more guard from the north blob (pin passed), and the havoks rained frag all over that squad as well (break passed), reducing it to 3 sargeants, 3 specialists and 2 lasguns. The fisty CSM also blasted the western blob to help the girls out, killing a couple with flamer fire. Finally, the termies rapid fired plasma into the basilisk's side, shaking it and melting the earthshaker.

With close combat arrived at last, the girls ripped into the guardsmen with abandon, their 30 attaks leaving just 3 humans alive. They broke and managed to escape (BALLS!), leaving the girls to stuff themselves up into the russ' face.

KP 1-1

Guard 3

Unable to rally, the western blob fragment (sarge, plasma, melta) fell back a short distance, tagging a chick on the way. The PHQ responded to the termies in their building by running away, and the russ turned to face the demons but in the process clipped a crater and immobilized itself. This didn't stop it from slamming a shell point blanc into the girls, and combined with various other fire reduced them to 6 gals. The fisty CSM were trashed by the AI fire teams, the shooty CSM all died save the autocannon man (who showed how power armor works and saved a LOT), and the robot gave up his KP when tagged by a burning flamer of hotness. The chainfist terminator also died, most likely to a las shot out of the wall of light + lead directed at him.

KP 1-3

Chaos 4

Things looked pretty dire for the spiky boys, but they still had heavy guns at range and terminators up in the enemy junks. Speaking of which, the terminators hopped off the building and prepared to crump the mortar team, shooting a team to death on the stomp in. The autocannon marine tagged another guard autocannon team - yay for instant deathing the new heavy weapon teams - and the blastmaster continued showing his skills by tagging the 2x las + ml squad and killing a launcher. The squad broke and ran off the table, ending the huge string of successful break tests. The havoks dropped the hammer on what was left of the northern blob, bashing it with frag. The oblit, meanwhile, missed the demolisher that had exposed its flank to his lascannon ...

The girls continued their reign of terror and assaulted the russ, 18 auto-hits becoming 2 glances that tore the battlecannon off and shook the tank. The termies were likewise successful, stomping the mortars into goo and moving toward the triple lascannon squad.

KP 4-3

Guard 4

The guard, unimpressed by the chaos troops ransacking their lines, prepared to bring yet more heat. The retreating blob remnant fell back 2", giving it time to pepper the demons yet again, which was dropped to 3 chicks with the help of the PHQ nearby. The autocannon man was finally taken down, and a single termi ate lascannon (his buddy could care less). The noise marines lost a member to the attention of the demolisher, but were hugging cover like pros. The basilisk also drove around a bit and targeted the termies with its heavy bolter, more to not be hit automatically in combat than hurt the beasts.

Still in combat with the russ, the girls tore off the heavy bolter facing them and shook it again.

KP 4-4

Chaos 5

With the store closing shortly, we decided this was going to be the last turn, so chaos would have to make it hurt. The guns were lackluster - oblit missed, blastmaster missed, frag-volley all scattered off the north PHQ - but the combat troops were on it. The last terminator powered into the lascannon teams, smashed one but they held. The three girls pounced the PHQ and killed it to a man with some fierce rolling (9 attaks -> 8 hits -> 7 wounds -> 5 failed 5+ saves), then hid behind the russ again.

KP 5-4

Guard 5

Very few targets were still available for the remaining guard weapons, and so really only the noise marines absorbed the demolisher again, leaving the blastmaster holding his squad's KP. In combat the termi pulped the two lascannon teams and secured the win.

KP 6-4

CHAOS WIN

Solid game, which I was sure I had lost before any dice were rolled - and it only got worse once I started failed armor saves! Those mega-blobs were brutal, but their clumped up nature meant that I shot more frags in this game than I may ever have before. Overall his morale rolls really saved his butt - I made him roll 3+ a turn, but he failed just the 2 all game. Props to those guardsmen, stout little bastards.

While I can't really say I'm enjoying playing 40k again, I'm definitely digging getting my CSM out of the case and onto the table. I really do love this army, for how not great it is in game. And since I'm hungering for 40k after this fantasy league lets up and I get my ogres painted, that might mean I revamp the chaos lads at long last. I'm thinking of working towards this 1500 point list:

Chaos Lord - MoT, deathscreamer
3 Terminators - IoCU, 3 combi-plasma, 2 powerfists, chainfist
10 CSM - IoCU, 2 meltaguns, AC w/ powerfist; rhino w/ extra armor
9 CSM - IoCU, flamer, AC w/ powerfist, combi-flamer; rhino w/ extra armor
10 CSM - IoCU, autocannon, plasma gun, AC w/ power weapon
12 Demons
6 Havoks - IoCU, 3 missile launchers
Oblit
Oblit

Yes yes, the deathscreamer is still there, despite being a jackass in my last ... well, most of my last games. But it's still an awesome thing, and can't be countered if it rolls over 1, and means my lord can do something in the shooting phase too. But mostly, getting some rides in there, and dumping the fire-magnet 1k sons and 160 point blastmaster for some more undivided marines. I look forward to bashing some more renegades together, great fun and I've got lots of old marine armies to dement!

+ Nothing Like Pounding on Marines +

2009-08-05T22:18:00.005-04:00

Holy hell, Salvage plays some 40k! Showed up at my LGS for 40k night, glued together my poor broken soldiers (last game back when was rough for the CSM) and threwdown against those pansy loyalists. x2.

Anarchonquistadores vs Ultra Marines [585] - My buddy speedpainted up the AoBR marines last week, and wanted to see if 40k was anything like he remembered it (he's part of the Monday night fantasy crew up here in Albany). As such he was rocking captain (power, bolter), 10 tactical (missile, flamer), 5 termies, 1 dread (multi-melta). I countered with a faux-mirror match: lord (MoT, deathscreamer), 10 CSM (IoCU, autocannon, plasma, power), 3 termies (IoCU, 3 combi-plas, 2 fists, 1 chainfist), 1 oblit.

We decided on KP mission, rolled up dawn of war (forgot night fight), and he won the roll and took it. Tactical split in two, with 5 (missile) on hill and 5 (flamer) flanking more with the captain in tow. My deathscreamer + marines went left flank, in a big wood 18" from the missile marines.

Ultra Marines 1
Missile marines maybe kill 1 CSM, flamer marines move up through some buidlings.

Chaos 1
CSM move up, deathscreamer rolls a 1 and takes a wound. Poop.

KP: 0-0

Ultra Marines 2
Dread walks on from the edge behind the missile marines, cooks a CSM with his mm. Termies strike to the right of the CSM squad, splattering 4 marines with brutal stormbolter fire. Missile marines don't do much, flamer marines move toward center a bit.

Chaos 2
Oblit walks on and slams the termies with a plasma cannon shot (5 hits, 5 wounds) but only 2 fall to the green fire. Chaos terminators strike too, but scatter out of 12" of the loyalists and hold their plasma fire. CSM squad hits the missile marines and kill 2, breaking them back (6 shots from the lord, but cover saved mostly) to autorally behind the hill.

KP: 0-0

Ultra Marines 3
Dread stomps forward and fails to kill any CSM, and the missile marines remount the hill. Flamer marines split off south for the chaos termies, and the captain heads into the woods in the marine half of the table. The termies also head for the chaos termies, but choose to fire at the CSM squad, for 1 dead marine (deathscreamer + 3/4 CSM left now) but no charge on the chaos termies. The flamer marines rapid fire into the chaos termies, for 1 dead (and embarrassed) terminator.

KP: 0-0

Chaos 3
CSM squad splatters the missile marines down to 1 bolter marine, with another 6 from the deathscreamer. Chaos termies advance upon the flamer marines trusting in the oblit to plasma cannon the 3 loyalist termies away, but the oblit scatters the shot so the chaos termies are oblidged to unload plasma hell into their loyalist counterparts. 1 dies, and on the charge it's a drawn slapfight with no dead terminators on either side.

KP: 0-0

Ultra Marines 4
Dread advances and attempts a shot on the obliterator, but his mm is out of range. The lone marine takes a CSM potshot for no result, as does the space marine captain. The flamer marines advance again and target the oblit, but it doesn't care. The slapfight rages on, with 1 dead terminator on both sides, leaving just the sergeant and the chaos chainfister.

KP: 0-0

Chaos 4
Tired of this 0-0 nonsense, chaos gets serious(ish). The oblit siddles backwards a bit and tags the dreadnought with his lascannon, wrecking it with 1 shot. The CSM kill the lone bolter marine for another KP. Unfortunately the chaos terminator finally eats powersword, leaving the loyalist free to attak the oblit next turn.

KP: 1-2

Ultra Marines 5
The captain continues taking potshots at the CSM, to no avail, while the flamer marines rapid fire at the oblit for no return. The terminator sergeant assaults the machine-marine, but has his skull crushed for his troubles.

KP: 1-3

Chaos 5
The CSM + lord move towards the captain to bring their weapons fully to bear, resulting in 1 wound on the space marine hero (more 6's from the deathscreamer - after the first 1 that's all he rolled). The oblit advanced upon the marines and rapid fired his plasma guns for 1 dead marine, but couldn't quite make combat.

KP: 1-3

Ultra Marines 6
The battle raged on, but neither the captain nor the flamer marines could harm their targets, nor wanted to commit to close combat.

KP: 1-3

Chaos 6
Growing bored of this silly outing, the chaos lord capped the marine captain with his red hot deathscreamer, while the oblit advanced, plasma blazing, and beat the flamer marines to a pulp up close and personal.

KP: 1-5

CHAOS WIN

Next up was a 1500 pointer vs a new guy to the club, with a very nicely painted olive drab marine DIY marine army, "The Iron Dragons." He hadn't totally made the switch to 5th edition either, so was a bit rusty. He had:

Commander - power weapon, bolter w/ hellfire
5 Terminators - assault cannon
Dreadnought - assault cannon
10 Tactical - missile, plasma, powerfist/stormbolter (rhino)
10 Tactical - lascannon, melta, power weapon (2x 5 combat squads)
5 Tactical - power weapon
6 Assault Marines - power weapon
Land Speeder - assault cannon, heavy bolter
Predator - twin las, more las
Whirlwind

I took a pretty standard list, though ended up with a lot of icons to fill points:

Lord - MoT, deathscreamer, meltas, icon
3 Termies - IoCU, 3 combi-plas, 2 fists, 1 chainfist
10 CSM - IoCU, lascannon, flamer, powerfist/combi-flamer
10 CSM - IoCU, autocannon, plasma, power weapon
6 Noise Marines - blastmaster, sonic blaster, icon
6 1k Sons - AS w/ doombolt, icon
12 Demons
Defiler
Obliterator

Occurs to me now that I could have used the extra points for a termi AC, which might have made more of a difference ... Ah well!

Game was KP again, normal table side deployment. He won and took it, keeping termies in reserve but otherwise deploying (l to r): dread, assault marines, 5 marines w/ power, 5 marines w/ las (on 3 tier hill), 5 marines w/ melta + commander, rhino w/ fisty marines, pred, whirlwind, speeder heavy right flank. Chaos responded with (l to r): defiler hard left behind building, noise marines in that building, fisty marines, 1k sons + deathscreamer, oblit behind them and screened by building, shooty marines behind building, with termies and demons in orbit.

Iron Dragons 1
Speeder cooked it down the right flank, rhino boosted forward mid-table, dread and assault marines headed left and little marine squads moved forward (forgot to run later). Lascannon fire amounted to 1 dead CSM from the shooty lads. Whirlwind scattered somewhere not useful, or was saved, and would do so all game.

KP: 0-0

Chaos 1
The Defiler stomped up the left table edge and got things off to a strong start, slamming a round into the exposed assault marines and killing all 6. The fisty CSM mobilized and ran for a wrecked bunker mid-table, out of LoS of the dread on the other side. The 1k sons tripped forward, and the shooty CSM ran into the building in front of them, taking up fire positions at the windows. The oblit's lascannon shot at the dread was saved by cover, but the marines on the hill didn't fair so well - 2 died to 1k son fire (deathscreamer rolled a 1, but took no wound), broke and ran 10" off the table, taking their lascannon with them.

KP: 0-2

Iron Dragons 2
With no reinforcements this turn, the marines mobilized as able - little 5 man teams moved up, dread headed for the defiler, and the rhino powered towards the shooty CSM's building, dumping its passengers out. Rapid fire, along with the shots of the power weapon marine squad would account for 6 CSM, neutering the squad considerably. The predator fired across the table at the defiler, immobilizing it, and the dreadnought detonated the demon engine with a well-aimed assault cannon shot.

KP: 1-2

Chaos 2
As the carnage had reached an acceptable level, the demons decided to hit the field, dropping down with a choice of assaulting the power weapon squad, the captain's squad or the fisty rhino squad. Unfortunately for those squads they were all amongst the chaos army's teeth - the fisty CSM mobilized around the wrecked bunker and assaulted the marines w/ power weapon, the 1k Sons moved forward to gain a wide range of targets for their AP3 death, and the shooty CSM survivors in the building prepared for revenge.

Unfortunately most everything went to shit all of a sudden. The building marines (1 autocannon, 1 bolter, 1 AC w/ bolter, 1 plasma gun) accounted for perhaps 1 tactical marine, and so the 1k Sons had to poor their fire into those lads too. The sorcerer failed to cast his doombolt (need 10, rolled 11), the deathscreamer rolled another 1 (and wounded the lord), and the 10 S4 AP3 shots killed maybe 1 marine. Vo-mit. The oblit missed the predator he had moved out to tag, and the blastmaster horrifically scatterd (again, like in turn 1).

Assault rolled around and the fisty marines slammed into the powered 5-marine unit, exploding them for the loss of 1 CSM and massacring into the dreadnought's path. The girls decided to charge the captain's unit, their 30 attaks resulting in 1 dead marine and 2 dead girls. And the 1k Sons + lord rolled the 6" SnP move they needed to assault the fisty rhino marines! Brutal embarrassment ensued though: 3 robots were kiled, the deathscreamer rolled his 3rd 1 in a row (taking a wound), the sorcerer failed at life AND THEN the 4 fearless wounds that rolled in killed another robot. Wow 40k, "fearless" huh?

KP: 1-3

Iron Dragons 3
The terminators were still partying up in space, so the ground pounders kept at it. The dreadnought stomped past the CSM and attempted to help his commander out, but was 6.25" away from hitting a girl with his powerfist. The rhino cheekily tankshocked the fisty CSM, who ignored it. The pred smacked the oblit back, killing it twice over, and the land speeder started unloading into the shooty CSM, killing the autocannon marine.

In combat, the girls continued to writhe on the captain's squad, killing them down to just captain, sarge & 1 other marine for 1 dead girl. The marines actualy broke, were caught, and suffered another dead marine on the fearless wound! In the other fight, the deathscreamer managed a 2, for 5 weak S4 attaks (1 dead marine), the sorcerer fluffed it and the last robot fluffed it. Drawn combat.

KP: 2-3

Chaos 3
The chaos terminators appeared ... which was ill-timed, as the loyalist termies they wanted to plasma were still in orbit. They dropped off the fisty CSM icon directly behind the dreadnought, as the CSM enveloped it and prepared their krak grenades, and the bolter part of the terminators' combi-weapons actually immobilized the beast & stunned it, making those kraks more likely to hit. Result! The CSM would go on to stun the dread again, for 1 dead marine.

In the other combats, the molestation continued and sarge finally fell to the demons, and the captain took a wound and broke! He wasn't caught though, so the girls fanned out 5" and prepared for whirlwinding ... The retarded combat took a turn for the better, as the deathscreamer revved up a 6 for 9 attaks, killing all the marines but the fist, who was killed by the sorcerer. The deathscreamer + sorcerer moved up to trust in their 4+ inv, while the remnants of the shooty CSM who had charged in to help felt kinda useless and exposed out in the open.

KP: 2-5

Iron Dragons 4
Terminator time! Despite a scatter, the loyalist elites struck to handle the chaos termies, downing the chainfister with stormbolter fire. The predator bounced its lascannons off the 1k Son sorcerer's 4+ inv, and the land speeder tagged out the shooty CSM's AC with assault cannon fire. In the dreadnought combat no CSM died, but the dread was stunned again, keeping its attaks to a minimum.

KP: 2-5

Chaos 4
Not really wanting to do this, the chaos termies shrugged and headed into their loyalist counterparts, plasma cooking the squad down to just the sarge and assault cannon man and evening the odds up for assault. Back middle the lord + sorcerer closed on the marine commander, as the demons trapsed over to trash the pred (which hadn't moved all game and had AV10 rear armor), which their 27 auto-hits managed to strip of ALL its weapons and immobilize, but not muster that last 5 or 6 to wreck it. The super awesome chaos leaders faired less well - the sorcerer cast doombolt but missed or didn't wound, and the deathscreamer rolled its fourth 1, killing the lord. Balls. The last two marines of the shooty CSM squad (bolter, plasma) began firing on the land speeder but couldn't penetrate its "thick" hull.

Fighting time, and once again the CSM couldn't kill the dread, as Mr. Fister couldn't make his 2 S8 hits count (pen, but garbage rolls). The chaos termies lost 1 to the loyalist sarge for no return, but the last man held.

KP: 3-5

Iron Dragons 5
With the end of the game looming and running out of models, the Imperial side had a pretty quick round ahead of it. The speeder blasted the shooty CSM pair for no result, and the captain used his hellfire rounds to drop the irritating 1k Son sorcerer and score another KP. Over in combat land, the demons tipped the predator over, the CSM fister hit the powerplant on the dread and nuked it (no CSM lost in the fire), and the last chaos terminator was stabbed in the face by sergeant no-fist.

KP: 5-7

Chaos 5
Finally free of the dread, the fisty CSM rounded on the two goody terminators, shooting down the assault cannon man on the way into combat. The shooty CSM duo dropped the speeder with a plasma shot, and the demons swarmed back towards the wounded captain to finish what they had started earlier. And that they did, tearing him apart for no girls lost. The fisty CSM lost a marine to the terminator's sword, but the squad fist finished the sergeant off (if just barely).

KP: 5-10

Iron Dragons 6
And the brutality continues! The rhino tried claiming the shooty CSM's KP, but no luck, and the whirlwind couldn't either.

KP: 5-10

Chaos 6
The demons and the shooty CSM pair descended upon the rhino, but the CSM thought better of it and backed up ... Just as the fist CSM lascannon fired its first shot of the game: 6-6-6 = 5" explosion from the rhino, enough to cover 6 girls (1 dead) and both shooty marines! The plasma man bit it, leaving the bolter marine holding his KP.

KP: 5-11

CHAOS WIN

Fun game, though some insanely shite dice left me feeling pretty crappy anyway. The deathscreamer rolling 1-1-1-2-6-1 was bull too - I mean, WTF? Maybe it was just making up for the 1-6-6-6-6 from game 1, but still!

Though I will say, even a fun victory over a nice opponent with a well-painted and soft army was enough to remind me of why I play fantasy. I love my CSM boys, but things like the joke that fearless is (give me LD10 with IoCU anyday!) just leave a really bad taste in my mouth.

+ SITREP: Square Base Hell +

2009-02-14T15:51:00.002-05:00

Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated ...

Been embroiled in a fantasy escalation league, just heading into the last 4 weeks this Monday. We've finally hit 2000, and my ogres are currently tied for 2nd place with skaven and vamps out of about 14 players. The undefeated dark elves are riding high in 1st, and I'm up against them just to make my run for 2nd all the more nailbiting. Then again, maybe my tyrant can teach those hating delves how it's done.

Beyond the ogres - who badly need paint, they're still where the little chart puts them :'P - I've been taking the nurgley skaven out for the non-league action. Played in a local tourny last week and took 2nd (of 6), along with $15. The modeling really propeled me up there, though I did go 1:1:1 which is pretty standard for this army. Loss vs Thorek @ 2000, Win vs Orcs & Gobs @ 1500, Draw vs Hydra Dark Elves @ 1000. Next weekend is another fantasy RTT back in Pennsylvania, will be playing the skaven @ 2250 for the first time. Not sure what to expect, but I'm hoping the WLC and 15 globadiers kill something (besides themselves)!

The CSM did get to leave their case since October though, for APOC VI: Extinction of the Eldar back on Jan 3. 24000 points a side, Chaos + Friends vs Eldar + Eldar + Eldar. Spammed special characters all over the place, most heinously a squad of wraithguard with 2 Eldrad, 2 Maugan Ra, 2 Iyanden Guy. Easily killed Angaroth the Unbound and were pretty much untouched otherwise. The most scarring damage I received was vs 2 dark reaper exarchs with crack shot tempest launchers. And that has NOTHING to do with APOC craziness, just eldar insanity.

I'm told I can expect to play 40k when I'm in town in a week, despite my general dislike of the game system. That said, I do have some things I'd like to add to the ever patient boys in black and brown. You know, after the skaven are done (this week), the ogres get painted at last (by June), and I guess I do some school work.

Primed:
- 8 Possessed
- Demosaurus
- Land Raider
- Rhino

Unbuilt:
- Obliterator #2
- 3 1k Sons
- CSM Squad #3
- Alpha Legion Dread #3 (blastmaster + ccw)
- Deathstrike

We'll see what I can get to. Most likely the oblit and more Sons will happen, because what the army needs is a) lascannons / plasma and b) more troops. Sadly this would come at the cost of the biker lord, but he's the most flukey model I've got - even worse than "Fluffy" the gorger for my ogres, who consistently hits with 0-1 out of 4 attaks every time he swats at something ... but at least he doesn't hurt himself!

But even that short list is subject to change, as I've got a 2250 point Warriors of Tzeentch army in my closet that I desperately want to hurl myself into building & painting, but am being good and getting skaven / ogres up to speed at long last. Plans for Tizz is to make that army my serious (ha!) 2250 tournament force, and unveil it at Crossroads GT in October. Gonna be a busy summer ...

Painting: Nurgle Skaven 2250
Building: Ogre 2250

+ PA for Great Victory! +

2008-10-30T00:15:00.003-04:00

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 +

2008-10-08T08:30:00.003-04:00

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?

+ Battlefield: Albany +

2008-08-25T12:33:00.004-04:00

Last Thursday I moved to Albany, NY to attend grad school for the next five years. I can't say I'm too happy to be here yet, but now that classes are starting and I'll be cripplingly busy soon enough I'm sure I'll forget about the distance from here to my fiancee and gaming buds back in PA ... Anyway, killing definitely went down in the run up to my big move:

Anarchonquistadores & Khorney Chaos vs Tau & Tau [3000] - A friend of mine just finished painting most of the table in his Battle Basement and hosted a game between the four of us to break it in. By that I mean the Tau's fishy faces as well as the new table. Batrep (with pics!) is here on Dakka, definitely worth checking out. And no, I won't spoil it.

CHAOS ???

Violators vs Ork Fleet [1500] - Back to spaceship fighting, my Violators fleet (the one in the pics back when) took on a new and insane ork fleet. Big named battleship, 2 terror ships and an amazing number of brute ram ships (30). Judicious use of brace for impact and then carefully staying out of ramming lines kept the impact damage down, but I did end up losing a carnage and having the other crippled by the dozen brutes chasing it and just blazing away at it. In a decisive two turns the ork battleship was crippled and hulked, and likewise the terrors ended up crippled and about 20 brutes were dead by the time the greenskin fleet disengaged.

CHAOS WIN

Note on BFG, I have since painted a second Acheron to tentatively replace the Styx, as well as more Infidels to swell the escort ranks with the points saved. And I've also lost anybody to play against. Poop.

Anarchonquistadores vs Space Wolves [1500] - In what would be my final game in PA (for now!), the boys in black & brown took on some all infantry, fistageddon Space Pups. His list was something like Wolf Chappy, Wolf Librarian (5+ cover save power), 3x 15 blood claws (maximum fists, including fisty wolf guard leaders), 1x 15 blood claws w/ bolters (maximum fists, and the wolf guard fister too). The packs may have been bigger, but 15 seems pretty huge to me already.

His game plan was pretty attuned to 5th edition, or at least the way screening works - packs deploy in long lines across the board, stormcaller (5+ cover power) is cast on the front pack, and all the lines run across into your face. Front squad gets 5+ cover, ones behind get 4+ cover for being screened.

For our part, the spiky marines locked, loaded and prepared to shoot the hell out of those fist-spammin' dogs. Even with excellent run rolls - and those long chains were being pulled through difficult terrain for the most part too - I'd get solid rounds of blasting as they came in for the crumping.

This would be Kill Points, Pitched Battle. Delicious.

Wolves 1
Everything ran for me, with the Wolf Chappy in the front pack and the Wolf Libby somewhere around the second and third lines. The bolter squad started climbing into an elevated position in his deployment zone. Stormcaller went off on the front squad.

Chaos 1
Deathscreamer & 1k Sons shuffled around a bit, but otherwise it was right to killing. Really not too many died from the front pack considering, but the blastmaster scored two wounds and the Wolves failed the pin test @ -2. I was pretty surprised that the Wolf Chappy doesn't make his boys fearless ...

Wolves 2
Wolf Scouts appear behind the 1k Sons, downing one with a pistol, missing with their meltagun and then hoping into combat. The rest of the Wolves charged forward, but became a bit bunched up where the front squad had been pinned in place. Also, the bolter squad properly attained their perch and realized they had nothing remotely in range. Stormcaller I think failed to cast this turn ...

In combat the deathscreamer either rolled a 6 and fluffed 9 attaks down to 1 wound, or rolled a 1 and took a wound (both happened at some point). Anyway, the 1k Sons lost 2 robots and amazingly beat down 2 scouts by themselves (no need for lords or sorcerers).

Chaos 2
Unforunately the girls wanted to play already, so summoned in front of his pinned Chappy squad and prepared to be mauled. But first, shooting accounted for a bunch of the second line and knocked the chappy's squad down to the Chappy and a couple fists.

Which wasn't enough to save the chicks, who were mangled by the Chappy (3 dead), dragged down 1 fister, lost some more to the wolf guard fist and then popped a couple from the No Retreat! bunk. The last 4-5 girls made sad eyes as all those big viking marines licked their lips ... The deathscreamer either fluffed or hurt himself, but again the robots clubbed another scout to death leaving just 1 locking them up.

Wolves 3
Charging time?! A nice full strength pack lept to the front line (probably #3) and was stormcalled, and then pack #2 (old Wolf Sorcerer too) piled in with the remnants of #1 to beat up some chicks. Which they did.

Chaos 3
Annnd now the termies wanted to play, so they dropped to the rightmost end of the front, 5+ cover pack, with the intention of blitzing off a couple Pups and then punishing him for extending the line so far out - by charging the last man next turn he would only get 6" of counter-charge, only enough to bring 2 of 4 fists into play. Nobody else felt like moving, so unloaded into that front squad for a bit, opening a gap into the second squad which the blastmaster tapped and pinned! And the powerfist that was hanging out wiht the Chappy was knocked away, thothe big man having previously joined the now pinned squad.

Wolves 4
With the rear pack pinned (including Wolf Libby & Chappy), the front squad barreled into the terminators, though as predicted couldn't get all 4 fists swinging. For which they were punished, killing 0 terminators and losing a few more of their own, breaking and running for it. The terminators could only consolidate in response, making sure to move within 6" of the fleeing squad.

Chaos 4
The enemy had been reduced to the 15 bolter pups in the backfield, 2 running fister pups (so that broken squad was WAY shot up before, apparently), and about 10 pups with Chappy & Not-Libby. The obliterator and deathscreamer / sons moved to hammer the bolter hounds, though the oblit missed the plasma cannon shot and the S4 AP3 guns from the other squad went into the pinned unit. Eevil firepower ultimately knocked that one unit down to the characters + 2 powerfists, due to cover saves and more average rolling from me. Despite having seen the buffs that counter-attak + wolf pelt gives Wolf characters, my terminators charged in and were diced up, given the pups a heart consolidation towards my noise marines ...

Wolves 5
Which they clearly took advantage of, charging those 2 characters + 2 fists into the noise marines in difficult terrain. This actually resulted in the Faux-Libby not quite making it this round, which was unfortunate as the Chappy managed only 2 dead noisy boys with his 6 attaks, and in return the deaf marines hacked down the powerfisters before they could swing.

Chaos 5
The oblit and deathscreamer / sons advanced on the bolter marines, ripping them down to half strength or so. The fisty 10 CSM squad mobilized and jumped into the fight with the noise marines, and the elements of the chaos army that still felt like shooting riddled the rallied 2 marines from that broken pack with bullets and missiles.

The Wolf Chappy felt the wrath of S4 combat weapons, giving up the two wounds he had to give and finally going down. The Wolf Shaman beat upon the noise marines but with limited success.

Wolves 6
The bolters missed and the Shaman-dude fought, dropping a noise marine or so for a wound in return.

Chaos 6
The oblit + deathscreamer + sons smacked the bolter pack off the table, and the CSM fist bite down and crumped the old Wolf Wizard properly. Wolves, tabled.

CHAOS WIN

So a long, drawn out way to say: he ran, I shot, there was some fighting but evil triumphed in the end (because good is stupid and dumb). But I don't have class or work today so long and drawn out it is!

Painting: Ogres
Building: N/A

+ First 5E Throwdown +

2008-08-12T09:57:00.005-04:00

Saturday night had my first foray into 5th edition, and gotta say the 5E part was overshadowed by the bad dice part ...

Anarchonquistadores vs Blood Angels [2000] - Game was annihilation (kill points) & table quarters, with chaos winning the One Roll and deciding to deploy and go first. The table was quite symmetrical, tall ruined building in each corner, craters between each building, woods in the center. The spiky boys created the trademark firebase in one of the ruins, as the 1k Sons, shooty CSM + deathscreamer and biker prepared to push into a large crater to create a mini-bunker of sorts. Dreads went far left and far right to do their thing. The blood angels brought -

Termi chappy + 5 assault termies (2 hammers, 3 claws) in crusader
Jump chappy + 10 death company with jump packs
2x 10 Assault marines w/ powerfist
2x 5 Tactical marines w/ meltagun + powerfist, in rhinos
Venerable Furioso

- and deployed largely shielded by the woods in the center but ready to rip my face off. The dread hid behind the land raider.

Chaos 1

Dreads kept their cool, with #2 stomping over to get LOS on a rhino and #1 scooting to smash some assault marines. Which he did fantastically, the plasma cannon vaporizing 4-5 and sending them running (though they stayed on the board, they were effectively out of the game, with 5' to get to me. Dread2 shook the rhino, and all my other fire managed to stun the other one as well ... Between the defiler and sundry other fire a couple assault marines fell and possibly 1 death company member, many saved by the 5+ cover the woods were providing in the center. My two lascannons did nothing to the crusader.

Kill Points: Chaos (0) vs Blood Angels (0)

Blood Angels 1

Crusader cruised forward, dread ran up and kept behind it, the mobile rhino overcharged and zipped towards the traitor marines and sundry assault marines hopped forward. The robot firing the crusader gun did nothing that mattered (assault cannon on Dread1) and the rhinos popped smoke.

Kill Points: Chaos (0) vs Blood Angels (0)

Chaos 2

No reserves wanted to play, though both dreads kept it in their pants for a second turn. Dread1 backed up to get away from the crusader but Dread2 mobilized to go beat up on the assault marines that had leapt perilously close. The bike lord also saw an opening and powered through the central woods, prepared to slam into the death company and take 4-5 of the killers down with him. Fire saw nothing done to the crusader, the rhinos' smoke save all the hits on them and the deathscreamer pop one of the assault marines Dread2 was staring at. Speaking of which, Dread2's heavy flamer and frag missile did nothing to the assault marines, their saves being impressively effective.

Tired of this shooting nonsense Dread2 charged the marines and beat two into submission, for no damage in return (the fist flopped), though the marines held. The biker lord charged up the demogauntlet and ... rolled that 1 you were all expecting. He didn't take a wound and the chappy couldn't make it past T5, but the death company did 3 wounds + 1 rend on the main man. Naturally he made the 5+ inv but failed the 3 3+ armor saves, giving the death company a hearty massacre move into the woods and towards my line.

Kill Points: Chaos (0) vs Blood Angels (1)

Blood Angels 2

Crusader tanked forward with the furioso sprinting behind, death company hopped out of the forest (1 hit a tree, but felt no pain) and onto the crater my shooty CSM + deathscreamer were in (1 broke his ankle, but felt no pain), and the marines in the rhino near Dread2's combat got out and readied their powerfist for some can opening. Shooting again did nothing (I don't think he shot his bolt pistols all game, now that I think about it).

Dread2 chainfisted a couple more assault marines, was immobilized by a very lucky krak grenade (6-6-6) and then detonated by the two powerfists. The explosion gleefully took the assault marines down to just the powerfist vet! In a less happy turn of events the death company slammed into the shooty CSM + deathscreamer, furious charge + frags gutting all 10 CSM before they could strike. The deathscreamer accounted for 1 death company marine (with a max 9 attaks!) and then was forced to take 9 No Retreat! saves. Of course he failed 3 exactly.

Kill Points: Chaos (0) vs Blood Angels (4)

Chaos 3

The demons became available, and unfortunately had no available charge target except for the death company, so they summoned and got psyched up for tarpit duty. The defiler saw the chappy's enticing T4 and mobilized for the charge and the 1k Sons scooted forward, having reread the SnP rules and thrilled at getting a charge bonus and not being I1 any longer. The firebase meanwhile braced for the terminator assault to come, as yet again both lascannons bounced off of the crusader. Dread1 was a little more on the ball, firing his plasma cannon across the board at the tactical marines that had crumped his brother. In 5E you no longer consolidate after killing any vehicle, WS value or not, which left the 5 marines in a tight ball ... of which 4 died to plasma, leaving 2 powerfist vets by their lonesome over in that quarter. Other fire did very little, with the death company having 5+ cover and their FNP after that.

Everybody that could pounced on the death company, girls into crazy marines and the chappy, defiler into the chappy and 1k Sons into some more crazy marines. The 1k Sons missed with everything, only 1 robot landing a hit which was saved, and lost two automatons for their troubles. The demons went last (no frags) and lost a couple, only to do nothing in return. The defiler slapped at the chappy but he never rolled less than 5 for his rosarius. No Retreat! wounds meant two more Sons died (3+ ha) but both girls saved (5+ ha).

Kill Points: Chaos (0) vs Blood Angels (4)

Blood Angels 3

The pain train arrived, the crusader vomiting forth the terminators right into the fisty CSM's face. The furioso scampered behind the crusader again, but the game was looking like it would end before he could become an issue. The crusader's robotic multi-melta killed Dread1, detonating him as well but not enough to tag the obliterator.

The fisty CSM disappeared under the rerolling onslaught, all 10 dying (and then some) and so taking the fist before he could strike. The termies consolidated a little and looked up at a four story ruin full of AP5 & 3 guns ... Over in the death company mosh the 1k Sons were wiped out, the demons taken down to 2 and all 3 wounds the defiler put on the chappy were saved 5-5-6.

Kill Points: Chaos (0) vs Blood Angels (6)

Chaos 4

At last the plasma termies became available, striking off the last icon (havoks) and pointing their guns at the enemy termies. The oblit plasma cannon led the charge, cooking the thunderhammers and a claw termi, the plasma trio managed a single dead blood angel and then a mountain of krak and bolt shells descended upon the chappy and his buddy. Which were all saved. It took the noise marines hitting with 11 S4 shots and wounding with all 11 to take the terminators done. Well done noisy boys.

Back against the death company the girls finally put some attaks on the non-FNP-ing chappy, causing 1 wound, but the defiler's attaks were yet again easily saved. The girls were cut down at last, leaving the defiler against a bunch of rending.

Kill Points: Chaos (2) vs Blood Angels (7)

Blood Angels 4

Nothing really happened. Crusader knocked down a havok or two, the melta didn't claim the oblit and the defiler's cuddling of the chappy continued with no result. The death company managed a rend against the spider tank but didn't roll high enough on the D3.

Kill Points: Chaos (2) vs Blood Angels (7)

And we called it game at that, we both had places to be and women to appease for the late-running game. Far behind on kill points, this was a solid ...

BLOOD ANGELS WIN

This felt much more like his hot dice (those armor saves!) vs my cold dice (those armor saves!) than anything else, though I did make a couple mistakes. I really should have devoted all the S8+ AP2- fire into the death company at all costs, 5+ cover saves be damned, and ignored the crusader. I wasted 6 lascannons shots and many bolters firing at the crusader, in addition to a salvo of havok kraks, when I only had a so-so chance of stopping it in the first place. Letting the termies eat a squad and then retaliating (as happened anyway) would have been a better way to go, and let my guns kill those FNP maniacs instead. Also the demons should have pilled as many attaks into the chaplain as possible and not trusted so much in the defiler. If the walker had been killing death co there would have been 6+ of them dead instead of 0 dead chaplains with the 5+ magic rosarius.

The biker lord doomcharge was reckless but not that stupid I think, had a good chance of depleting the squad and holding them for a turn. But the dice, they are bitches sometimes.

Not too much to say about 5E yet. I love no partial on blasts but hate the unlimited No Retreat! wounds, which makes no sense and is also really really painful for fearless characters.

Painting: Ogre Irongut
Building: N/A

+ Violators Fleet Action +

2008-08-08T08:23:00.004-04:00

The full 1500 Violators fleet hit the board last night, teamed up with a 1500 plaguefleet (PLANETKILLER & friends) against an incredibly escort-heavy Imperial fleet led by an APOCALYPSE. Generic cruiser clash, with a whopping foud planets on the table for terrain :P

Violators & Plaguefleet vs Unknown Imperial Fleet [3000]

Chaos seized the initiative and began closing with the massive Imperial fleet, though due to the extreme ranges involved the majority of the Chaos fire was directed into the mines that the Imperials had deployed around the planets near the traitor fleet. Gaze of the Unclean, the nurgle planetkiller, however slammed its armageddon gun through two Imperial escorts, obliterating one and setting off the shield on the other. First blood!

The Imperial response was likewise minimal, as the fleet split to engage the two traitor fleets and the apocalypse steamed forward to take the planetkiller head on. Despite the small star blocking much of the Violators fleet from the Imperial guns Bass God took two direct hits from nova cannons! Judicious bracing resulted in only two hits being caused after shields, praise be to Slaanesh. Two squadrons of four cobras lined up the Gaze of the Unclean and launched torpedoes, as did the apocalypse and several other ships, filling that crowded area of space even more, though none made contact as of yet.

Now able to draw their guns into range the Chaos fleets prepared to turn the heat up. The Violators fleet consolidated to the port side of the cruisers jockeying around the star, but extreme range resulted in the weapon batteries of Cacophonic and Distortion putting just three hits onto the closest tyrant. The plaguefleet proved more ferocious, dropping all four shields on the apocalypse and accounting for four of its twelve hits. Both Chaos fleets dispatched fighters to take out the remaining mines and two of the torpedo salvos in coming on the planetkiller.

With the traitor vessels drawing close the Imperial fleet had to react. Against the Violators that arm of the fleet continued moving around the star, with the ships nearest the Chaos fleet firing broadsides into Cacophonic. The tainted ship braced for impact ... and needn't have, as shields absorbed the two hits that landed. Pleasure Throes, bringing up the tail of the Violators and visible around the other side of the star, took a couple shield hits but no cause for concern. The rest of the Imperials descended upon the plaguefleet, but all the fire, torpedoes and bombers resulted in a single hit on the planetkiller and several dropped shields.

Time to kill. The Violators swooped upon the squadron of tyrants, with Bass God going on lock on orders for supreme vengeance. Fire from throughout the fleet resulted in a hulked tyrant, three hits and a destroyed gun battery on another, and a massive bomber flight from Blistering Excess saw a third crippled. Bass God tagged a hit on the apocalypse as well, but the Nurgle warmaster protested loudly as he had moved his fleet in to deliver the killing blow to the battleship. Which they did with an impressive show of force, dropping all four shields and doing the seven hits (and three more!) needed to hulk the enormous flagship. As a parting shot plague bombers gutted two cobras and the nurgle acheron dropped a few shields.

Deeply demoralized but shouldering on, the Imperial fleet mobilized its masses of escorts against key Chaos targets, but it would prove for not. Eleven sword frigates fired upon the Blistering Excess but once again bracing resulted in just two hits getting past the shields. Likewise the Gaze of the Unclean absorbed the other firepower of the other half of the Imperial fleet, bracing and shields resulting in a solitary hit being caused. With that the heroes of the Imperium disengaged.

CHAOS WIN

That brutal third turn really did the lapdogs in, with Slaanesh ships up in his junks going crazy and the Nurgle fleet decapitating his force. There was still a lot of game to go - Chaos was still outnumbered 2:1 in pure ships on the table - but it was likely a foregone conclusion.

Closing Thought -> Wow, BFG is cool. Neat to see in action and a blast to play.

Painting: Ogre Irongut
Buidling: N/A

+ Violators Fleet 1500 +

2008-08-04T22:59:00.006-04:00

Finished up the 500 point jump to 1500 today, pretty proud of the fleet. BFG is simple and fun to paint, this is probably the quickest 'army' I've gotten together for any game, ever. Fluff-wise it's a fleet under the command of the Violators traitor marines, Slaanesh-flavored CSM who seal their baby-blue armor and end up oozing, uh, gunk out of the seals (see the novel Daemon World for the source). Tried to carry it over to the ships, but admittedly my last ship, the Acheron, turned out waaay bright as I kept cleaning up the ink and not letting it pool or get oozy looking :P

Styx "Blistering Excess" - Lord Devour w/ MoS + reroll, CSM crew
Acheron "Bass God" - Lord Pharron w/ MoS + reroll, CSM crew
Carnage "Cacophonic"
Carnage "Distortion"
Devastation "Pleasure Throes"
Slaughter "Masochist"
2x Iconoclast + 1x Infidel "Slaves to Torment"
-----
1500

I suppose that when I do a battleship it'll be 100% icy blue ...

Painting: Demosaurus
Building: N/A

+ APOC IV +

2008-07-29T08:09:00.002-04:00

Our fourth APOC game has come and gone, and a hot sweaty time was had by all. Nine dudes, one huge L-shaped table, four turns of carnage.

Tyranids & Tyranids & Tyranids & Chaos vs Black Templar & Black Templar & Dark Angels & Blood Angels & Witch Hunters [18000]

I ended up running 6500 points of Chaos - Death Guard, The Fallen, The Anarcho boys - that largely deployed on one 6x4 on the right arm of the L-table and smashed against the majority of both Templar armies. The objective on our side would end up with the last 3 of 42 plague marines standing on it but with BT characters surrounding it, so merely contested.

The left arm of the L-table saw the medium Nid swarm (a mere 3000) obliterated by the combined BA and WH armies, in what was largely due to him deploying too far away from the rest of our armies - if he had faced off across from just the Sisters he wouldn't have had to face the BA player for a turn or two, instead of the turn one assaults and short range rapid fire that he received by spreading in front of the two armies. Despite the appearance of 4 of my 8 Kharns (;D), a land raider and 3 Fallen obliterators (who nuked the WH fire support titan), the left objective was securely in the hands of the Imperium.

From the game's opening the center segment of the L was locked down by the largest of the bug swarms, including the heirophant and her little heirodule buddy. By Turn 4 the big girl had been wounded twice but with underlings swarming the objective at her feet that one easily went to the jaws of the Devourer (also Chaos). Otherwise that blue bug swarm spent much of the game slamming against the DA across from him and the smallest bug swarm to my evil lads' left, as well as sending out flank marchers (2 carnifex detonated the baneblade mere feet in front of the chaos firebase) and lictors (killed exorcists like it was going out of style).

So with 1 objective held per side and the other still contested, it came down to a ...

DRAW

Now a side note on how happy APOC:RELOAD makes me. My interest in APOC games has seriously wanned in the last months, but having gotten confirmed rumors on some of the race specific assets in RELOAD I'm totally back in for big games. There's just some crazy shit in that book that really brings in the highly specialized, oh so characterful, EPIC-scaled mayhem and feats that you can't get in a standard 40k game. For APOC IV we test ran a couple of the Chaos ones, so I ended up with three assets:

Shield Generator - An oldy but new to me. The 4+ save over my two defilers and noise marines insured their survival, over and over. It was quite impressive.

Demon Shell - Allows a chaos model with a bolt weapon to fire a demon shell instead of a normal round. 24" SD AP1 Assault 1 7" blast, if you roll a 1 to hit it causes a single SD hit to the firer! In this game I had a Fallen lord deep strike and shoot the mini-nuke right into a clump of Dark Angels, removing a huge number of the deluded fools. The Fallen lord would go on to fight Azrael in single combat, dying simultaneously with his former brother.

Major Possession - On a 3+ a greater demon possesses an enemy IC instead of a chaos champ (note that I think the enemy gets to pick which IC, but I didn't know this at the time). On Saturday my Great Generic One made the 3+ roll and erupted out of Samael, telefragging the über-jetbiker and then pouncing on a DA librarian and terminator retinue. His rampage was short-lived, as GK terminators waded over and cut him down, but the sheer brutality of possessing an enemy special character is amazing. Easily my favorite new Chaos asset!

For $25 APOC:RELOAD seems like a good buy, even just to check out all the other assets. A couple examples: "Holy Relic" jacks a chaplain's combat prowess through the roof but when he dies the relic drops and becomes another objective. "Rokk 'Em Lads" has the orks bombard the board with fist-shaped asteroids, causing 10" explosions that scatter D6 feet (only hit on a HIT + 1). "Fire on My Coordinates" brings an orbital barrage down upon a surrounded guardsmen with a vox. "Indiscriminate Bombardment" has a chaos player place one barrage template, the enemy a second one, and then the chaos player a third. And so on.

Painting: Dakka Painting Challenge entry
Building: N/A

+ Violators Fleet Action +

2008-07-16T08:13:00.003-04:00

At the very end of June I decided to paint up 1000 points of BFG, and so dumped out the chaos fleet that's been manhandled around for the 9 years since I bought the boxed game. 2 days later (I had to go buy some icy blue and some chestnut ink) I had a tiny fleet of eevil ships fresh for some Spaaaaace Combaaaaat! I'll work on getting a shot of them, but suffice to say they're painted up (and slightly converted) to represent a fleet under the command of the Violators Chaos Space Marines - Slaaneshi marines sealed into their baby blue armor, which seeps greenish goo from the joints as it's never removed. Hot.

VIOLATORS FLEET 1000
Warmaster Devour (+2) - Mark of Slaanesh
Blissful Excess [Styx] - CSM Crew
Pleasure Throes [Devastation]
Unrepentant [Carnage]
Masochist [Slaughter]
Slave [Iconoclast]

Not 100% on such a huge warmaster in 1000 points, but Ld 10 on the Styx is very nice to have. Alternate version has just a +1 warmaster but 2 Infidels, but I have yet to paint more escorts up.

Violators vs Unknown Chaos Fleet [1000]
First game was a basic Cruiser Clash vs my friend's likewise newb chaos lads.

4 Murders
2x 3 Idolators

Things swiftly turned to my advantage as his escorts were hunted down and his cruisers hulked. The Violators' ordnance superiority shown, but special commendation goes to the Slave for hounding the enemy ships and keeping those little gun batteries blazing. He took down a couple times his points in enemy escorts and kept the shields down on the big guys.

Violators Win

Violators vs Plaguefleet [1000]
2 weeks later and my buddy was back for another Cruiser Clash, this time with his chaos fleet stripped, puttied and putrified properly.

Warmaster (+1) - Mark of Nurgle
Acheron
Carnage - CSM Crew, Mark of Nurgle
Carnage - CSM Crew, Mark of Nurgle
Slaughter - Demonvessel, Mark of Nurgle

A far sight tougher now! 9 hits for each ship, high Ld, and the fact that he took carnages over murders were all bonuses over his first escort-happy fleet.

The Fleets Engage
Early game saw the Violators move together and to the right to cluster their guns against a single carnage on the Plaguefleet's flank, however with judicious brace for impact use the cruiser survived the onslaught. Due to their proximity to each other all of the Violators' cruisers were affected by the -1 Ld from the lurking demonvessel, which proved deadly as the Plaguefleet focused all fire into the Masochist. Failing its brace check the cruiser was obliterated, resulting in a warpdrive implosion! With the fleet packed together the Unrepentant and Pleasure Throes suffered 8 lance shots each, thankfully escaping with minimal damage. Seeking vengeance, the Excess and Throes both slammed full bomber waves into the nearest carnage, managing to hulk the tainted cruiser.

Playing It Cagey
With some distance between the two fleets the clash moved to long range weaponry and ordnance. Though the demonvessel continued to haunt the Slaanesh marine cruisers, Warmaster Devour's solid command kept the Excess vomiting forth bombers to cross the roiling expanse of space to the plague ships. Continuous lance fire and bombing runs succeeded in crippling the other Plaguefleet carnage, though the last 3 hits proved to tough at this range.

When Demons Attak
The demonvessel finally translated fully into real space, but despite the Violators anticipating the ship's solidification the Unrepentant and Excess put a measly 1 hit onto the beast. In retaliation the demonic slaughter moved right under the nose of the Excess and let loose with a full broadside, doing a massive 7 hits of damage and smashing the command deck off of the Violators flagship with a sweep of its titanic claw. The Unrepentant sought vengeance and locked on, but again with a well-timed brace the demonvessel survived uncrippled. All the same, with one cruiser hulked, another with 3 hits remaining and the demonvessel hurting amidst the Violators fleet (and the flagship across the table behind a planet), the Plaguefleet chose to disengage.

Violators Win

Though definitely a hollow one for me, that warpdrive implosion when my ships were most packed together was potentially brutal, and the less said about the ghostship mauling my flagsip the better! Oh, as a side note the Slave was stupidly placed on the opposite side of the board from the rest of the fleet, with the intention of some rear-hunting action. Stupid because it meant all the starboard weapons of the Plaguefleet had only one target with the rest of my fleet going to their port ... Poor slavey :'(

Painting: Dread #2
Building: BFG Chaos 1500

+ July Happenings +

2008-07-09T09:36:00.012-04:00

I like to make schedules for painting and such, to stay organized and hopefully push me to get things done. July is looking like a bit of a slacker month, like the last weeks of June were as well, but at least I know that the few things on the schedule will get done. What's really killing me right now is the humidity makes priming my newly built stuff ... highly undesirable :(

WEEK 6/29
[X] Paint 1000 point BFG chaos fleet
[X] First game of BFG in 9 years
[X] July 4th, etc.

WEEK 7/6
[X] Build 2 gorefiends & dread #2
[X] Prime dread #2
[_] Paint disruption beacon
[X] Fiancee's birthday celebrations

WEEK 7/13
[X] Build BFG fleet to 1500
[X] Prime BFG upgrade
[X] Paint some on dread
[X] Play more BFG
[X] Rampage Richmond

WEEK 7/20
[X] Paint dread
[_] Paint BFG boost
[X] APOC IV

WEEK 7/27
[_] Build, prime, paint Dakka Painting Challenge entry

WEEK ???
[_] Spray Khorne Demons brass

Not too rushed on the hobby side, but a couple personal events make gaming time tight. Then there's our fourth APOC game looming 7/26, need the dread and beacon done by then, and finally the DPC model at the end of the month where I get to see what my painting skills are actually up to.

Building: N/A
Painting: Disruption Beacon

+ Khorne Demons Mangle Marines +

2008-07-03T08:20:00.004-04:00

Got in the third battle with the demons, this time against good old marines. My list was the 1500 one below, except with 5 flesh hounds + Keranak instead of the 2 fiends (also 4 less bloodletters). We decided to play pure 4th edition for this one, as pure 5th would have been preferrable but clearly neither of us has the rules yet (and didn't feel like mixing in rules here and there).

Khorne Demons vs Space Marines [1500] - He took:

Terminator librarian + 7 terminators (2 assault cannons, many powerfists)
Jump chaplain (lightning claws, furious charge)
Dread (assault cannon, heavy flamer)
Dread (lascannon, missile launcher)
6 Tactical (lascannon)
5 Scounts (snipers, missile launcher)
10 Assault Marines (furious charge, 2 flamers, fist veteran)
2 Tornados

Demons won the roll for side and gave the marines the side with just one huge ruined building (15" x 30") partially in it, along with a rocky hill to the left and a small wrecked shuttle part to the right. The dreads set up in the building, the tacticals a floor up and the scouts at the top level of the ruin. The terminators and assault marines deployed to the left of the building, and the tornados went down left and right flanks.

Marines won the roll for first and took it.

Marines 1
Speeders moved over 6" ... Everybody else kinda stood around waiting for the carnage.

Demons 1
After much deliberation, I went with the heavy first wave and got it. Skarbrand aimed for the corner of the big building farthest from the termies & assaulters, and scattered off it to the NW. A prince aimed for the same spot and scattered SW, and the other prince aimed for the same spot and again scattered, this time N. 12 bloodletters with icon finished up my drops, and managed to stick on that cursed spot. Skarbrand yelled at the scouts atop the building, killing 2, and the SW prince breathed on the tactical marines and melted 4 of them. Having a shooting phase = totally sweet.

Marines 2
Due to the wonders of area terrain, it looked like retaliation would be minimal this time around. The assault marines hoped the corner of the building and unloaded on the SW prince, getting 0 wounds past his T5. Likewise the dreads and most of the tornado shooting, which managed to put 1 wound on the beast. The lascannon tactical failed his target priority and blasted a bloodletter into atoms instead of hitting the prince, and a scout put a wound on Skarbrand with a krak rocket.

First assault of the game, the chappy and crew slammed into the prince standing in cover (frags meant we'd go simul). The prince slammed 3 wounds on the chappy but only 1 got through his 4+ inv, and in return the chappy gutted the big demon. Massacre moved the assault marines away from the bloodletters glaring at them ...

Demons 2
More demons! 9 bloodletters (render) and 12 bloodletters (icon) made it this time, both summoning off of the icon squad in the marines' general direction. Skarbrand pushed through the area terrain, fleeted a weak 2" and stopped near the dreads - without a 6" assault through difficult terrain he'd miss the terminators on the other side and just jump on a dread instead. The living prince hoped up on the building to play with the 2 tactical marines and the icon bloodletters headed for the chappy's squad. Unfortunately they were 9" away, and 2" out of difficult terrain meant they'd have to charge the land speeder precariously nearby ...

With no yelling this turn it was right to fighting. Skarbrand didn't roll high enough so charged 1" into the fisty dread, detonating it and racking up a few dead assault marines and 4 dead bloodletters in the 6" explosion! He consolidated into the shooty dread right next to him. The prince brutalized the tacticals (4 wounds) and massacred 3" up to stand on the level below the scouts. The icon bloodletters, short 1", charged the land speeder instead. With Skarbrand bellowing encouragement they managed many hits on the speeder, but only ended up trashing the assault cannon (and being nicely packed for the flamering to come).

Marines 3
Mobilize! Libby + terminator friends pushed up into the ruins to take on Skarbrand, and the chappy + assault friends moved over (1" with a flopped difficult terrain roll!) to cook the letters. Which they did, killing some. The wounded tornado flew clear and threw some heavy bolters in as well, killing them down to about 6 demons.

Assault time is the best time! The libby managed 1 wound on Skarry, but it was swatted away with his 4+ inv before he could try force weapon nonsense on him. The big guy responded by gutting 4 terminators, and then by saving all the powerfist wounds that came his way except for 1. The dreadnought kicked about but was largely ignored. Over in the other combat the chappy brutalized three bloodletters, enough to remove those in base contact with his slower assault marine retinue. Another bloodletter popped from No Retreat!, leaving 2 to hold the marines in place ...

Demons 3
The rest of the demons showed up, summoning another 9 bloodletters (render) nearby the terminator-Skarbrand fight and the 6 flesh hounds (Keranak) looking at the gimped speeder on the right. The prince climbed up to the top of the ruin, screamed at the scouts and exploded all of their heads. And 2 squads of bloodletters descended upon the chappy's squad ...

Shooting out of the way, Skarbrand weathered a round of the libby flailing against him (couldn't summon the 6+ to wound the main man) and gutted the rest of his terminator cadre. The libby held. 5 bloodletters (render) slammed into the assault marines accompanying the chaplain, leaving them in bloody bits with their WS5 (rerolled!), S5, I5, A15 charge. The other squad of demons all funneled their attaks into the chaplain, causing 14 wounds and misting the guy with ease. Though he did take down 1 bloodletter with his own I5 attaks, but whatev.

Marines 4
Speeders scooted around a bit, accounting for 1 bloodletter and 1 flesh hound. In the fun phase the librarian again couldn't wound Skarbrand, but summoned the inv saves to stay alive one more turn. Oh, and the dread kicked at the demon but couldn't manage a hit, despite Skarry yelling at him.

Demons 4
The flesh hounds zipped over to pounce on the hurt speeder, which they did, netting a fine number of hits (with no reroll, out of Skarry's ANGER range) and immobilizing the craft, pulling it down like the frisbee it is. Most of the bloodletters bunkered down in the main ruin to hang out until the end of the game, though the fresh render squad flooded into the librarian. Once again the ancient marine couldn't wound Skarbrand, but instead of dealing with the 'hero' Skarbrand smashed that annoying dread and let the bloodletters' 27 attaks obliterate the marine.

Marines 5
The last speeder put wound #3 on Skarbrand! But he called it a game at that, as he'd have a max of 1 turn to finish Skarry if the monster's fleet roll wasn't up to catching the speeder next turn.

DEMONS WIN

A deliciously brutal game for Khorne, marred by poor deployment on the marine player's part. As he noted, he should have deployed everything in his terrainless right corner and hammered my demons as they came in. Though admittedly with his small number of units I wonder if this would have been enough to stop the flood ... And in that event I wouldn't have put Skarbrand down first turn, but likely would have either gone pure bloodletters for the first drop or the big icon squads + the undivided princes.

MVP: Skarbrand!

Building: Dread #2?
Painting: Dread #2?

+ Chaotic Army Lists +

2008-07-02T11:14:00.003-04:00

I feel like posting something, but have neither pics to show nor a battle to report on. Hence, you get a few armylists instead! Here we have the 1500 & 2000 point versions of my CSM army that see most of the action, as well as the 1500 Demons I'm burning to try out some more before I get started on painting it ...

UNDIVIDED CSM 1500

HQ
Chaos Lord - MoT, deathscreamer, icon, melta bombs

ELITES
3 Terminators - IoCU, 3 combi-plasmas, 2 powerfists, 1 chainfist

TROOPS
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
6 Noise Marines - blastmaster, sonic blaster
12 Lesser Demonettes

HEAVY SUPPORT
6 Havoks - IoCU, 3 missile launchers
1 Obliterator

TOTAL
1496 points

UNDIVIDED CSM 2000

HQ
Chaos Lord - MoCU, demon weapon, bike, icon
Chaos Lord - MoT, deathscreamer, icon

ELITES
3 Terminators - IoCU, 3 combi-plasmas, 2 powerfists, 1 chainfist
Dreadnought - plasma cannon, heavy flamer, extra armor
Dreadnought - plasma cannon, extra armor

TROOPS
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
6 Noise Marines - blastmaster, sonic blaster
8 Lesser Demonettes

HEAVY SUPPORT
6 Havoks - IoCU, 3 missile launchers
Defiler
1 Obliterator

TOTAL
1999 points

KHORNE DEMONS 1500

HQ
Skarbrand

ELITES
2 Gorefiends of Khorne

TROOPS
12 Bloodletters - icon, instrument
12 Bloodletters - icon, instrument
11 Bloodletters - fury
11 Bloodletters - fury

HEAVY SUPPORT
Demon Prince - iron hide, unholy might, breath of chaos
Demon Prince - iron hide, unholy might, breath of chaos

TOTAL
1496 points

Current Records
---------------
CSM Many:A Few:Not Many
DEMONS 1:1:0

Building: 2 Gorefiends
Painting: Ogre Ironguts?

+ Khorne Demons vs Tizz Milksops +

2008-06-24T08:55:00.005-04:00

Last Friday was Game #2 with the bloody demons of blood, and this time in an entertaining matchup against the 1000 Sons! This one would be pure 4.0, as the changes we usually play for 4.5 weren't going to matter (deployment and LoS mostly).

Khorne Demons vs 1000 Sons [1500]

Skarbrand
1 'Fiend of Khorne'
12 Bloodletters - instrument, icon
12 Bloodletters - instrument, icon
12 Bloodletters - fury
12 Bloodletters - fury
Demon Prince - iron hide, unholy might, breath of chaos
Demon Prince - iron hide, unholy might, breath of chaos

vs

Sorcerer - MoT, wind of chaos, warptime, wings, icon
Lord of Genericocity
Dreadnought - lascannons, heavy flamer
7 1000 Sons - AS w/ doombolt, icon
7 1000 Sons - AS w/ doombolt, icon
7 1000 Sons - AS w/ doombolt, icon
10 Lesser Horrors
10 Lesser Horrors
Defiler - extra ccw

Deployment: Sons, sons, defiler, sons, dread (banished to the far right flank). Sorcerer, super chicken, quasi-horrors all in reserve.

He won the roll and made me go first ...

Demons 1
I went with the 'wave of flesh' drop, all the bloodletters first. Scatters took 3 squads closer to their automaton targets (but not dangerously so) and 1 squad a bit farther back but I knew he'd close the 12" gap for rapid fire anyway so no worries.

Sons 1
He shuffled that squad into rapid range, and the dread fire frenzied ... into my bloodletters (area terrain to its left blocked LoS to friendlies) and killed 2 to start it off. Defiler smashed 6 from one squad and fire from the sons managed to whip out one icon squad and strip a good amount of demons from other squads. But in short: not enough dead bloodletters.

Demons 2
No demonic reserves arrive, so the bloodletters line up each against a sons squad and prepare to do this themselves. Which they do, each combat exactly doing 7 wounds after inv saves, killing all 3 sorcerers along with their icons.

Sons 2
Just the sorcerer arrives, striking a good 20" away from my demonic shocktroops to insure some of his demons will see the table. The defiler smashes another 6 bloodletters off the table and the dread pops another one off with its lascannon.

Demons 3
Everybody shows up, summoning around the remaining bloodletter icon. 2 bloodletter squads move towards the sorcerer, keeping their distance with the knowledge that the generic demons can assault after summon UNLIKE themselves ... Skarbrand and the 2 princes bellow at the defiler, causing 1 glance that is ignored (shaken). The 3rd bloodletter mob (and the largest) charges the defiler to silence its cannon and hope the render can do his thing. He can't and a couple demons are crushed with Skarbrand's rerolled hits.

Sons 3
10 demons summon off of the sorcerer's icon, right before the sorcerer explodes into the super chicken, removing the last icon and leaving the other 10 demons to drift in the warp. The dreadnought blood rages into the area terrain ruins near it and while my render demon gets 2 rending penetrates on the defiler he also rolls double 1's ... and the defiler pulps a couple more with Skarbrand's reroll.

Demons 4
Not wanting to wait for his demons to leave their difficult terrain bunker, I move 8 bloodletters up within 12" of his demons. Then instead of being at least a little cautious I slam the fiend into the horrors, with the hope of killing something and holding them up. Sadly the fleet roll is 1" too short to make it into terrain, which means the fiend is assaulting into cover instead of from within it. With no offensive grenades the 'horrors' easily kill it with Skarbrand's reroll. Elsewhere Skarbrand saves the bloodletters' bacon by killing the defiler 5 times over (with no explosion).

Sons 4
The dread fire frenzies again, into my bloodletters killing 2. His horrors push through cover and assault my bloodletters, killing 7 for the loss of 3 with Skarbrand's reroll, and popping the last thanks to No Retreat. The greater demon moves to the left, away from my menacing princes.

Demons 5
Skarbrand started his sprint towards the super chicken, the twin princes move to deal with the horrors and the remaining bloodletters try to gain some cover to avoid losing any more models to the dread (3 in one squad and 6 in the other). The princes breath on the horrors, and despite him trying to pull models out of 6" one prince manages the charge, butchering the generic thingies with Skarbrand's reroll. Skarry himself fleets well and charges the super chicken, brutalizing it into small parts thanks to his own reroll.

Sons 5
The dreadnought keeps his cool and takes a potshot at Skarbrand, but the shot is saved by his 4+ inv.

Demons 6
Bloodletters gain some cover and everybody watches as the Main Man begins the long run into the dreadnought (about 24").

Sons 6
The dread fire frenzies a third time, into Skarbrand for 2 wounds.

Demons 7
With a strong fleet, Skarbrand hits the dread and frags him several times.

DEMONS WIN

This game was always going to be he shoots me back to the warp or I hellblade his face in, and the hellblades won. Wiping out all his squad icons and vessels in 1 round - without Skarbrand around for rerolls that mattered to me - was quite fortuitous, though the generic demons were as a pain against my bloodletters as I expected, with basically identical stats but cheaper. His walkers performed perfectly IMO, his defiler racking up 15-16 dead bloodletters (!!!) and his dread scoring 5 bloodletters or so and 2 wounds on Skarbrand with all those favorable fire frenzies.

Listwise, I still like the mathhammer behind taking 2 fiends vs 5 flesh hounds - better in soooo many ways really - but 1 fiend wasn't going to be as useful in this case, more of a tank hunter when you give it +1S as well. 40 points for a beast with 6 S6 rending attaks (and hit-and-run) is a good buy, and I've got some conversions in mind to make some proper "gorefiends." Skarbrand I like but his reroll causes me more anxiety than its worth - like against I5+ enemies and those in cover - and I think a 270 point bloodthirster w/ might is far better vs 300 point Skarry.

Building: Demon Prince #2
Painting: Ogre Ironguts

+ Sad Day In Chaos Land +

2008-06-24T08:44:00.003-04:00

Played 4 games this weekend - 2 fantasy, 2 40k - with each of the 4 armies of mine that I care about. The final one was the most exhausting, but for the sake of completeness I'll toss it up here.

Undivided & Death Guard vs Black Templars [4000] - Chaos both fielded pure infantry forces and their 54 generic demon buddies: my 1500 with terminators not dreadnought, his 2500 with Typhus, 6x 7 plague marines, 6x 7 demons. The Templars on the other hand were mechanized: 4 rhinos, 4 tornados, 2 dreads, 2 preds, 1 vindi, and 1 crusader rounded out the motorpool alone (with rhino squads, 2 assault squads, massive HQ, 2x asscan terminator squad, assault terminator squad and a Grey Knight terminator squad). And me with a handful of heavy weapons. Blerg.

A lot of poor dice rolling on our part and excellent 3+ saves on his part later, and we had been pushed back into our deployment zone (embarassing!). That did mean our respawning demons could dump right back into combat (thanks GK), but then they didn't do too much that mattered anyway. Only the left flank, with 4 plague marine squads within 1 woods template, was holding strong, but then it didn't have all the assault might storming into it like my shooting bunkers.

With the shop closing and everybody pretty tired of throwing dice around, Chaos folded in Turn 5, with at least a few of my dark power armor on the table still.

BLACK TEMPLAR WIN

Building: Demon Prince #2
Painting: Ogre Ironguts

+ GAMES DAY 2008 CARNAGE +

2008-06-17T08:36:00.004-04:00

Games Day Baltimore has come and gone, and was as usual good fun. Nice to see a few new things - Dark Elf hydra, direct only kroot shaper, FW plague ogryns - and met some online friends in person, but really it was the open gaming that made the day for me. I brought the Chaos boys along and threw down in a big game that lasted a good chunk of the event and then a smaller one to finish the day off (was there 'til they kicked us out).

Undivided & Iron Warriors & Death Guard vs Ultramarines & Tyranids & Ultramarines & Tyranids [7000] - All on a fairly terrain-light 6x4 table, delicious. I put down 3 zombies from my case and we called them objectives, 6 turns to hold more than the other team. The game I feel was still in the balance up until Turn 3 or 4, but after that things had tiped solidly to Chaos, and the other side was starting to get demoralized at the beating they were taking. Quick recap:

- Vast majority of early Chaos firepower went into stopping all the genestealers rushing our line, something like 70 with a broodlord in there. They lasted until Turn 6 amazingly, my 1k Sons creating a speedbump that force weaponed out the broodlord and let my fisty CSM deal with the stragglers.
- One Ultramarine player was stalled in the corner by combined fire from my Anarch boys and the Iron Warriors, and then locked down for 2 turns when a forward plague champion summoned 4x7 demons into all his infantry squads. Only a crusader with assault terminators punched through, assaulting my shooty CSM squad but eating 2 chaos lords with demon weapons the following turn. The crusader would survive to contest an objective.
- The other Ultra player spent the game being shelled by 2 defilers (who both survived) and learning how tough plague marines in 5+ cover are. Despite the rough game his troops would go on to contest another objective.
- That plague marine champ (with powerfist) who summoned down the demons collectively crumped 1 zoanthrope, finished off an Ultra tactical squad w/ fist, smashed an Ultra dread and insta-killed the Ultramarine commander, all with the support of just 2 plaguers to soak wounds. Go plague guy!
- Late game move of the IW vindicator and CSM squad captured the final objective, securing a ...

CHAOS WIN

Undivided & Iron Warriors vs Imperial Guard & Tau [3000] - With less than 2 hours left at the convention and needing something to do 'til the Costume Contest (gooooo titan!), I challenged out two dudes and nabbed the IW player to team up with me. This turned into a total bloodbath, helped along by our opponents' general inexperience and some really solid dice on my part. Recap:

- First Guard roll and Undivided rolls of the game were impressive. Demolisher shot 1 lascannon & 2 plasma cannons at my havoks in 5+ cover, hit with all of them, hit with all partials, wounded with all of them. In return I passed all 7-8 of my cover saves. Sweet. Then the demolisher died to an IW lascannon to the side.
- the Guard player forgot to shoot his basilisk the first couple turns, but I reminded him cause hey, it's killy. My plasma termies dropped back there and cooked the artillery off the following turn, lost a man to broadside fire, then next turn chainfisted the rear of the stationary ionhead, then assaulted a monat fusion suit but couldn't get through its 4+ inv.
- Both Tau fish of furies were stalled when their devilfishes were knocked down, with one group of fire warriors devoured by 12 lesser demonettes and the other shot up and then eaten by a Great Generic One. My girls would go on to eat some guard for good measure.
- The Tau player consistently did not jump his suits back behind terrain after moving out to shoot us up. Unlike the basilisk I didn't remind him, but instead shot a lot of AP2 and 3 at him ;D
- 1000 Sons not only survived the battle but killed stuff, including hurting the Tau HQ suit squad, killing the Guard HQ squad and, after many turns of them making their cover save, the platoon HQ as well. Waaaagh robots!
- We called the game at Turn 4.5 at 6:00, with just 1 Guard squad and the broadsides surrounded on a hill, and Games Day officially over and breaking up around us. A suiting end and another ...

CHAOS WIN

So I ended Games Day 2008 with 2 bloody wins, a Forge World rhinox thunderlord, a Chaos dread blastmaster arm and a sweet Ghazghkul shirt. I'll take it.

Painting: N/A
Building: 2 Demon Princes

+ Khorne Rebound & Revamp +

2008-06-09T15:43:00.003-04:00

Having looked around at other khorne armies (there aren't many!), I've some things to think about and some things I'm already doing that seem to be good ideas. Here's where I'm headed for 2k Khorne demons at the moment:

HQ
Herald of Khorne - juggernought, unholy might, fury of khorne, icon
Herald of Khorne - juggernought, unholy might, fury of khorne
Herald of Khorne - juggernought, unholy might, fury of khorne
Herald of Khorne - juggernought, unholy might, fury of khorne

Troops
12 Bloodletters - icon
12 Bloodletters - icon
12 Bloodletters - fury of khorne, instrument
12 Bloodletters - fury of khorne, instrument

Fast Attak
6 Flesh Hounds - Keranak

Heavy Support
Demon Prince - MoK, iron hide, unholy might, instrument
Demon Prince - iron hide, unholy might, breath of chaos, instrument
Demon Prince - iron hide, unholy might, breath of chaos, instrument

Total
1998 points
61 models

Heralds all pair up with a nice big bloodletter squad for the drop, and first wave would ideally be 3 princes + 1 bloodletter / herald squad. Figure the heavy armor first wave might be better than going mix drop or "naked drop" with all the bloodletters (which is a possibility, all 48 at once then icon the princes down).

Painting: Nurgle bases
Building: N/A

+ Khorne Demons - Strike One +

2008-06-09T09:38:00.003-04:00

Finally got the 5 models I needed built this weekend and got the first game in with my Khorne Demons with the new codex. Unfortunately it was against Sisters, which may be the perfect match up against demons, particularly ones with no shooting and with all power weapons. Brutal short range fire and the ability to pop inv saves if I ever hit combat is just very very hard to fight.

Khorne Demons vs Witch Hunters [1650]

I took:

Herald of Khorne - juggernought, unholy might, fury of khorne
Herald of Khorne - juggernought, unholy might, fury of khorne
Herald of Khorne - juggernought, unholy might, fury of khorne
Herald of Khorne - juggernought, unholy might, fury of khorne
8 Bloodletters - icon
8 Bloodletters - icon
8 Bloodletters - fury of khorne
8 Bloodletters - fury of khorne
8 Bloodletters - instrument
8 Bloodletters - instrument
6 Flesh Hounds - Karanak
Demon Prince - MoK, iron hide, unholy might, blessing of the blood god

He took:

Cannoness - jump pack, melta pistol, S5 power sword
Inquisitor - 2x heavy bolter servitors
Calidus
13 Sisters - 2x storm bolters, VSS
10 Sisters - melta, flamer, VSS w/ plasma pistol
10 Sisters - melta, flamer, VSS
7 Seraphim - 2x flamers, VSS w/ power weapon
6 Seraphim - 2x flamers, VSS w/ eviscerator
8 Retributers - 4x heavy bolters
Exorcist
Exorcist

Maybe something else and I'm sure more kit in there too. We played many 5th edition rules, including the One Roll to start, LoS + cover saves (no screening), run. He won the One Roll and let me choose side and go first. With nothing to set up he deployed everything but the Cali and waited ...

Deployment (L to R): Retributers in building, seraphim, exorcist, 10 sisters on rough hill, seraphim (cannoness nearby), exorcist, 10 sisters in bottom of building, 13 sisters over the next two floors, INQ team on top.

Demon Wave: I split my army in half, and got the wave I wanted first. 8 bloodletters (icon) + herald, 8 bloodletters (music) + herald, 8 bloodletters (fury), demon prince.

Demons 1
I needed to silence the heavy guns and figured I could slog across the two feet from the retributer bunker to the mass of bolters waiting in the taller building on the flank, so struck everything towards the table middle / left. All the bloodletter squads scattered back away from their original drops, but with run rolls (apparently you can run / fleet after striking in 5th, or we did here anyway) they repositioned fairly well. The prince plopped down between all the letters, rolling the only HIT.

Sisters 1
Time to kill some demons. 10 sister squad in the middle walked down their hill to line up shots, both seraphim squads jumped around to line up their flamers and exorcists scooted for LoS on the DP. Flamer templates splashed all over the squad with icon, destroying it and the herald and also wounding the DP a few times with overspray. DP died to exorcist and small arm potshots from the squads in the far building. Retributers said NO and obliterated the fury letters with the other seraphim's help and my last squad of demons was reduced to 4 demons + herald. Wow. Of note, my rolling for inv saves was about statistically average, with some good ones and some bad, but I failed nearly 90% of all the 3+ armor saves I took on the DP and heralds. His rolling was, as usual, amazing - the retributors missed I think 4 shots the entire game.

Demons 2
Everybody but the last 8 bloodletters (icon) w/ herald were ready to play. I decided to try to force the other flank and get some points, so dropped the flesh hounds and some bloodletters (music) w/ herald inside the building that all those infantry squads were in, and the other bloodletters (fury) out front of it. Run moves repositioned a bit.

And finally, combat! The 4 bloodletters + herald over by the retributers charged the seraphim right in front of them, and the girls popped 3+ inv saves as predicted. All the same, 12 WS5 S5 I5 and 5 WS6 S7 I6 (rending) attaks are hard to say no to, and 2-3 seraphim died. The rest failed their break and were caught.

Sisters 2
Time to kill some demons. Seraphim jump over and line up on the letters outside the building, hill squad moves back atop the hill and 1 exorcist lines up. Retributers destroy the bloodletters + herald near them, combined fire gut the letters in the open, 5 bloodletters die to 26 rapid firing bolter shots from 1 squad (O_O) thanks to good saves from me (saved 8 of 13 wounds), and the hounds go unscathed.

Upshot, the Inquisitor tried to cast Scourging but rolled 6-6, dying to a PotW test as Khorne ate her head ;D

Demons 3
The last herald + bloodletters (icon ha!) strike in, deviating near the hounds and losing a couple models in the process. Herald + letters inside the building push forward to hope for assault and the hounds push through cover to go for the seraphim in the open.

And finally, combat! The hounds easily charge the seraphim, who pop +2 init and kill 1 hound. They lose 0 in return and hit and run away, sealing the dogs' fate. My opponent lets me make base with the herald + 3 bloodletters in the building, though my difficult terrain roll might have been 1" short (hard to tell with multi-storey buildings). 11 sisters die, unit breaks and is caught, my squad consolidates off to the side of the building.

Sisters 3
Time to kill some demons. Cali comes in and lines up to blast the newest bloodletters (but does nothing against Ld10 & 5+ inv). Other sisters maneuver to put out the pain. Flesh hounds disappear, herald + letters alongside the building are hit and leave just the herald alive. In the building, herald + letters are reduced to herald + 3 demons. The seraphim and cali who flamed them BOTH fluff their difficult terrain rolls, falling short.

Demons 4
Herald inside the building breaks off from his unit and runs for the sisters who had walked off their hill last turn to cook the hounds, while his bloodletters move to smack some seraphim. The other herald walks the 1" to charge the sisters in front of her.

And finally, combat! The herald from the building kills a handful of girls, but they hold. The other herald manages to kill 1 girl(with 5 S7 WS6 attaks), pathetically taking a wound in return I think. The 3 bloodletters against invulnerable seraphim kill 0-1 (9 attaks should kill 1.67 inv girls, so not THAT bad a fluff), for no loses. Seraphim either don't care or hold.

Sisters 4
Exorcists back up 12", cali moves to assault the letters right next to her. And the cannoness made an appearance and charged the herald near the hill in the back!

In combat, the hill herald put all 4 attaks on the inv 2+ cannoness, punching 3 wounds through her save and instantly killing her. The other girls fluffed but held. The other herald kept smacking with little result, taking another wound. And the 3 bloodletters against inv seraphim did nothing, losing 1 to a seraphim, 1 to the callidus and 1 to No Retreat.

Demons 5
Still alive in Turn 5! The hill herald broke his sisters but didn't catch them (by 1), yet their low retreat put him 1" behind them and set to push them off the table next turn. The other herald may have died this turn, clubbed to death.

Sisters 5
The fleeing sisters were pushed off the table, no chance to rally with enemy too close. And then exorcists and retributers fired down the table and took out the last demonic herald.

SISTERS WIN

That was painful, and confirms most opinions that the Khorne demon army doesn't work well at all. Striking and then having nothing to do but die was rough, and the inv saves from the sisters made combat not even a sure proposition. I don't totally think I made a mistake in trying to overload the side with the heavy guns, but just lost models so much faster than I expected - the initial response from the sisters killed 20 bloodletters, 1 herald and 1 prince easily. If I had dropped in the cover of the other building and went from that flank over I would have avoided the first turn double seraphim response but would have been facing a 24" run into retributers and 2 exorcists, a real nightmare. My mistakes were more in consolidating into LoS of things and sticking heralds with squads with instruments (the least likely place to tie combat!), which were completely minimal.

So ... yuck. I want to play an army with heavy plasma & ant-tank weapons (read: almost all 40k armies), then see how I do. Flamers + heavy bolters were absolutely brutal, and I don't think too many armies besides Sisters take them in such numbers, cause they have other options!

Painting: Nurgle bases
Building: N/A

+ Nurgle Skaven +

2008-06-06T10:10:00.004-04:00

Figured it would be worth posting a shot of what I spent all of May working on. These models make up the redux of my 2000 point Eshin Skaven army, counts as Nurgle as far as modeling goes. The old list wasn't doing it for me, so I retooled and added a load of models. Excited to see how the new army works on the table (hopefully it works at all!), but I've still got basing to do for these guys next week.

Painting: Nurgle bases
Building: Khorne heralds

+ MEGABASH +

2008-06-02T13:07:00.002-04:00

Mmmm, the good old days of "Non-Apoc Apoc" Mega games, with way too many points crammed on one little 6x4 table. Saturday saw one of these gems crop up, after we got tired of playing Specialist Games and packing are 40k armies with us ...

Undivided & Death Guard & Undivided vs Tau & Ultramarines & Guard [6000] So it was chaos marines vs blue tau, blue marines and guard with their tanky friends. Distressing amount of open space between the chaos building bunkers and the Imperial line, but evil cared not.

Highlights from my standard 2000 pointer:

Biker Lord - Tagteamed with Typhus against Ultra assault termies gangbanging 1 demonette, and vaporized them (4 to the biker lord). Next up the two slammed into some ogryn, cleaning all but 1 (2 3-wound ogryn to the biker lord). After finishing the last space ogre, the lone biker of doom left Typhus to eat the IG high command, boosting off and slamming into a lone powerfist vet sarge. Naturally the biker rolled a 1, punched himself in the nuts and was fisted to death.

Deathscreamer Lord - Hung with the shooty CSM and pushed the left flank, accounting for 2-3 crisis suits and breaking the squad off the table. Otherwise not too exciting, peppered guardsmen in heavy cover to little effect.

Plasma Termies - With no targets that didn't involve risky deep striking (that basilisk looked tasty though!), the trio homered in hard left and escorted Typhus into the assault termies. The 2 survivors broke off and beat up a land raider crusader, losing 1 to the assault cannons and then the chainfist when the raider exploded next turn ;D

Dreadnought 'VORN' - Flipped out and killed 3 berzerkers with plasma, survived a railgun from a broadside and returned the favor with his plasma cannon, killing the suit's shield drone and breaking him off the table. Then the dread sucked a guard autocannon and died.

Deadnought 'THE LONER' - Cool headed as always, The Loner didn't flip out but also suffered from lack of targets. Tagged 1 devastator in 4+ cover and was scrapped in retaliation.

Shooty CSM - Escorted the deathscreamer, took many casaulties from the attentions of the tau hammerhead (as usual, the CSM's armor couldn't hold up to all the AP4). Killed next to nothing or nothing themselves, being on the move every turn.

Fisty CSM - Hung back and let the lascannon marine go to work on the IG tanks. Which he did a pretty poor job of, failing to pen the demolisher twice in a row. Once some Ultra assault marines deep struck near them they mobilized to destroy, though embarassingly it took 3 rounds of combat to finally kill the 5 jumpers, as the powerfist whiffed like a pro.

1k Sons - Spent the entire game shooting at 10 guardsmen in 4+ cover, taking a break to kill a tau commander and then (I think) getting taken out by small arms fire. The sorcerer may have lived to suck another game, though.

Noise Marines - It was all blastmaster this game (surprised? Nope, love me that gun), and he ended up trashing a hellhound and a leman russ. Not bad, 160 point dude!

Lesser Demonettes - With a lucky terrain roll they dropped and assaulted a fleeing stealth suit who was waaaay too close for comfort, killing him and locking in with a tau HQ suit. Counterattak by assault termies killed 7 of the 8, but with the help of a couple demon weapons the last girl climbed straight up and assaulted the guardsmen on top, killed a couple before being clubbed to death.

Havoks - Perched atop the highest point on the field, the havoks unfortunately didn't have LOS to the IG tanks on the left flank (due to 12" deployment zone and not wanting to move to the building's lip), leaving them blue marines to hammer. Krak bounced off the Ultra vindicator, just stunning it, then scragged the Ultra dread. The final 2 turns involved my havoks teaming up with the other missile launching chaos havoks and pounding the Ultra command squad. With krak missiles slamming into their building top from the surrounding high rises the squad was gutted down to the commander and his veteran sarge, who vacated the perch to get swarmed by plague marines.

Obliterator - Performed brilliantly, couldn't be happier. First turn tagged the demolisher but couldn't penetrate, but from that start he turned it up a notch. Turn 2, dead demolisher. Turn 3, dead chimera. Turn 4, dead hammerhead (stole the kill from the 3 allied obliterators who dropped right in front and couldn't take it with 3x twin meltas). Turn 5, dead Ultra apothecary across the board. Turn 6, no targets, called it a game.

Defiler - Landed a shot on some ogryn first turn, exploding one of them. Then took a basilisk shell on the head, instantly dying.

CHAOS WIN

The good side held up well, but once we had pushed across No Man's Land it was going to be tough to push chaos back again. The other side got a pretty harsh lesson on demon weapons, and at one point there was the bloodfeeder, the deathscreamer, Typhus' über-manreaper and the undivided demo-gauntlet all cooking within 18" of each other. A thing of beauty, and the bloodfeeder on jugger was indeed on crack, with 18-17-1-16 attaks rolled in all O_O

Painting: 1.7 Jezzails
Building: Khorne Heralds

+ Chaos Tagteam vs Sisters +

2008-05-27T11:39:00.007-04:00

A break from the fantasy painting, and it would be a team up with my CSM's old friends, the Death Guard, against those damn Witch Hunters. Crashed shuttle in the center of the board, objective was to have a scoring unit (or the highest VP if no scorers nearby) on it at 9:30 when it was time to head home.

Undivided & Death Guard vs Witch Hunters [3000] - My army was standard 1500 but with terminators instead of a dread. Death Guard brought Typhus, 4x 7 plague marines (melta, plasma, fist) in rhinos, possessed vindicator. WH were a load of sisters, jump cannoness, big squad of repentia, 3 penitent engines, 2 exorcists, 2 seraphim squads, marine las squad, sniper / ml scout squad, 2 death cult assassins, callidus, combat INQ with big retinue in a land raider, terminator librarian with 5 terminator retinue (2 AC).

In an effort to speed the game up, we played with 5th edition set up / first turn. This meant both sides rolled 1 die, the winner got to choose side / set up everything / go first. The With Hunters won the roll and took it. Chaos set up as usual, with no vehicles really that needed tucking behind terrain. And anyway, we played with 5th edition true LoS, no area terrain height nonsense.

WH 0
My havoks, who had deployed in a perch at the 12" DZ line, were pulled 6" forward by the callidus. Guh.

WH 1
Land raider powered forward 12", dumped out it's INQ team 2" and they got ready to assault my anti-tank marines who had stumbled into range. Penitents also flew foward, just ending up short of the havoks, as did the DCA who just fell short trying to zip through some woods and get in on the action. Seraphim hoped about, and repentia moved toward the assault to come. When the shooting began it fantastically may have accounted for just 1 of my marines, with my ancient power armor standing up to the beating for once. 0-1 plague marine may have died in the opening volley, though 2 rhinos were blasted apart and their squads entangled.

Assault resulted in a couple dead havoks and maybe 1 dead henchman. I'll note here how confusing it is to fight a unit with 7 6+ saves, 2 4+ saves and 1 3+ save (with 3 wounds), took a good amount of time to puzzle through just how trickily he could allocate the wounds.

Chaos 1
The plague marines with mobile transports gunned it forward for maximum carnage, hoping out plaguers right in front of the penitent engines on the right flank and terminators on the left flank. My fisty CSM squad pushed forward to help the havoks out and the obliterator shuffled to tag the land raider, which it managed to only stun with a lascannon. The vindicator let rip on the repentia, but after scatter only nicked a sister or two in another squad. My shooty CSM + deathscreamer + 1k Sons hosed the repentia down to 3 chainsaw girls + mistress + priest, and the blastmaster vapped a seraphim in the squad dangerously close to the big assault in front of my deployment zone. The chicks passed their pin but failed their break, which sent them close to 18" back to their table edge! The plague marines right flank cooked 2 penitent engines, but the left plaguers I don't think had the same luck, as many terminators were still over there.

Time for fighting, and the melee got bigger with the inclusion of my fisty CSM. Another havok died and possibly a CSM, but I think all that happened on my part was possibly a wound on the INQ, or nothing at all. Very confusing, and I guess embarassing result for all my CSM attaks. My fist did nothing.

WH 2
Callidus appears near my shooty CSM squad, claiming 1 marine with her shredder. Broken seraphim rally and the other squad moves in on the plague marines far left by the terminators, who themselves stomp foward to deal with the smelly marines. The repentia hit turbo and go 12" towards the big melee, easily into assault range. Shooting accounted for possibly 1 1k Son, and then a lot of frustration on the Imperium's part as plague marines stubbornly refused to die. A small handful of the stinkers died to most all of the enemy's bolters, assault cannons, exorcists, etc.

Assault saw the penitent engine into the right plague marines (5 left), which ended with a dead marine and a fluffed fist. The seraphim and the terminators hit the left plague marines, splattering the plaguers and knocking off maybe 1/2 of the seraphim squad. The termies massacred half into 4+ cover. The callidus maybe killed 1 marine, but the rest pilled in to kill her next turn. The repentia and both DCA charged into the big beatfest, complicating things further! The priest and a DCA were killed, along with a bunch of henchmen (not the powerfist servitor though), for the loss of several marines.

Chaos 2
Typhus deep struck off a plague squad's homer, who moved around him to be his retinue. My terminator trio struck too, off another homer within rapid fire range of the loyalist terminators, and 12 demons summoned off the fist AC's icon, getting ready to jump on the repentia. But first the oblit pushed forward and multi-melta'd the land raider, which naturally went nuclear, catching all of the demons in it's explosion. Many died, I think 9 of them ... Other shooting was less fantastic after that big show. My plasma termies overheated 3 times (all saved), and accounted for 1 dead loyalist terminator. The 1k Sons maybe killed a couple sisters, and the blastmaster missed the tactical marines. Fire from the death guard messed up the marine scouts, breaking the surviving few out of their 4+ bunker. The vindi scattered off some sisters, and it was time to kill again.

Plague marines pattered off the penitent engine, losing another 1-2 plaguers, as the fist PC couldn't find the on switch to his loveglove. The callidus was indeed beaten to a pulp, leaving 6 CSM in the squad + the screamer. The remaining demons hit the repentia and killed them, the CSM pummeled the last DCA into submission and brutalized the INQ's team. The INQ on her part finished the havoks off, and then chose to pass her break test, sticking all that chaos in place.

WH 3
Seraphim flew around to closer to the action, but otherwise just the terminators moved up to engaged the plague marines + terminators bothering them. Shooting claimed the obliterator to an exocist launcher volley, 2 chaos terminators to divine guidanced bolters and a plague marine or two to assault cannons and bad luck.

At long last, the plague marine champ trashed the last penitent, losing his squad in the process. The CSM fist splattered the INQ finally, leaving 3 members of the fisty CSM (fist, lascannon, flamer) and 3 demons after all that. The librarian and retinue charged the plague marines, but general fluffing meant few losses for either side.

Chaos 3
Deathscreamer joins with the 1k Sons and they inch towards the objective right near them, demons move to threaten either some sisters in a ruins or the rallied seraphim (4 of 6 left). Fisty CSM do likewise, unsure where to commit. The lone plague champ runs for the building sheltering both the tactical marines on the top floors and the exorcist at the bottom. Typhus and friends move and open up on the scouts, finishing them off. The blastmaster explodes a couple tactical marines, but they pass both tests. Combined fire from the shooty CSM and the 1k Sons / deathscreamer cleans out the sisters in the ruins, leaving the fisty CSM to double-flame the seraphim, which results in 1 casualty.

Assault sees the demons into the seraphim, but both sides whiff and the seraphim hit-and-run over towards the 1k Sons. The chainfister chaos terminator charges the loyalist termies, but a lot of nothing happens, leaving the librarian + 2-3 terminators vs chainfist terminator + fist plague champ + a plague marine or so.

WH 4
Both seraphim squads (both at 3) hop over to the center, surrounding the 1k Sons and with the help of the exorcists killing them all off and leaving the deathscreamer all on his own with 2 wounds left. Tactical marines take some pot shots at the lone plague champ but can't get the lascannon into LoS from the top of the building.

The deathscreamer is killed in assault, as the seraphim all popped inv saves to negate the demon weapon. The plague marines are splattered by the terminators, but the chainfister lives on (and bounces off the inv saves of the loyalists).

Chaos 4
Both the shooty and fisty CSM squads converge on the center to hurt the seraphim squads, Typhus and friends push over to pound on the terminators, demons start walking around the back of the exorcist for the hell of it and the lone plague champ enters the building to the side of the exorcist. He levels his plasma pistol and trashes the vehicle! Totally pumped at this, the blastmaster explodes more tactical marines and breaks the squad down from their building. Other fire downs just 1 seraphim of the 6 remaining ...

... but they all die in assault, though the shooty CSM squad is reduced to just a few marines who can't quite make the 5+ cover of the center. The fisty CSM squad however massacre onto the objective. Typhus and crew slam into the terminators, and generally bad rolling all over the place leaves Typhus force weaponed back to hell, some plague marines dead and the librarian with just 1 buddy left, with the chainfister continuing to hack at him.

WH 5
Last turn is called, and there isn't much left for the Inquisition. Tactical marines can't rally with enemy so close, so run off the table. The exorcist starts moving for the middle, detonating the shooty CSM squad into small bits with some help with the last sister squad, over in a 4+ building to the left.

The librarian finally buys it to the chainfist terminator, whom himself sucks powerfist and dies, leaving the plague champ to clean out that last loyaist terminator. The cannoness with jump pack also makes an appearance at last, and charges the fisty CSM squad. Unfortunately she gets a powerfist to the face for her troubles and is removed.

Chaos 5
With nearly everything dead, the noise marines and plaguers take pot shots at the bunkered sister squad but with no luck. The fisty CSM squad on the objective, while no longer scoring, is the only unit within 6" at 9:30 so ...

Chaos Win

This game was mostly marked by those two big battles - one involving the INQ team + 2 DCA + repentia vs havoks + CSM squad + demons and the other with librarian + terminators vs plague marines + plague marines + terminator + typhus - and then a load of short range fire. Of note, this has to be the most turns that both exorcists have been able to fire without interruption, and also the longest string of horrible powerfist rolls I've seen in a long time.

Painting: Jezzails
Building: Khorne Heralds

+ Bregan & The Apostates of Khorne +

2008-05-14T12:33:00.007-04:00

Apologies for the 40k down time, still revamping my nurgle skaven army for fantasy. I hope to get a game of 40k in soon, so should have more exploits of my CSM to post up. I suppose army pics would be in order at some point ...

Bigger news though is getting the old Khorne Demon Legion out of storage and back onto the table soon. Have a handful of models to build (currently in the mail) and then I'm aching to see what the hell these naked bloodletters can do. List is currently:

HQ
Herald of Khorne - juggernought, unholy might, fury of khorne, blessing of the blood god = 135
Herald of Khorne - juggernought, unholy might, fury of khorne = 130
Herald of Khorne - juggernought, unholy might, fury of khorne = 130
Herald of Khorne - juggernought, unholy might, fury of khorne = 130

Troops
8 Bloodletters - icon = 153
8 Bloodletters - icon = 153
8 Bloodletters - fury of khorne = 138
8 Bloodletters - fury of khorne = 138
8 Bloodletters - instrument of chaos = 133
8 Bloodletters - instrument of chaos = 133

Fast Attak
6 Flesh Hounds - Keranak = 125

Total
1498 points
58 models

The old demonbomb version was only defeated once, will the record continue? Or will nearly 0 anti-tank capability shoot the army in the foot? Stay tuned for carnage either way!

Presents from The War Store arrived on Saturday! Stuffed in that box is Bregen himself, Fourth Apostate of Khorne.

Painting: BSB, gutter runner, more nurglings
Building: Keranak

+ This is My Scheming Face +

2008-05-01T08:39:00.000-04:00

Here's an update on what I've been busy with, as it hasn't been too much related to my CSM sadly. I'm really burning to get another game in with them soonish, but in the mean time I've been assembling a rebuild of my 2000 point Eshin Skaven fantasy army, which will hit the painting block in a big way over the next month. I'm also working on the second half of my 2000 point Ogre fantasy army, so that's more painting that isn't black & brown & evil.

However I do intend to get back to my spiky boys after all this fantasy nonsense.
Unpainted I currently have:
- Demon Prince / Greater Demon (carnosaur conversion)
- 8 Possessed w/ MoS
- Land Raider (FW chaos arrow tracks, AL doors)
- 8 Kharn the Betrayer conversions
- Rhino
- Terminator Lord
- Sorcerer w/ jump pack

And these two I'm just waiting on one piece each:
- "Silver Tower" (GW rules here, but I've tweaked them a bit to make it Undivided and cheaper)
- Dreadnought #3

Very excited about the superheavy, but will hold off more commentary until I can blog it's build here ;)

Painting: Nurglings
Building: Balthirster

+ Death By Dice +

2008-04-17T09:11:00.001-04:00

First off, here's the 2000 point list I've been using and intend to use for the next several games. 100% painted, including the FW Death Guard dread that I picked up painted for $40. Little bit of touch up, a rebasing and "Korgoth the Loner" has joined my rampaging crew.

HQ
Chaos Lord - MoCU, demon weapon, bike, icon
Chaos Lord - MoT, deathscreamer, icon

ELITES
3 Terminators - IoCU, 3 combi-plasmas, 2 powerfists, chainfist
Dreadnought - Plasma cannon, heavy flamer, extra armor
Dreadnought - Plasma cannon, extra armor

TROOPS
10 CSM - IoCU, lascannon, flamer, AC w/ powerfist, combi-flamer
10 CSM - IoCU, autocannon, plasma gun, AC w/ power weapon
6 Noise Marines - Blastmaster, sonic blaster
6 1k Sons - AS w/ doombolt
8 Lesser Demons

HEAVY SUPPORT
6 Havoks - IoCU, 3 missile launchers
1 Obliterator
Defiler

TOTAL
1999 points

Threw down with the previous Sisters player last night, and a more depressing game would be hard to find, at least as far as my dice were concerned. I rolled an obscene amount of 1's and 2's, particularly whenever I rolled to hit (3+), wound (3+) or save (3+). If I had a chance to fail, I did. There were a few units who didn't gimp out, but the general feel of the game was one of 'WTF CHAOS COME ON!' ...

Undivided vs Witch Hunters [2000] - Game was VP + 500 points each for having more scoring units within 6" of two objectives mid-field. WH brought a variation of the previous list, this time with: jump cannoness, 2x 7 seraphim, big mob of stormboltery sisters, 2x smaller flamer/melta sisters, INQ w/ 2 heavy bolters, 2 exorcists, 14 repentia, 3 penitents, callidus. Yep, he manned up and took the freak show units :D

Rather than turn by turn, let's break it down by my units:

Biker Lord - Waited a turn, then slammed into the repentia for maximum carnage. Demogauntlet rolled a 1 and he took a wound. Next round, demogauntlet rolled a 1 and he took a wound. The repentia's mistress kindly power whipped him out of his misery. For those keeping track, the biker lord in 3 games has now rolled 1,1,2,6,3,1,2,1,1. 1's 55% of the time ...

Deathscreamer Lord - Hung with the noise marines at first, rolling a 1 for his first volley (and taking a wound of course) and then a 3 shots / 3 hits / 3 wounds the next shooting round. He countercharged some seraphim about mid-game, killing 1 and breaking them, then tore all 3 wounds off of the callidus next round. Following turn he moved up and shot down 1 of the 2 rallied seraphim, then charged and gutted the other one. He died the next turn to 7 bolter wounds, of which I failed to save the 2 needed to drop him.

Terminators - Homered in turn 3, and 6 plasma shots onto some sisters in 5+ cover turned into 2 overheats / 4 hits, which turned into 0 dead termies / 0 dead sisters. 2 termies died to return bolter fire, and the chainfister charged in to pummel some chicks. 2 attaks from the girls = 1 hit = 1 wound = 1 failed save. There was gratuitous celebrating from the WH general but I for one wasn't surprised.

AL Dread - Fire frenzied turn 2 and killed 2 havoks (with the heavy flamer!), then charged in to crunch the cannoness. 3 rounds of invincible 2+ saves later and she was pulp. Then the dread was mashed by all the repentia, cooking 1 after he went nuclear.

DG Dread - Fire frenzied turn 1 and killed 1 1k Son. Plasma did nothing to inv 3+ seraphim, missed a lone meltagun girl or couldn't be shot due to blood rage. In fact, he blood raged twice, so that's 3 of 6 turns that I technically couldn't control him, but that's cool with me. He crunched the meltagunner and stood on the left objective, blood raging out turn 6 to stomp and catch the remainder of the big sister squad, then consolidate back within 6" of the objective. A job well done from my new (adopted) baby.

Fisty CSM - Lascannon vapped one exorcist turn 2, then with seraphim breathing down their neck the squad mobilized and rapid-fired into the chicks ... and killed 1 out of 9 wounds before saves. After 3 flamer templates and a combo-charge from the seraphim and callidus, and with the help of the deathscreamer, 3 CSM emerged triumphant for some late game butchery. With the big sister squad in sight they killed maybe 1 from shooting and then in combat lost 2 CSM to returns from the sisters and then the fist was run down. For the loss of 1 sister after the fist hit with 1 of 4 attaks (on 3+).

Shooty CSM - Moved up into 5+ cover first turn and commenced shooting stuff for the next 4 turns. Autocannon + plasma gun accounted for 2 penitent engines sprinting for them, but then over the next turns of fire only 2-3 sisters were killed total. BUT the plasma gunner did kill himself, so that's something ... Only saving grace was the AC and 2 CSM mobilizing and charging 5 sisters, the CSM totally wiffing but the AC wounding with 4 of his 4 attaks. Girls broke and fled but were shot down in the last turn.

Noise Marines - The theme of bolters being loaded with rubber bullets continued, and with a lackluster showing from the blastmaster the noisy boys didn't accomplish much. Blasted away maybe 2-3 girls from various places and harassed the INQ team. Blastmaster survived but his buddies ate divine bolter death.

1k Sons - First turn, killed 1 sister with 5 inferno shots. Second turn, killed 0 seraphim with 8 inferno shots + 3 doombolts. Then died to flamers and S4 shots.

Demons - Came down turn 2 and I just managed a charge on a group of seraphim after the penitents were wrecked. Seraphim boosted initiative and killed 1 demonette, and then 15 demon attaks = 0 wounds. The seraphim hopped away and the demons were stripped down to 2 demons, who charged the tail end of the big sister squad ... and did nothing with 6 attaks. In fact, with 2 girly attaks the sisters killed 1 demon and popped the other with outnumbering. Sad.

Havoks - Forget what they did first turn, not much I'd guess. Turn 2 kraked the last penitent engine, then were charged by some seraphim. With the help of the defiler 2 missile launcher dudes lived to frag 1 wound on the INQ and frag out the repentia's mistress before succumbing to the storm of eviscerators.

Defiler - Of 3 battlecannon blasts, rolled 0 hits and managed 6,5,2 for scatter. Accounted for I think 3 girls total, then another 3 seraphim in combat (hurr!), and then 1 repentia before being sawed through and detonating 6".

Oblit - Happily hit 5 of 6 shots, repeatedly against the other exorcist. Immobilized / stunned it, then stripped the launcher, then couldn't penetrate or missed, then decided to shoot the INQ team. I'm cool with that, made back his points and kept the exorcist quiet.

In the end, I had The Loner standing near one objective, the oblit and the blastmaster hanging out in some ruins and 3 members of the shooty CSM over in some 5+ cover. WH had the repentia near the other objective and 1 hurting exorcist.

DRAW

At some point I said all my bad rolling was too much like real life - you try hard to get things to work out but then it all goes to hell. Despite pulling a draw out of this game I think I'll be playing fantasy for the next month as I paint ogres ;P

Painting: 2 Leadbelchers
Building: Balrog Bloodthirster

+ Chaos Goes Big Bug Hunting +

2008-04-15T10:08:00.000-04:00

My spiky boys teamed up with their old friends the 1k Sons for a 4000 point game against a massive Nid swarm. With 4 crazy dreads + 1 defiler on our side and 3 combat carnifex + 2 shooty carnifex on his, this was going to be one helluva throwdown.

Undivided & 1k Sons vs Tyranids [4000] I brought my painted 2k, which is basically the standard 1500 plus demo-biker, 3 termies, plasma dread #2 (a FW nurgle one I picked up painted for $40), only 8 demons and the defiler. 1k Sons were sorcerer w/ doombolt & warptime, 5 possessed (furious charge), 2 dreads w/ las, 3x 6 1k Sons w/ wind of chaos in rhinos, 2x 10 demons, 2x loner oblits. And the Nids amassed (lots of upgrades left out, and scuttle on all that could take it):

Flyrant w/ devourers & "3D6 for psyhic tests, drop the lowest" power
Broodlord & friends
2x 4 Warriors w/ devourers & rending
2 Lictors
4x 6 Genestealers
10 Rippers
32 Hormies w/ upgrades
32 Spinegaunts
3 Raveners w/ devourers
2 Gunfex
3 Assaultfex (!!!)
3 Zoanthropes w/ warp blast, synapse
12 Spore mines

Feeling so very outnumbered, the Sons player tossed the die and won us first turn.

Chaos 1 - Sons moved up and most got out, then various shooting tickled big bugs and accounted for maybe 3 genestealers, as he was making cover saves like it was going out of style. My plasma / flamer dread blood raged towards the spine gaunt swarm in front of him, and a 1k Son dread may have gotten pissed too.

Nids 1 - Most everything advanced, except the flyrant cowering at the back and the broodlord in a building right in front of my guns. Smattering of fire stunned the defiler (ha) and immobilized 1 Sons dread. Stealers and hormagaunt mass managed a first turn assault on my 1k Sons, splattering them totally. Stealers consolidated into my biker lord and the hormies spread out and waited to be shot.

Chaos 2 - My demons summoned in and prepared to assault the 32 hormies ... and the shooty CSM squad moved to give the biker lord a hand, as did the fisty CSM to help out the dread with the 32 spinegaunts. Sons moved around some, except for the mobile dread which fire frenzied into the immobile dread and stunned it. Heavy weapon fire wounded a few carnifex, my flamer dread cooked many gaunts and the CSM squad's double flamers accounted for a bunch more. Than I noticed he was pulling from the front to deny me the charge, so held off any more fire on that mob. Noise marines + deathscreamer gutted some stealers that had wandered out of cover, leaving 1. The Sons shot stuff over on their side too but their AP3 was largely going against 2+ armor so can't say how effective that was.

Combat saw the stealers against the biker & marines beaten and caught, for the loss of 2-3 CSM. The 8 demons managed 4 wounds on the hormies (from 24 attaks), and took 7 in return, the last girl popping due to outnumbering. The dread + CSM charged the spinegaunts and cleared their kill zones, pilling in for the long haul. Note that there is 1 genestealer & 1 assault fex nestled in the swarm and ready to counterassault our antiheroes :(

Nids 2 - Hormies moved up to assault my havoks, raveners closed in on my left flank (by the shooty CSM & biker) and broodlord left his bunker over there as well. Flyrant moved from behind her building to get in the game, 1 assault fex ran for the exposed 1k Son sorcerer, rippers readied to pounce on a 1k Son squad far right, 1 assault fex prepped to kill my angry dread, 1 assault fex stomped onto a wrecked shuttle to ... get shot next turn ;D

Spore mines rained all over, accounting for the gun on 1 rhino. Other shooting, I think the flyrant devoured half of a 1k Son squad, and the carnifex missed or didn't amount to much.

Assault time, the hormies dragged down 3 havoks BUT then were beaten by the CSM heavy gunners! They broke but rallied once they hit synapse range (so still just in front of my line). In the big gaunt bash the stealer charged in and might have killed 1 marine, many gaunts died and the carni killed my dread after he missed with his chainfist. The carni, no unengaged, consolidated into some ruins to bask in the 4+ cover. The other assault carni came this close to being force weaponed, but psychic test wasn't passed and the sorcerer was crushed. The rippers barreled into the 1k Sons and the sorcerer in the squad started force weaponing 1-2 swarms a turn.

Chaos 3 - Deep strike! My 3 termies homered in next to the flyrant, 10 demons summoned to assault some more stealers threatening my firebase and then 10 more demons summoned to handle the hormies directly in front of me. The biker lord pushed through some ruins to deal with the raveners and everybody else prepped to kill stuff. Termies opened up and despite 3 overheats knocked the flyrant down to 1 wound, which the nurgle dread took off. Focused lascannon fire from the Sons' dreads and our oblits knocked the assault fex standing on the ruin mid table down to 2 wounds, and my shooty CSM + defiler combined to kill the broodlord's crew down to him + 2 bugs and give the 10 demons nearby just 2 stealers to handle in assault. The deathscreamer, noise marines & havoks trashed the warriors on the left down to just 1 bug.

In combat the biker lord cleared out 2 raveners, taking 1 wound on the return and sticking. Demons easily killed the 2 stealers and massacred into the broodlord, but the other demons slapped against the hormies and lost a distressing number of "horrors" in return, but would stay around with fearless. Over with the spinegaunts the genestealer was punched out and many gaunts died, but were fearless as well, holding my 8 CSM in place again. The possessed furious charged the carni rampaging their lines (who had been wounded a few times by lascannons earlier) and flailed against it to no effect. Finally, more rippers and 1k Sons died.

Nids 3 - Almost everything was locked in combat or shuffled around, except the carni nestled in the ruins which ventured out to kill the 1k Sons near it and the carni on the wreck which stumbled towards the spinegaunt bashfest. 2 lictors appeared in my fire bunker, both declaring an assassination on my deathscreamer lord! A gunfex stunned my nurgle dread, and more spore mines rained down doing nothing of note.

Starting things off, the biker lord splattered the last ravener and masscred towards the Nid backfield. The 9 demons fighting the broodlord killed his buddies and took some loses in return. Demons fighting the hormies sucked it up and were knocked down to 2 demons vs 5 hormies. the 2 lictors allocated all against the deathscreamer, tearing him down to 1 wound left; one lictor died in return. 4 rending warriors charged into the fisty CSM fighting the gaunts, dropping a few CSM for the loss of more gaunts and a warrior. The lurking carni obliterated the 1k Son squad and massacred back into his ruin. The possessed slapped at the carni, but they must have been having some luck as it was killed somehow and they were free at 3 models. And more rippers died in the tarpit combat.

Chaos 4 - Biker lord gunned it for a zoanthrope lurking backfield near the left gunfex and nurgle dread hide to get his gun back online. Over in 1k Son Land the possessed moved to take care of a wounded zoanthrope near the other gunfex. Havoks kraked the last warrior on the left and may have nicked some wounds off a gunfex or bounced off the carni in the ruins. Sporadic las fire took the wreck carni down to his last wound.

Biker lord easily butchered the zoanthrope and massacred into the left gunfex, feeling pretty good about himself. The demons fighting the broodlord did nothing and the 'lord may have killed a demon, beginning a long line of sad combat phases. The other "horrors" were eaten by the hormies, freeing them to hunt my oblit next turn. The remaining lictor didn't fare as well, being wounded by the noise marines and sent running. The spinegaunts were wiped out and the warriors trashed as well, taking 3 fist wounds ftw (they must have lost a member prior to this to some kind of shooting), though the CSM had been reduced to just McFisterson and his 2 buddies in the process. The possessed knocked the zoanthrope down a wound and more rippers died.

Nids 4 - Once again not much to move for the bugs. The wreck carnifex stormed towards the fisty CSM remnants and the hormies ran for the oblit. The remaining unengaged gunfex didn't do much, maybe bothered the 1k Son dreads some. And the lictor rallied.

Combat began with the biker lord rolling a 1 but avoiding a wound, and the gunfex missing him. The broodlord maybe killed a horror but the horrors did nothing back of note. The hormies slammed into the oblit and got 1 through his armor, losing a bug in return and tying combat up. The assault fex hit the fisty CSM squad, killed all but the AC and lost his last wound in return to the powerfist. The possessed gutted the zoanthrope and massacred the 4" into the other gunfex by it. And more rippers died.

Chaos 5 - Nurgle dread blood raged and stomped over to help the oblit out. The fisty AC ran for it but couldn't reach the gunfex with the biker lord. Shooting bounced off the carni in the ruins and the noise marines exploded the wounded lictor.

The broodlord / demon fight was basically a wash, leaving 2 demons left. The biker / carni both whiffed against each other as well, but the oblit died to the hormies, who in turn were stomped and caught by the nurgle dread, who massacred towards middle table. The possessed began writhing against the gunfex and more rippers died.

Nids 5 - The lurking carni left his ruins and went to kill him some blue dreadnoughts ...

The broodlord finished off the horrors through outnumbering the last one, then stood looking down the barrels of my shooty CSM squad. The biker fluffed for the last time and was pulped by the gunfex at last, the other gunfex killed 1 possessed bothering it and the assault fex was killed by the dread that he had charged. Gooooo dread! Also, the last ripper base died at long last, leaving the sorcerer and 1-2 rubrics.

Chaos 6 - Time to mop things up. Nurgle dread blood raged a second time and charged for the gunfex, and looked like he could make it after a strong fleet roll got him onto the wreck the bug had massacred onto. McFisterson also took off running to close with the gunfex. Chaos fire saw the broodlord riddled with bolters and plasma, and then all my AP3 bounce off of the gunfex.

McFisterson slammed into the gunfex, went simul with his fist but couldn't wound the T7, getting pasted in return. The dread rolled 2" instead of the 5" he needed, so stood oozing goo and looking menacingly at the gunfex ahead of him. Some 1k Sons shuffled into combat with the gunfex, failing to force weapon it and losing another possessed in the process.

Nids 6 - Being a good sport, the gunfex moved forward and didn't feel the need to shoot the nurgle dread. Which may have been a mistake, as the dread carved off the big bug's last 2 wounds! The 1k Sons were less successful, everybody fluffing over in their combat with the other gunfex.

Nearly a tabling but definitely a ...

Chaos Win

"Bugs of the Match" goes to the 32 hormies for me, having killed 18 lesser demons, 3 havoks & 1 oblit by themselves, in addition to helping take out the 6 1k Sons first turn. Damn impressive, little gaunts.

Otherwise pleasantly surprised to have 2 dreads + the defiler survive the game in tact, 1 dread immobilized and 1 dread dead. And only 1-2 fire frenzies! Well behaved, crazy dreads.

Tomorrow, I fight the Sisters again, this time with no raider along for the ride.

Painting: 2 Ogre Leadbelchers
Building: N/A

+ The Girls Are Famous! +

2008-04-07T14:58:00.000-04:00

Four of my demonettes appear in the newest issue of Firebase magazine! About to be molested by Snikrot and his posse, no less! I am truly a proud papa.

Painting: Defiler
Building: N/A

+ 2000 Points of Sisters Facebeat +

2008-04-04T08:36:00.000-04:00

Yesterday had my first game against Witch Hunters and also my first game at 2000 points. My army was the 2k list posted earlier, and the table was made up of several large sand dunes (5+ cover), a marshy patch (5+ difficult terrain) and a ruin in the very center that was the objective at Turn 6.

Undivided vs Witch Hunters [2000] - His Sisters were cannoness (S5, inferno pistol, jump pack), elite INQ w/ shooty retinue (2 heavy bolter, 1 plasma cannon), 6 dominions (3 melta, 1 flamer) in immolator (heavy flamers), callidus assassin (!), 13 sisters (3 storm bolters), 2x 10 sisters (melta, flamer), 2x 6 seraphim (2x flamers, 1 w/ power sword, 1 w/ eviscerator), 8-10 retributers (3 multi-melta, 1 heavy bolter), 2x exorcists.

WH 0 - Callidus pulls the shooty CSM squad + deathscreamer lord up out of the dunes they were in and towards the center of the table, putting them closer to the objective ... and many guns.

WH 1 - 10 strong sisters squads push forward, dominions cruise forward in their tank and hop out in easy range of the shooty CSM squad, and seraphim squads both move up behind the immolator and central objective, with the cannoness hanging out between them. Shooting - divine and otherwise - kills the shooty CSM squad down to lord + 4 dudes (AC, plasma, 2 bolters) and the fisty CSM squad down to 6 dudes. Dominions totally flopping helped me out.

Chaos 1 - Dread fire frenzies, and the 1k Sons right in front of him try to shuffle away but only get 4" from him. Oblit gets LoS to left exorcist, biker lord boosts over from the right flank to the middle (hugging cover for a counter charge later), deathscreamer lord joins the 1k Sons and remnants of the shooty CSM move up to assault the seraphim near the objective. 1k Sons + lord target 10 sisters getting ready to push through the marsh, but the robots fail and the doombolt is shut down by the sisters' psychic save thing. The deathscreamer says 6! though and 4 sisters die. The blastmaster crunches the dominions down to 2 (meltas), breaking them back several inches - note that they failed their '3+ inv save' act. Raider scoots over 6" but misses the exorcist with 1 twin las. Then Oblit zaps the launcher off one exorcist and the fisty CSM lascannon kills the other one, and havoks triple krak the smoked immolator but only manage to shake it. And the dread killed 4 1k Sons ...

In assault the CSM smacked against the seraphim but the power weapon AC killed all 4 chicks in the kill zone, including the eviscerator. The seraphim broke 10" away and the CSM consolidated into the 4+ ruins objective.

WH 2 - He popped the 'fearless' act to rally the dominions and seraphim, and the callidus showed up over in my fire support right flank, right next to noise marines. Immolator tank shocked the 1k Sons + lord, who shrugged and stepped next to it, and the wounded exorcist tanked forward towards the oblit / fisty CSM. Full seraphim squad + cannoness hoped up to blast the 1k Sons + lord, deathscreamed sister squad stumbled into the marsh 2" and other 10 sister squad moves up some. Divine guidance on the big sister squad splattered the CSM remnants in the ruins, INQ plasma cannon finishes off the 1k Sons, and callidus' shredder does jack to the noise marines.

Seraphim and cannoness smack into the lord, and despite popping +2 Init and 2+ inv save the cannoness does nothing and the lord ignores her and kills 2 seraphim. The seraphim hit & run over by the dread, leaving the cannoness on her own. The callidus kills 3 noise marines and gets punched in the face for her trouble (yea Init 5), taking 1 wound.

Chaos 2 - No deep strike, and dread blood rages ... towards the seraphim 3" in front of him. Oblit shuffles around, raider parks up on the dunes to get some guns on the retributors, and it's on to shooting. Oblit + fisty CSM knock the sisters in the marsh down to 2 (melta, flamer), havoks frag and bolter the big sister squad for 0-1 dead girls and raider removes a couple retributors.

Dread charges the seraphim, who get 1 krak through but to no avail, and kills 1. They hold and then hit & run over towards the havoks. The deathscreamer can't get through the cannoness' 2+ inv save and takes a wound in return. Noise marines club the callidus down for no loses.

WH 3 - Seraphim move to flame the havoks, dominion remnant moves up, seraphim remnant moves up, exorcist rumbles towards the oblit, marsh sisters zip 6" towards the dread, retributors move from the flank towards the center, immolator scoots 6" to cook the fisty CSM. Which it does, for 1 marine, and the INQ team plasmas them down to 3 (AC, flamer, las). Various combined fire on the havoks strips out the bolter marines. The marsh meltagun hits the dread ... and does nothing.

Seraphim kill 1 havok in assault and tie them up in combat, losing 1 girl in return. Cannoness continues to deny the lord and puts another wound on him.

Chaos 3 - Lesser demonettes summon down almost dead center off the deathscreamer's icon and the termies strike 6" from the retributors, scattering 10-11" towards the right table edge but still within rapid fire range. Dread keeps his cool and advances to stomp the 2 sisters in the marsh, oblit stomps within 12" of the exorcist and fisty CSM squad move off the dune to crump the immolator in combat. And the biker lord guns his bike 12" to charge the 10 strong sister squad at last ... Termi plasma rips into the retributors (4 wounds) and raider finishes the last girl off, and the blastmaster explodes 1-2 girls from the big squad - and they're PINNED. Dread plasmas off 1 girl but holds his heavy flamer so he can have some assault fun. Oblit fires a multi-melta for the first time ever, detonating the exorcist on a 6.

Fisty CSM follow that up by detonating the immolator on a 6 (taking no wounds from the explosion), but exposing themselves to an easy INQ plasma cannon template next turn. Dread rolls the 2" he needs and creams the melta sister. With the Sisters out of faith, the deathscreamer lord tears all 3 wounds off the cannoness at once and massacres 4" towards the biker's combat. And he'll need the help, as he rolls a 1 for the demogauntlet and hits himself in the nuts for 1 wound ... Girls do nothing in return and pack in. Havoks lose another CSM to the seraphim, who hit and run near the noise marines. Over in the center, the summoned demons make assault with the 2 dominions, killing 1 (with 12 wounds caused), breaking the last chick, catching her and consolidating into the seraphim.

WH 4 - Seraphim hop to flame the noise marines, and everybody else is pinned, engaged or ready to shoot. And the INQ does that, using the plasma template on the bunched up fisty CSM and finishing them. Seraphim do nothing to the noise marines.

In assault the seraphim carve the noise marines down to the blastmaster, losing only 1 girl in return. The sisters fighting the biker use the faith from the cannoness' death to call on divine guidance, but the only 6 is saved by the biker's aura. BUT ONCE AGAIN the demogauntlet rolls a 1, the wound thankfully saved by the 5+ aura. Back in the center, the seraphim kill 1 demon but are torn apart, giving the demons the 4" massacre to contact the big pinned sister squad in the center ...

Chaos 4 - Dread controls himself, termies start the long stomp back to the action and deathscreamer prepares to help the biker out. Templates from the oblit, dread and havok account for 2 pointless wounds to the INQ team.

The deathscreamer lord charges in ... and rolls a 1, but takes no wound. Biker lord is feeling better and smacks some girls dead, but they hold. Demons kill their kill zone of 3, the sisters hold and the 9 demons swarm in. Seraphim kill the blastmaster.

WH 5 - Seraphim hop over to the last havok and bolter him down. INQ team immobilizes the dread with a lucky plasma shot. Deathscreamer and biker lords rip into the sisters, who break and are caught. The demons chew up their sisters and catch them when they break.

With just the inquisiton team and 2 seraphim left, the Witch Hunter player concedes as 9 demons dance about the objective.

Chaos Win

So lesser demons won me the game hands down, securing the middle despite all my attempts to get my stuff away from it. Second place would have to go to the blastmaster for pinning that squad in place for that critical turn, and possibly third to the CSM lascannon guy for making that shot and taking the exorcist out first turn. Last place goes to the land raider, though the demo-biker is close with those 2 angry weapon rolls in a row!

And with that, I've decided to return to painting the defiler and let the raider languish a bit. She did sooo little for her 240 points, and while the defiler will die every game he'll toss out at least 1 big template most times and give out only 150 points when he bites it!

Painting: Defiler
Building: Dread?

+ Termi Drop Team Is Go +

2008-04-01T23:05:00.000-04:00

Not as fresh as the biker, this termi plasma trio was painted in the last weeks, sealed with a LOT of gloss varnish and then dullcoted back to sanity. Still shiny, but I can handle it, they're just that special.

3 Terminators - IoCU, 3 combi-plasmas, 2 powerfists, 1 chainfist

Occasionally the chainfister is an AC if I have the points. They just have plasma pistols because a) it looks cool, and b) I figure their lifespan is so short that they will nearly always strike down, plasma something, then either die to return fire or be assaulted and fist something.

And I agree, the tusks are really unsatisfying. I tried inking them, and tried drybrushing them, but the detail on the model and my skills weren't up to it, so plain whitewashed tusks it was. A pity, but ah well.

Painting: Land Raider
Building: Dread 2

+ Biker Lord Rides At Last +

2008-04-01T12:34:00.000-04:00

Pics are pretty poorly lit, but the man is done and awaiting dullcote ...

Painting: Land Raider?
Building: Dread #2?

+ Tau Beatdown / Chaos Suckfest +

2008-03-30T16:45:00.000-04:00

On the heels of a 3000 point ogre victory on Friday, played 1500 point rematch against my favorite Tau opponent. My list was the standard 1500, except with 3 plasma termies in place of the dread or noise champ. Yep, first game of chaos with no dreadnought - I shoulda seen this coming ...

Undivided vs Tau [1500] - He brought shas'o + 2 crisis (fusion / missiles / targeting array), 3 deep strike crisis (fusion / plasma), 2x 12 fire warriors in warfish, railhead, ionhead, 3x sniper teams. We used the 5th ed LoS rules, so all real LoS + cover saves are extended to the target if LoS crosses the terrain. Vehicles get cover saves too, no more hull down.

I bunkered into one tall ruin center of my zone, with havoks on top floors, then noise marines mid-level and fisty CSM on the bottom floor. Then I stuck the shooty CSM + lord into a small ruin to the left of the main bunker (Mistake #1). 1k Sons deployed to the right of the bunker, in the open as usual. Tau deployed warfish, railhead (behind left building), snipers (in left building), warfish (behind mid ruins), snipers (in mid ruins), ionhead (behind trees), snipers (in right ruins). Chaos took first turn, and the suck began.

My heavy weapons let me down hard, though admittedly all of my dice were really not feeling it today. My armor saves were abysmal, particularly the invincible ones - 1k Sons were hit with 5 plasma/fusion wounds in Turn 3, and made 1 of their 4+ saves, for example. Horrible, but not as bad as the track record for my few tank breakers:

Obliterator - Turn 1, couldn't see snipers. 2, missed railhead. 3, missed railhead. 4, missed warfish. 5, missed warfish TWICE with twin meltagun. 6, hit and killed the fish with meltagun.
CSM Lascannon - Turn 1, moved up. 2, missed ionhead. 3, hit railhead but rolled 1 for pen. 4, hit ionhead but rolled 1 for pen. 5, hit ionhead but rolled 2 for pen. 6, missed railhead.
Blastmaster - Turn 1, couldn't see snipers. 2, couldn't see snipers. 3, missed railhead. 4, missed crisis team. 5, hit crisis team and killed 0. 6, hit crisis team and killed 1.

Another low point was my drop termies ripping the sniper team apart with plasma (90 points, w00t), then assaulting the railhead nearby. 9 fist attaks = 0 hits. Yuck, and I think I should have gone for the big payoff and struck near the Tau HQ hiding behind a building and JSJ-ing with missile pods all game, instead of mid-board where they could die to tanks (Mistake #2).

Add to this that I summoned the girls right in front of the railhead (Mistake #3) with nothing to charge and nothing to do but die. So they did, to the railhead next turn.

And during the game I managed to break 4 models by knocking them off my central tower. Blerg.

Chaos Loss

Bringing me to 2-1-2 vs the blue/white Tau.

Painting: Biker Lord
Building: Dread 2?? Shockingly FW may have sent the rest of the dread my way!

+ 2000 FTW +

2008-03-25T10:26:00.000-04:00

With the FW parts I need for dread #2 nowhere in sight, I've had to change a few things in the 2k list. Thing is, I think it gets better with the extra lesser demonette bodies to accompany the termi / biker forward icons or save somebodies bacon with a counter-summon-charge.

HQ
Chaos Lord - MoCU, demon weapon, bike, icon
Chaos Lord - MoT, deathscreamer, icon

ELITES
3 Terminators - IoCU, 3 combi-plasmas, 2 powerfists, AC w/ chainfist
Dreadnought - Plasma cannon, heavy flamer, extra armor

TROOPS
10 CSM - IoCU, lascannon, flamer, AC w/ powerfist, combi-flamer
10 CSM - IoCU, autocannon, plasma gun, AC w/ power weapon
6 Noise Marines - Blastmaster, sonic blaster
6 1k Sons - AS w/ doombolt
10 Lesser Demons

HEAVY SUPPORT
Land Raider - Demonic possession
6 Havoks - IoCU, 3 missile launchers
1 Obliterator

TOTAL
2000 points

That drops my painting load a bit too, leaving just the biker lord and land raider to make it happen. Ha, "just" and "land raider" in the same sentence ...

Painting: Biker Lord
Building: N/A

+ APOC III +

2008-03-19T09:17:00.000-04:00

Last Saturday we held our third APOC game, and this was a much more sane affair with limited points and players. 12 players, 2500 points each, hypothetical cap on superheavies but since they came from your total points we only saw 1 baneblade per side. Game was run for 6 turns, with the winning side being the one with the most of 3 objectives.

Undivided & Death Guard & Undivided & 1k Sons & Iron Warriors & Black Legion vs Crimson Fists & Black Templars & Witch Hunters & Ultramarines & Black Templars & Armored Company [15000] Game more or less started as a series of face offs across 3 boards arranged in a giant L shape: Death Guard vs Crimsons Fists, Undivided vs Templars, my Undivided vs Witch Hunters, Black Legion vs Witch Hunter / Ultras, Iron Warriors vs Ultras / Armored Co. The 1k Sons awaited in orbit to dreadclaw in, and the other Templars did likewise in their drop pods.

The Sons ended up slamming down by the Fists / Templars, reinforcing the beleagured Undivided marines being ground up by the mechanized Templars and ultimately claiming an objective with a mass of horrors, dread and greater demon.

The podding Templars hit the IW, which was unfortunate as he had his hands full with all the tanks already. The FW GUO popped in over there and wrecked everything he touched though, so that was something but not enough as the Armored Co. baneblade destroyed the IW baneblade and claimed the objective.

My boys in the corner pounded the Sisters in a massive 4+ bunker across from them, eventually butchering them with the help of 8 lesser demonettes and a rampaging demon princess. Of note here was the effort that the Sons and my lads put into silencing the 2 hoods on the enemy team - only after these were down could we get anything through, which worked out for me as the demosaurus could start warptiming herself through stuff (but not through the Sisters' 3+ inv saves). The biker lord made his first appearance, getting a first turn charge against 5 GK terminators and claiming 3-4 of them before falling, and my drop termies likewise showed up, striking in and plasma-ing an Ultra bike squad apart before being dismembered. But back to the corner, my dread took a powerful stand on the objective turn 4, only to be killed by seraphim in combat for his bravado / anger. The girls were blasted away and in the last turn my raider powered over and claimed the objective for the dark gods.

With 2 objectives to the Imperium's 1, it looked like another ...

Chaos Win

... though at the end of the game Chaos had secured one wing of the L - only a few Templar characters left vs hordes of Tizz demons and plague marines - and the Armored Co & remnants of the Ultras had locked down the other wing (aside from Fatty rampaging towards them). With my lads in the middle, we would have had a serious shelling to look forward too.

Painting: Biker Lord
Building: Ogre Tyrant

+ Bored: 2k Caveat +

2008-03-07T11:11:00.000-05:00

Last night was pounded by a different set of wood elves, which finally punched me out of fantasy mode and back into wanting to kill things with chaos in the grimdark future again. Also want to build something, but the boys have most everything I've got for them, except that biker lord I started ...

HQ
Chaos Lord - MoCU, demon weapon, bike
Chaos Lord - MoT, deathscreamer

ELITES
3 Terminators - IoCU, 3 combi-plasmas, 2 powerfists, chainfist
Dreadnought - Plasma cannon, heavy flamer, extra armor
Dreadnought - Missile launcher, heavy flamer, extra armor

TROOPS
10 CSM - IoCU, lascannon, flamer, AC w/ powerfist, combi-flamer
10 CSM - IoCU, autocannon, plasma gun, AC w/ power weapon
6 Noise Marines - Blastmaster, sonic blaster, NC w/ power weapon
6 1k Sons - AS w/ doombolt

HEAVY SUPPORT
Land Raider - Demonic possession
6 Havoks - IoCU, 3 missile launchers
1 Obliterator

TOTAL
2000 points

Poor DP, she hasn't even seen a real game and she's already getting swapped out! She may be tough (4 T5 wounds with 3/5+ save) but walking bites, and she ain't getting wings with the model I want to use for her. Biker lord can be way faster, particularly on the counter-charge, and the demon weapon makes for a mean assault - 6 to 10 S5 attaks on the charge (or 1 auto-wound and then stupidity). Wish I could get him an icon to bring up the termies or a meltabomb to go hunt tank, but there really isn't 5 points to cut in this list.

Painting: Terminator #2
Building: Biker Lord

+ A Tiny Taste +

2008-03-03T12:05:00.000-05:00

After pounding tree spirits with my ogres on Saturday, I jumped in for a quick 3v3 marine throwdown. Chaos vs Imperium, a nice taste of APOC III in a mere 12 days from now ...

Undivided & Death Guard & Iron Warriors vs Ultramarines & Black Templars & Grey Knights [8000] - Just 1500 from me, with the knowledge that I'd only be there for 1.5 hours before I had to jet. Deployed 1k sons in the open, dread in some rocks, fisty CSM, noise marines and havoks in a building, oblit behind a building for walk-and-zap, and lord + shooty CSM in some ruins across from grey knights. Mechanized Black Templars were across from the bulk of my army, about dead center of the 4x12 table.

After weathering Templar fire with very minimal casaulties, my boys accounted for one stunned tornado, 1 dead dread (mine was stunned first turn), and a bunch of dead GK.

Loyalist second turn fire cost me 1 havok bolter, 4 noise marines, 4 1k sons and 2 shooty CSM. In return the blastmaster exploded 5 clumped up deepstruck assault marines and 1k sons reduced the squad to just the fist - which killed 2 1k sons when assaulted and lived on. More GK died and an autocannon/lascannons pred was kraked. And my dread went apeshit and shot up plague marine allies, accounting for none of them after FNP.

Then my boys had to evac. Chaos would go on to lose the game, largely to the 5000 points of Grey Knights (including Stern + Grand Master) and the mysterious loss of 1500 points in allies o_O

Chaos Loss

Painting: 3 Terminators
Building: Giant Troll

+ 2000 On the Horizon +

2008-02-25T11:45:00.000-05:00

If it weren't for forge world being ridiculously slow and me more interested in fantasy, I'd already be at 2000 with the boys in black. All the same, we're getting close to bringing in the toys for some bigger battles.

HQ
Chaos Lord - MoT, deathscreamer
Demon Prince - MoS, warptime, icon

ELITES
3 Terminators - IoCU, 3 combi-plasmas, 2 powerfists, chainfist, AC
Dreadnought - Plasma cannon, heavy flamer, extra armor
Dreadnought - Missile launcher, heavy flamer, extra armor

TROOPS
10 CSM - IoCU, lascannon, flamer, AC w/ powerfist, combi-flamer
10 CSM - IoCU, autocannon, plasma gun, AC w/ power weapon
6 Noise Marines - Blastmaster, sonic blaster, NC w/ power weapon
6 1k Sons - AS w/ doombolt

HEAVY SUPPORT
Land Raider - Demonic possession
6 Havoks - IoCU, 3 missile launchers
1 Obliterator

TOTAL
2000 points

Painting: N/A
Building: Ogres

+ Fantasy Break = Tau Death +

2008-02-25T11:25:00.000-05:00

Been heavy into fantasy for about the last month, gaming with my nurglings and got my ogres painted up to 1000 at long last. Finally took a blast into the future to have a rematch vs those persistant Tau, and was nice to see the evil marines on the table again.

Undivided vs Tau [1500] - Chaos was the usual 1500, with the girls not the defiler. Tau was shas'el, 2x 3 crisis (plasma / fusion), 2x 12 fire warriors, 6 pathfinders + warfish, railhead, ionhead, 3x sniper teams. Note the lack of xenos buddies and the mass of points in the vehicles.

Chaos won first turn and commenced to roll very well for hits and only decently for wounds (many 1's). Break down by unit:

Lord - deathscreamer buzzed down a couple fire warriors, killed and broke a sniper team and took a wound to try to keep the noise marines he was with scoring

Dread - plasma missed, then he was shaken a bunch and killed by both deep striking crisis teams

Fisty CSM - shot twice all game, 1 lascannon that missed a fire warrior and 1 lascannon that killed the ionhead

Shooty CSM - took a lot of damage from railhead (because I didn't move them into cover first turn), autocannon proceeded to kill a couple fire warriors and down the railhead with double glances, proving that the AC marine is the freaking man

1k Sons - died like always, but not before killing 2 sniper drones and killing/breaking a crisis team (which means they actually made their 185 points back for once)

Noise Marines - blastmaster killed some fire warriors, but then they proceeded to get knocked below half while trying to escort the lord into kill range of the JSJ crisis suits

Lesser Demonettes - summoned in, lost 5 to pulse rifles but then tore 12 fire warriors apart, then ran toward the remaining fire warrior squad and the three girls who survived pulse fire ate those tau as well

Havoks - fragged a few fire warriors in rocks, shook the ionhead and then had no more targets the rest of the game

Oblit - shook the railhead, then became slow and purposeless and played no further part in the game

Chaos Win*

Brings me to 2-0-2 against these blue + white tau boys

*Things looked a lot like a draw, but my elite CSM really pack in the points and with partial squads surviving I had outkilled the xenos scum

+ DEATH BY DEATH +

2008-01-28T10:35:00.000-05:00

The Anarcho boys have been busy in the last 1+ months, so a recap to update ya'll.

RTT back in December was a good 3 games for $5, but I think I prefer more relaxed one off games a little better meself (we had 2.5 hours for each game, but my longest match lasted 1.5 hours):

Undivided vs Iron Warriors [1500] - Game was Cleanse, on the lava board. We both dinked heavy weapons at each other, losing vehicles and the odd marine. His T6 demon prince got behind my lines and chewed along, and try as I might I could only strip 3 of its 4 wounds off with lucky 6's, giving the IW a minor victory. Dread was up to its usual shenanigans, losing his plasma cannon and then fire frenzying twice in a row, gutting the demon squad with righteous zeal.

Chaos (Undivided) Loss

Undivided vs Necrons [1500] - Game was Kill Everything, on a table covered in small ruins. We both deployed heavy to opposite flanks, with a few units mid and far to play with each other. My dice were HOT, and I shot the demon squad into 1 of 3 spyders in turn 2, ate it and then continued eating necrons in combat (with no power weapons, just 36 attaks) until the lord and flayed ones charged in late game. End game had us facing off across the table largely out of range, but massive point skew in my favor. Dread fire frenzy once in turn 6, but my CSM made their 4+ cover save against his sneaky bid to help the robots.

Chaos Win

Undivided vs Necrons [1500] - Game was Suicide Squad, and I elected my 1k Sons as they live an average of 1.7 turns every game. He picked 10 warriors, and that was the only squad I destroyed all game (though I dropped the monolith second turn). I only managed a handful of immortals and warriors, worth no points ultimately, and had everything but my lord, demons and armless dread gaussed to small pieces. Painful lesson in how tough 'crons can be.

Chaos Loss

Clearly did only so-so in the RTT, but wasn't in it to win it given how my CSM army is built.
A few weeks later I teamed up with the 1k Sons again to take on the New Orks @ 3000 points, and left the girls at home to fit the defiler and its battlecannon into the mess.

Undivided & 1k Sons vs Orks [3000] - Going up against 3k of greenskins we expected to be outnumbered 3-4x, but then when the cases opened the backbone of the ork horde was a dreadbash! 2 deff dreads, 9 killa kans, all under a kustom force field! But then there was a pretty decent waaagh behind them: 30 sluggas, 2 trukk mobs, biker boss, full lootas, SAG mek, Old Zogwort, max stormies, load of grots, 3 lobbas, 3 koptas ... So we were still outnumberd 2 to 1 ;D

Chaos got first turn and the defiler opened up and crunched a trukk mob, rolling a 6 on the ordnance damage chart and vaporizing the trukk and crew. The radius wrecked 7 stormies and made things better in general. From there we shot orks, they shot us and moved forward, and the game hung in the balanace as the few Chaos elites dwindled and the dreadbash showed no signs of stopping. The 1k Sons 3x 10 demon squads hammered into the sluggas + Zogwort, grinding them until Zog teleported them away, which let the demons eat the lobbas and then lock the lootas for the rest of the game.

Rest of the game dealt some lethal blows to the Orks, with the stormies being shot to death (after eating my dread, who stupidly raged forward first turn to help them out), the T6 biker boss eventually being force weaponed by the 1k Son commander, and Old Zog teleporting away again only to have his sluggas stripped off and himself shot to bits. End game saw the 2 Chaos commanders pounding grots as the remnants of the dreadbash either smashed up my shooty CSM squad or died to the fist in the combaty CSM squad. Orks called it game then, though it was a bloody one for both sides.

Chaos Win

The Anarchonquistadores have also taken part in 2 Apocalypse games as well, one at 30,000+ per side and the newest at 50,000+ per side. The next post should cover my part in those fiascos, which mostly involves fielding 8 Kharn the Betrayers and watching the mayhem unfold.

Painting: Yhetees
Building: Dread #2

+ Karnage Kontinues +

2007-12-10T14:12:00.000-05:00

Another two weeks, another two throwdowns, and the tourny this Sat should be Mayhem x3.

Undivided & 1k Sons vs Eldar [2500] - The prism Eldar were back in full force: biketarch + spears; spidertarch + 10 spiders; 10 harlies; 10 hawks; some scorpions; 4x 6 pathfinders; 3x loaded prisms. My chaos was as before, less the 1k Sons, and teamed up with 1200 points of fledgling 1k Sons: jump warptime/doombolt sorc; 3x 7 Sons + warptime sorc in rhinos; las dread.

Deployment had me on the left and Sons to the right, with smattering of pointy ears across from us (but lots of bad in front of Sons). Eldar were catty and redeployed away from my firebase and to the killy flank, leaving just 3 squads of snipers and a prism to be eradicated by my whole army. Meanwhile, the Sons boosted forward, hoped out and gunned down some clowns, 1 spear and the other sniper unit. In retaliation the harlies and spears killed his army out from under him, leaving all the nasty zooming into my corner, though less 1 spear and 7 harlies.

My boys bunkered up in some ruins and prepared for it, but then the dread flipped out twice in a row (!) and accounted for a few marines and a wound on the deathscreamer. From here the Eldar were either move-shoot-moving or hit-and-running behind a wall of terrain and wrecked rhinos, meaning I lost anything that tried to engage them and had no shots in return. The havoks fell early to harlies, then the defiler fleeted in and charged the clowns, only to be haywired (which I learned afterwards they don't have!). The deathscreamer pushed out and made contact with the last 3 harlies, but disaster struck and he rolled a 1 for the demon, which meant the clowns flipped away and killed more marines and the spiders razored the man to death.

Around Turn 12 the game ended with the last of the noise marines and fisty CSM holed up some ruins, with everything killy zipping in from all sides. A heroic last stand, but not much else.

Eldar Win

Undivided vs Tau [1500] - Time to test out some Tau tournament options, specifically: loner shas'o w/ drone; 2x 3 suicide crisis suits (fusion/flamer & fusion/plasma); 5x stealths; 8 pathfinders w/ warfish; 2x 12 fire warriors; 6 vespid; 3x sniper teams. My chaos cracked their knuckles and faced off. He deployed all 3 sniper teams on one half of the table, so I heavy deployed to the other side, leaving just the dread to handle that side. Amazingly, my faith was not misplaced ...

Tau started, and scrapped most of the 1k Sons and a couple of the fisty CSM squad advancing hard right with the deathscreamer. Chaos retaliated by vaporizing the vespid in front of the fisty squad, and then having the dread fire frenzy into some fire warriors in ruins (I had blocked LOS from the dread to my army just in case). 2 plasma shots later and 10 (!) blue xenos were toast. The dread went on to kill a sniper team in 1 shot, break another the next turn, and stomp a last squad to paste in Turn 6. Hooah!

Elsewhere things weren't necessarily so cheery. Suicide suits killed the defiler after it had killed 1 fire warrior, then were pummeled by the obliterator's fists. Other suits dropped and wasted 7/10 of the shooty CSM squad then were hacked up in combat, and the Sons were easily whipped Turn 2 (though sucked up two failed target priority tests in a row). The fisty squad + lord kept pushing right flank, but HQ suit and stealths whittled it down to just the lord, who could never spot the stealths to show them his deathscreamer. He did get to pound on the pathfinders though, killing them before falling to the stealth team at last. Havoks krak'd the devilfish easy, then commenced fragging the other fire warriors down to below half.

In the end heavy loses on both sides left very few scoring Tau units but my noise, havoks, oblterator and dread untouched. Which mattered, as we were counting quarters @ 100 points each ...

Chaos (Minor) Win

Painting: Lord, Defiler

+ New Chaos Beatdowns Kontinue +

2007-11-26T14:40:00.000-05:00

Only now preparing to paint the defiler and a new Tz lord (I caved and agreed that the kai gunner AC needed to be replaced with a proper deathscreamer killer) for a tournament 12/15, as grad school applications are looming. That said, death has been dealt in the meantime.

Undivided vs Eldar [1500] - What I thought would be a cheddarfest turned out not too bad for the boys in black & brown. Brand new pointy ears army was autarch (warp pack, fusion gun, pw, mandi) + full spiders + exarch, 6 harlies w/ seer, kisses; full scorpions + fist exarch; 2x 6 pathfinders; 3x prisms w/ full gear. Game was standard gamma anhilation.

Xenos went first, and chaos whined about invinco-prisms already going fast. Things turned quickly though, with the warp spiders + autarch caught in the open and hit hard by 1k Sons and other fire support, then engaged by the remnants of the shooty 10 CSM squad and pounded down for good. Scorpions infiltrated a little too close, and were jumped on by the fisty 10 CSM squad and flamed / rapid-fired to death. Dread had a rough time on the far right flank - fire frenzy with no targets, stunned a turn, etc - but eventually smashed through a building and killed 1 squad of pathfinders.

Harlies boosted into the fisty squad and ended up trashing them down to a handful, but a countercharge by the deathscreamer ripped 1/2 the squad apart. They hit-and-ran and smacked the noise marines, but were rebuffed for the loss of 1 clown and 1 noise boy. Hit-and-run sent them 11" away, close enough for the deathscreamer to slam in and gut them.

Meanwhile, the prisms had been linking up and shooting things, but not with great effect. Dread was shaken early and had its plasma taken off, the shooty 10 man lost a model or two and the defiler was mildly irritated. Over 5 turns of sporadic chaos fire the prisms were stripped of all weapons, immobilized and eventually destroyed. Cred goes to the dread for flaming the rear of a prism, dropping it to the ground and then chainsawing it open in combat.

The end game involved the final squad of pathfinders - who had accounted for several shooty CSM, some 1k Sons and the last wound on the deathscreamer - holding their building from the remaining ranged fire of the chaos army, but it was a foregone conclusion and the eldar folded.

Chaos Win

Undivided vs Tau Empire [1500] - Tau Lad brought a very different army to throw into my chaos, and he realized once it was down that he didn't have much chance. Tau was shas'o w/ crisis friends, anti-dread deep strike crisis team, 2x warfish of fury w/ 12 fw each, 5 pathfinders w/ warfish, kroot + lots of hounds, kroot + gnarloc. His plan was to rush the wooded center of the table with kroot squads and coordinate with a double fish o' fury assault.

First turn to Tau, and various things moved up. Maybe 1 CSM died, but in retaliation 1k Sons and fisty CSM moved up to meet the kroot swarm now in rapid-fire range, dropping most of the hounds from one squad and a couple goaders from the gnarloc's group. Dread, oblit and blastmaster fire trashed 1 furious fish, killing 1/2 of the fw inside and blunting the pulse pain to come.

And come it did. Other fury fish rushed up and hoped out, fragging the 1k Sons to a marine with the help of very bad saving rolls. Anti-dread team struck behind the dread and did it's fusiony thing. Kroot squads slammed the fisty CSM + deathscreamer lord, but the CSM were crafty and had hunkered down in some rocks to take the krooty charge. CSM went first and put the hurt on the chickens, doing 4 wounds to the gnarloc (1 short!) and clearing away a lot of kroot. Returns dragged down 2 CSM, but it wasn't enough and both kroot squads broke and both were caught. Note that the fist AC never swung!

Tau player saw the game was more or less lost, with his center shattered upon the rock of chaos marines. Retaliation in the chaos second turn saw the crisis team blastmastered and cleaned in assault by the oblit's powerfist, the 12 fire warriors deathscreamed and assaulted by the lord (would take 3 combat phases to finally kill and break the squad down), and the 6 fw over by their wrecked fish shot and assaulted by the fisty CSM (now 5 strong).

From here the warfish managed a wound on the oblit and with the help of the crisis HQ (who eventually lost their 3 shield drones to aggressive chaos fire) knocked the fisty CSM eventually down to only the fister himself. In a cute move he charged 2 fire warriors who had fallen back and regrouped near the edge, exploded their faces and massacred into the shas'o hiding nearby in area terrain. With his buddies blastmastered & kraked to small bits in the preceding shooting phase, the shas fluffed his attaks and was pulverized by the fist.

Mop up was trashing the remaining 2 warfish and then hammering on the pathfinders with the defiler and oblit. Turn 6 came and went, with 2 pathfinders high up in their tower of death.

Chaos Win

Building: 8 Possessed
Painting: Defiler, Screamer Lord

+ Chaos TagTeam vs Tau +

2007-10-23T08:15:00.000-04:00

So that 1 v 1 against Tau turned into Undivided & DeathGuard vs Lots of Tau Shooting ...

Undivided & DeathGuard vs Tau [3000] - I used the list below, and the DeathGuard was lord w/ plaguebringer; 10 chosen w/ 2 meltas, 2 plasmas, 1 flamer; dread w/ ccw & missiles; 4x 7 plague marines w/ plasma, melta, fist/plasma AC. Tau was naturally a lot of shooty death: shas'o + friends; 3x 3 deep strike crisis (plasma/fusion x2, plasma/flamer x1); 3x 12 fire warriors w/ markers; 2x 6 vespid; 2x 8 pathfinders w/ warfish; railhead; skyray; 3x sniper teams; 3x single slot broadsides w/ shield gen & shield drone. We decided later he shouldn't have deployed them all seperately, as 5 heavy slots is one thing but 7 is another all together!

Tau Deployment (Chaos L to R):

Warfish, pathfinders (woods), fire warriors (woods), fire warriors (behind woods), broadside (hill), sniper team (hill), hammerhead (pointing at defiler), crisis HQ (behind hill), broadside, sniper team (rocks), pathfinders (rocks), warfish, broadside, sniper team (building, 3rd floor), skyray (building, just 6" in), fire warriors (building, 4" in).

Chaos Deployment (Chaos L to R):

Plague marines + lord (left building, over 6" in), havoks (building, 4th floor), defiler (half behind building), 1k Sons (behind rocks), DG dread, plague marines (woods), fist CSM (behind woods), chosen (infiltrated into woods mid-table), plague marines (right building, left edge), shooty CSM (building, over 6" in), noise marines (building, 2nd floor), plague marines (building, right edge), obliterator (behind building), Undivided dread (right of building).

Basically a lot of Tau guns pointed at a building with 2 squads, an area of woods with a few squads and a building loaded with chaos. First turn to Tau.

Tau Turn 1 - Defiler is immobilized, plague dread is railed, undivided dread shrugs off the skyray, and the chosen take a blistering amount of firepower, dropping the five armed with bolters.

Chaos Turn 1 - Plague marines advance a little, though without leaving their terrain pieces. Deathscreamer lord joins the plaguers in the center woods. 1k Sons move into the rocks in front of them, shooty CSM move within 6" of their building's edge, noise marines do likewise to bring the blastmaster into LOS and the undivided dread rages forward a total 8". Havoks stun the hammerhead, defiler scatters and takes out 1 sniper drone, chosen knock the shield drone and 1 wound off a broadside, and plaguers and deathscreamer lord can't scratch a second broadside, despite a 6 for the demon cannon's shots.

Tau Turn 2 - 3 crisis w/ plasma + fusion strike near the defiler and explode it. Assorted fire drops a couple 1k Sons in the rocks and the skyray immobilizes the undivided dread. The chosen are shot down to a single plasma gunner, who keeps his cool. Vespid zip up and bother the 1k Sons and the plague marines, dropping 1 plaguer. 1 unit assaults the 1k Sons in the rocks, but only the sorcerer can take anybody down.

Chaos Turn 2 - Plague lord + marines push across the havok's building and assault the struck suits, trashing them and consolidating into the 1k Son rocks. The fisty CSM mobilize and help the Sons out with the vespid, crushing them for the loss of 1 more Son. They consolidate into the rocks too, making that 3 squads & 1 lord all loaded into 4" x 7" of terrain. Other plaguers with deathscreamer lord hop to the chosen wood, then turn and vaporize the unengaged vespid squad (6 for demon cannon again). Plague marines in other building push to the edge, and chaos fire drops various fire warriors in the other building. The havoks also pound the hammerhead again, removing the railgun.

Tau Turn 3 - 3 crisis w/ plasma + fusion strike near the forward plague woods, and combined with 3/4 of the Tau army are able to take all 6 plague marines down. The lone chosen is killed, and the deathscreamer takes 1 wound from something. The rest of the Tau manage to trash the fisty CSM squad to 5 models, and the 1k Sons are now at 2.

Chaos Turn 3 - Retaliatory fire (1 shot of which was from the dread plasma cannon) kills 2 struck crisis suits, and sends the survivor fleeing several inches. Far right plague marines advance for the fire warrior's building, and lord + plague marines continue heading laterally to the right, staying behind LOS-blocking terrain. Fisty CSM likewise pull out behind the rocks, but the 1k Sons play it ballsy and scoot towards the Tau and their guns. Bolt of Change misses, naturally. Right noise / CSM bunker pins the fire warrriors across from them with blastmaster and other fire. Deathscreamer ignores the crisis suits in front of it to make a break for the pathfinders in the rocks ahead of him. He makes both sets of difficult terrain rolls and hits combat, rolling 4 for the demon weapon. 8 attaks later all the pathfinders are vaporized. The lord consolidates into the fleeing crisis suit, but it fails to rally and flees further away, leaving the lord facing a warhead, broadside and 5 sniper drones ...

Tau Turn 4 - 3 crisis w/ plasma + flamer strike near the havoks, and scorch 4 marines. Other Tau shooting wastes the 1k Son remnants and fries the stranded deathscreamer.

Choas Turn 4 - Fisty CSM squad 2x flamers the crisis suits and then fists them to death. Plague lord continues moving to the right. Forward plague marines advance to charge the fire warriors in the opposite building, but the aliens are all shot down. A broadside or two loses a shield drone. The oblit finishes what the chosen started and zaps the broadside who killed the 'screamer.

Tau Turn 5 - Shooting is largely ineffective against plague marines, and the obliterator is railed in return.

Chaos Turn 5 - Plague marines push into the building across the way, and do nothing to the skyray still parked there (but long out of seekers).

Game is called, as a party has to be gone to. With a margin of less than 300 points, it's a ... DRAW

Painting: Defiler

Building: APOC Reinforcements

+ List Update +

2007-10-18T16:12:00.000-04:00

Been playing Fantasy or doing real life stuff, but I did retouch the whole 1500 army and varnished them at last. Looking at my kai gun AC I realized how much I like him, and how much I want my HQ to reach out and touch somebody. That, and I don't want to paint my demon prince, though the beast is built. Anyway, here's a new list that takes minimal painting:

HQ
Chaos Lord - MoT, deathscreamer

ELITES
Dreadnought - Plasma cannon, heavy flamer, extra armor

TROOPS
10 CSM - MoCU, autocannon, plasma gun, AC w/ power weapon
10 CSM - MoCU, lascannon, flamer, AC w/ powerfist, combi-flamer
6 1k Sons - Sorcerer w/ bolt of change
6 Noise Marines - Blastmaster, AC w/ power weapon

HEAVY SUPPORT
6 Havoks - MoCU, 3 missile launchers
Defiler
1 Obliterator

TOTAL
1500 points

Yep, being lazy and putting off the rhino again. Note that it was built well over a year ago! I can't remember if it or the defiler is older, but the defilotron is all that needs paint to see my Chaos back at 1500 again. Look forward to that, just not to painting that big spider walker :P

Have a game this Saturday, either a rematch against Tau or a grudgematch against his fledgling 1k Sons army. Will keep you updated on the carnage.

Also, got my hands on 3 new terminators, and tossed them together a couple weekends ago:

3 Terminators - MoCU, 3 combi-plasmas, 2 powerfists, 1 chainfist = 150 points of love

Painting: Defiler
Building: APOC reinforcements

+ REDUX 2.5 +

2007-09-28T07:48:00.001-04:00

Here's the list I'm re-building towards now, with the few changes that I've made since playing a couple games:

HQ
Demon Prince - MoS, warptime

ELITES
Dreadnought - Plasma cannon, heavy flamer, extra armor (smoke, searchlight)

TROOPS
10 CSM - MoCU, autocannon, plasma gun, AC w/ power weapon
10 CSM - MoCU, lascannon, flamer, AC w/ powerfist, combi-flamer
Rhino - (smoke, searchlight)
6 1k Sons - Sorcerer w/ bolt of change (force weapon)
6 Noise Marines - Blastmaster, sonic blaster

HEAVY SUPPORT
6 Havoks - MoCU, 3 missile launchers
Defiler - (smoke, searchlight)
1 Obliterator

TOTAL
1500 points

The stuff in parentheses are new freebies that come with those units. I could also have included (bolter, bolt pistol, ccw) on all the marines except the Sons, and I have to say that's a pretty kick ass upgrade, always getting +1 attak in combat. 10 CSM = 20 S4 beatdown attaks, something to think about.

Building: Demon Prince

+ Nü Chaos > Nids?! +

2007-09-25T15:19:00.000-04:00

Threwdown last Friday with my friend Studder's nids, whom I've never beat and generally ally with when possible. I didn't have high hopes for the new Chaos, but I was willing to see what went down.

Undivided vs Tyranids [1500] - Studder took flyrant w/ 2x twin devourers, implants, warpfield, etc; broodlord w/ toxin & retinue; 3x6 genestealers w/ carapace, hooks, talons; 2x1 raveners; 2x gunfexes w/ vc, strangler, etc; 3 AP3 spore mines. The broodlord was a new caveat, usually there's more stealers and some zoanthropes.

We refused each other our flanks, so that we were basically going across the board diagonal. Right to left I had havoks a top level 4+ building, then autocannon CSM in lower floors and oblit nearby; 1k Sons in the open, with lascannon CSM & termi lord behind them, and noise marines a top a building just to their left. The dread went faar left, and the rhino I stuck along the left board edge behind a building, purely to keep the broodlord from my DZ. Nids were, right to left: broodlord & friends, 6 stealers, 6 stealers, ravener, flyrant, fex, stealers, ravener and fex faar left. Turn 1 went to Chaos, as did the rolls for side and deployment ;D

Chaos Turn 1 - Almost no movement, except for dread and oblit scooting for LOS. Blistering Chaos firepower kills 2 stealers (defiler scatter) and wounds the flyrant once (maybe). I was hitting fine, but was plagued with 1's on dice that needed 2+ to wound :x
Nids Turn 1 - Everything moves up fast. 1 fex immobilizes the dread and will waste the rest of its life shooting it, the other one either kills the oblit this turn or next. The flyrant wastes a noise marine or two with it's insane dakka cannons of reroll. Some stealers also hide on the side of a building right outside my zone, forcing me to make a decision to move and engage them ...

Chaos Turn 2 - Which I do, having the Sons stumble around the building's corner. The rhino tankshocks some stealers, who pass and move to the side, and the dread stomps up to cook some bugs. The dread roasts some stealers, charges and kills the rest, with the help of No Retreat! from synapse fearless. He consolidates back into cover. Other fire takes the flyrant down to 2 wounds, knocks a wound off a ravener, and kills a couple of the hiding stealers. Assault goes ok for the Sons, who kill a stealer or two and lose a couple automatons in return.
Nids Turn 2 - Broodlord charges the rhino and shakes it (no move/no shoot) with his posse, and other stealers charge the dread in cover. They remove his ccw, but he kills 1 before it's torn off. Flyrant hits the noise marines, who do nothing to it and are gutted. On a lucky 6" massacre it consolidates into the lascannon CSM & termi lord squad. Fex 1 does nothing to the defiler, and the other fex bounces off the CSM in the building. The stealers pull down all but 1 rubric marine, and the sorcerer finishes the squad off! He consolidates toward the fex ... Oh, and spore mines killed 1 marine from the lascannon CSM before the flyrant hit.

Chaos Turn 3 - No movement, right to shooting. Defiler hammers the stealers on the rhino, killing all of the retinue except 1 and leaving the APC unscathed ;). Havoks and autocannon CSM knock wounds off their fex, and the 1k Son sorcerer kills a ravener with shooting. That fex may have died this turn, it had a lot going into it for 3 turns ... The dread pulverized a stealer with its feet, to no damage back. More stealers die to No Retreat!, leaving 1 in base. The flyrant directs at the termi lord, taking off 2 wounds, but between the AC fist and HQ chainfist the bitch does down. The lord consolidates into the ex-noise marine building, to intercept the other ravener.
Nids Turn 3 - Fex 1 immoblizes the defiler again, locking its turret. The broodlord & 1 friend hits the dread, but just lose 1 stealer. Ravener can't reach the termi lord.

Chaos Turn 4 - Firepower bounces off the living fex, or fails to wound. Termi lord charges the ravener, saves the 1 rend on him and then whiffs his 5 attaks! 1,1,2,1,2 to hit! Dread bites it at last.
Nids Turn 4 - Fex blasts the Sons, killing the last automaton and charging the sorcerer! Everybody can't hit or wound each other. The termi lord is killed by the ravener, because he sucks that hard. The broodlord and lone stealer move along my DZ.

Chaos Turn 5 - Sorc flails at fex, fex misses sorcerer. CSM beginning redeploying to get shots on something late game. Lascannon CSM move up into the noise building and double flame the ravener, killing it.
Nid Turn 5 - Broodlord & stealer charge the lascannon CSM, killing half the squad for the lose of the lone stealer to the fist.

Chaos Turn 6 - More flailing from the sorcer, and missing from the fex. The broodlord eats some marines, killing the squad.
Nid Turn 6 - Broodlord scampers over toward the defiler and waiting guns ... And the sorcerer force weapons the fex! w00000t!

Chaos Turn 7 - Broodlord dies to many guns.

CHAOS WIN.

That said, lord sucked it up. Switching to warptime demon prince with MoS. Just better in every way, and more survivable, etc.

Building: Prince
Painting: 2 CSM, defiler, rhino

+ Nü Rampage? +

2007-09-20T14:51:00.000-04:00

Had my first game using the Nü Chaos rules (used the list below under "REDUX"), but against that Tau player again. Was a learning experience ...

Undivided vs Tau [1500] - Tau Kid took shas'o w/ CIB, fusion, reserves thing, shield drone; 3 crisis w/ plasma, fusion, multi; 3x 12 fire warriors; 6 pathfinders w/ sms fish; 6 vespid; 3x sniper drone teams; railhead (!).

Terrain was big buildings on the flanks of deployment zones, then a huge building left of board center and a rock coloumn right of board center. We played real line of sight, not area terrain, which really really hurt and I don't feel like doing again!

We'll stick with some highlights, this was last Sat after all!

First turn, his railhead vaporizes my dread. No need to worry about mutated hull being gone! This was a major victory for him, he's never dropped this dread before ;D The railhead goes on to be shaken every turn, and eventually lascannoned by my oblit. The oblit also got a last turn plasma cannon shot on a sniper team - @ 30" just in sight - and broke them off the table. Digging the plasma cannon upgrade, though heavy bolter would have helped clear FW I guess.

Havoks set up HIGH in a building across from 2 sniper teams and 12 FW, and lost 4 marines before I took a turn to back up in the building out of 36" sniper range. From there they fragged the FW, pushing them to the table edge but not off.

Defiler pounded FW squads off the table, contributing to breaking 2 squads and attempting to smash off the third hiding with the snipers. He was untouched by enemy fire, and thinking about it I could have walked him toward snipers with only some fear of glancing death.

1k Sons deployed in the open like I general do, and lost all 5 rubrics to 2 turns of sniper fire and the remnant of a vespid squad that was pulverized by my marines. The kicker? The vespid stingwing assaulted the sorcerer with warptime and killed him. Wow guys. I also realized that the squad is illegal - the sorc can have only 1 power, though for the record I don't even remember if they got to shoot their inferno bolts!

Fire support CSM squad was hammered pretty badly, and striking crisis suits took out the entire unit except for the power weapon AC (pervious Kai gun AC) ... who charged the squad, broke and caught them! He died to sniper fire, but it was a beautiful thing.

Likewise the combat CSM squad moved up through middle terrain with the termi lord, intent on getting to grips with the squishy Tau. About half way I realized I was walking up between 3 snipers once I cleared terrain, as well as his shas'o with CIB. Eventually, the lord died to the shas'o fusion, 5 CSM died to snipers and such, but then the remaining 5 got the charge on the shas'o. Powerfist ftw and it was one dead xenos. Then it was one dead AC.

And the noise marines rarely had range to anything, but rolled amazingly to hit when they could. Don't remember the blastmaster doing anything spectacular, but they held their building.

End Result -> Draw.

So I've got things to learn, and had to change my list up. Gone is warptime and the 2 sonic blasters, in is the old rhino! More to paint! Yeah!

Painting: Termi lord, 2 CSM, defiler, rhino
Future: Sorcerer, land raider

+ APOC IT UP +

2007-08-21T11:51:00.000-04:00

While I've got the new 1500 list set down and built up, I'm looking ahead to getting 2000 points done for APOC in October. No way I can make 3000, but 2000 is a nice round number for teaming up with fellow chaos players and bringing the HURT to pansy corpse worshippers.

HQ
Lord - MoK, chainfist, terminator armor, ikon
Sorcerer - MoT, force weapon, warptime, doombolt, jump pack, ikon

Elites
Dreadnought - plasma cannon, heavy flamer, extra armor

Troops
10 CSM - MoCU, autocannon, plasma gun, AC w/ power weapon
10 CSM - MoCU, lascannon, flamer, AC w/ powerfist, combi-flamer
6 1k Sons - Sorcerer w/ bolt of change, ikon
6 Noise Marines - blastmaster, sonic blaster, ikon

Heavy Support
6 Havoks - MoCU, 3 missile launchers
Land Raider - demonic possession
Defiler

Extra
12 Demon(ette)s

Total
1998 points

The sorcerer is pretty pricey (190!), but @ 18" he pumps out 3 S4 AP3 doombolts (reroll hits and wounds with warptime) and in combat he's got 5 S4 force weapon attaks (reroll hits and wounds with warptime). The pack gets him where he needs to be, and I'm looking to take down carnifex and other big bads with this guy. Even with 6 to wound, warptime should make that happen.

And yep, the girls are back. I guess I can run them in 2x6 squads like usual, but 12 looks pretty awesome in my head. 36 attaks are hard to argue with, and the massive squad should extend considerably out of the 6" summon range, with the way deep strike works. Even though I want the raider to hang back and add ranged support, I could suit up the lord in it and tank forward, and summon the girls off him from inside the raider. Bizarre, but also a possibility.

Painting: Eshin bases
Building: Land raider (now with Alpha Legion doors!)

+ Speed Lord Battles On +

2007-08-20T11:13:00.000-04:00

Took my Chaos lads to the FLGS and got two 1500 point games in, against Templar and Tau. For the record I was using the current rules, though I may be testing new chaos rules out sooner than I like ... Break it down!

Undivided vs. Templars [1500] - Fought these templar in megas all the time, but never in 1v1. His cut down 1500 list was chappy (2 wounds) + 9 marines (melta, fist) in rhino; chump + 9 marines (melta, fist) in rhino; 6 marines (plasma, missile launcher); dread; pred (lascannon + heavy bolters); 10 assault marines (2 plasma pistols, fist). I deployed 10-man in cover far left and the 1k Sons in the open, with the dread about a foot to their right, and then everything else in a tall building far right. The 8-man infiltrated into a building along the right side. He deployed 6-man and pred across from my left, with rhino on the other side of terrain from my dread, and then assaulters, rhino, dread nearish my right side.

I got first, and from here a trend of rolling exceedingly badly was started. I never rolled higher than 3 for penetrating vehicles, and generally missed when possible. Somehow I did what I needed to though, as the game tipped towards Chaos in the last turns. Both squads of girls hit the chappy's disembarked squad on the right, with the speed lord zipping in to snipe out the chappy. He tagged him for one, then 6 demonettes hit him with 18 attaks and took him down. They scooted into the assault marine remnant (1 fister), which had been decimated by an early charge by the infiltrators. From here, the girls ate the dreadnought and the fister, but the lord and other ladies didn't fair so well, losing all the girls to the marines. Turns later, my lord finally failed his aura saves (I made a lot against a fist) and went down, and the last girl on the board popped. My obliterator stumbled over late game and hit the powerfist templar with his chainfist, though he was instand deathed in the process :'(

Other side of the table, the 1k Sons did their thing and sucked it up, only glancing the turret off the pred and losing models every turn to heavy bolters and krak. The chump's squad hoped out and blasted them too, but in return the rhino squad were hammered down to chump, fist, bolter. The templar headed for the dread - which only the first could hurt thanks to mutated hull - but the dread was too quick and stomped everyone but the chump. After rolling 3 1's to wound the chump - O_O - the dread finally smashed him to paste. Game ended with a weaponless rhino and banged up pred tank shocking my 10-man, and then me failing to hurt them next turn with a LOT of firepower, including a charge from the dread. Win for Chaos all the same.

Undivided vs Tau [1500] - Rematch time, though he had new sniper drones to try out. He brought shas'o (CIB, plasma, shield drone, etc), 3 crisis (plasma, flamer, 1 shield drone), 3 crisis (fusion, plasma), 5 stealth (1 fusion), 6 vespid, 3x 12 fire warriors (marker), 3x sniper drone team. He deployed across his zone - vespid, FW (in trees), drones (in trees), FW (in ruins), drones, drones (atop temple), suits (behind temple), FW. I deployed more concentrated center - 10-man posed to move into ruins first turn, speed lord behind them, dread, oblit (behind dread), havoks (in ruins), 1k Sons, noise marines (in trees). He infiltrated stealths into my zone far left, and I had to infiltrate my 8-man to try to catch them and their JSJ schenanigans. He kept the fusion suits to deep strike and try to kill my dread ;)

First turn to chaos, and pretty uneventful. 1 shield drone died, 1 sniper drone died, maybe a FW died. The 10-man moved up into the ruin, bringing them into range of 24 pulse rifles O_O
Tau let me have it in their turn, killed 9 of the 10-man and leaving just the kai gun AC! He's undaunted, as are the 8-man when they lose 2 to the stealths, who jump behind the impassable side of the big hill in my deployment zone. Sniper drones started hitting the 1k Sons, knocking off wounds like they will from here on. Vespid zip up and fleet to meet the stealths in their hidey spot by the cliff.

Chaos two, and the girls want to play. A lucky scatter sends one squad off the speed lord's ikon and over to easy reach of the vespid! The other girls scatter poorly off the 8-man and basically play no part in the game. Judging the distance to be right, the speed lord takes off for the sniper team across from him, as I saw one drone base was sticking out of cover! A good fleet roll later and he's in, and easily trashes the squad. He's now 5.5" away from 12 FW, and I knew he was gonna die UNLESS ... 6" massacre roll and the game has totally changed. The girls trash the vespid for 1 loss, and then consolidate into the stealths, shutting them down too. Concentrated fire on the center FW squad sends half the squad off the board. The oblit takes the last shield drone from the crisis suits.
Tau two, and the fusion crisis drop right in front of the dread. A couple pens later, and the dread is shaken - but I learned from last game against this guy, so extra armor means my dread is just plain pissed! Snipers hit the 1k Sons more, but I don't care as the speed lord breaks and catches the FW and then consolidates to take down the crisis team tickling his dread. Girls devour the stealths and catch those that break.

Chaos three, the dread rages into the crisis, ready to get his 7 attaks on. Kai gun taps a wound off a suit, and then the speed lord and dread slam in. The speed lord swings his 5 attaks, hits with all, wounds with all, and guts the squad. He massacres behind the ruins and sets up to kill another drone team. The 1k Sons can't see the snipers killing them, and I should probably have started moving my noise marines and 8-man lascannon to get shots later in the game, but meh.
Tau three, he's running out of options with chaos closing in around his 2 drone teams, 4 crisis suits and FW squad. He scoots the FW around the edge of the temple to hit the 1k Sons next turn, and the suits begin JSJ-ing around the temple. Shots at the 1k Sons damage them further, probably down to sorc + 2 or 3 rubrics.

Chaos four, the speed lord strikes again, hitting and fragging his second drone team. This strands him in the open, but I'm so happy with his performance that I concede it's his time to die. Dread and oblit wander toward the temple, 1k Sons shuffle more (I rolled 2" on 2 dice most every turn), and frag missiles pound the FW. Enough tau die for a test, and they break and head back around the temple toward the edge.
Tau four sees the FW run more, but stop before the edge. Crisis JSJ and kill the speed lord with plasma death. Good ride speedy ;D Sons take some more fire.

Chaos five. No speed lord means I don't have many options to reach around the temple that he's JSJ-ing around. The dread gets frustrated and fire frenzies, and with no enemy targets the oblit takes 2 plasma cannon shots and 2 heavy flamer blasts! Wounded but alive, the oblit shuffles away from his ex-buddy.
Tau five, FW rally at last. Crisis JSJ and dink the Sons again.

Chaos six, and "final" turn. Can't do much of anything, so back away from the temple and move the Sons back into cover.
Tau six. FW move back toward where they were on the temple steps. Crisis team JSJ and kill 1 more Son, leaving sorc + 1 rubric. Win for Chaos ... but we battle on!

Chaos seven - ten. Jockeying for LOS to behind the temple with oblit and noise marines, and at this point the kai gun AC and the 8-man are getting close to the action!
Tau seven - ten. JSJ kills the Sons at last, and drops 2 noise marines when they left their woods for a turn. FW move up to the temple steps and peek out ...

Chaos turn eleven. The FW suck loads of fire, dying and breaking. The blastmaster marine gets a shot on the crisis suits, shattering one with max power and breaking the unit off the board!

Chaos Win for real.

Building: Land raider
Painting: Eshin bases, termi lord, defiler

+ REDUX +

2007-08-14T15:35:00.000-04:00

Now that I know more about the new C:CSM, it looks like my army is going to get even smaller and even more elite. Pretty much everything went up in points, with minimal benefit in game. But here's the list I'll be going with at least for a bit ...

HQ

Lord - MoK, chainfist, combi-bolter, terminator armor

Elites

Dreadnought - Plasma cannon, heavy flamer, extra armor

Troops

10 CSM - MoCU, autocannon, plasma gun, AC w/ power weapon
10 CSM - MoCU, lascannon, flamer, AC w/ powerfist, combi-flamer
6 1k Sons - Sorcerer w/ force weapon, bolt of change, warptime
6 Noise Marines - Blastmaster, 2 sonic blasters

Heavy Support

6 Havoks - MoCU, 3 missile launchers
1 Obliterator
Defiler

Total
1500 points
40 infantry & 2 walkers

I lose - 12 demonettes, 3 thralls, 1 speed lord
I gain - 2 marines, defiler, 1 termi lord

Overall the army gets a little slower, a little smaller, and a lot weaker in assault. I think in general though it gets a little shootier, at least against MEQ targets in 3+ armor, and the defiler's cannon should be fun for the few turns it gets to fire before retaliatory firepower takes it out.

I still want to use the land raider, but that'll be for 2000 point games. I'm also picking up a sweet sorcerer model, but again that'll wait for bigger games.

Building: N/A
Painting: 3 Eshin ironguts, 1 termi lord, 1 defiler

+ Nü Kaos +

2007-08-06T11:10:00.000-04:00

The new Codex: CSM hits very very soon, and as much as I'd like to boycott it and keep my lads bashing like I like 'em - which mostly goes for my poor girls! - I think change may be inevitible. So going by what I know of the new book (which is a good deal at this point), here's a look at my own list and the changes to come.

Anarchonquistadores -
Current

HQ
Lord - MoCU, furious charge, power weapon, bolt pistol, speed, aura, strength, spiky, ikon, meltas
Elites
6 1k Sons - sorcerer w/ fist, bolt of change, 3 thralls
6 Noise Marines - blasmaster, plasma gun
1 Oblit
Troops
10 CSM - MoCU, autocannon, plasma gun, AC w/ kai gun, power weapon
8 CSM - MoCU, infiltrate, lascannon, flamer, AC w/ fist, combi-flamer, mutation
6 Demonettes
6 Demonettes
Heavy
6 Havoks - MoCU, 3 missile launchers
Dread - plasma cannon, heavy flamer, mutated hull, extra armor

Loses to New C:CSM

HQ
Lord - MoCU, ~~furious charge~~, power weapon, bolt pistol, ~~speed~~, aura, ~~strength~~, ~~spiky~~, ikon, meltas
Elites
Dread - plasma cannon, heavy flamer, ~~mutated hull~~, extra armor
Troops
10 CSM - MoCU, autocannon, plasma gun, AC w/ ~~kai gun~~, power weapon
8 CSM - MoCU, ~~infiltrate~~, lascannon, flamer, AC w/ fist, combi-flamer, ~~mutation~~
6 1k Sons - sorcerer w/ ~~fist~~, bolt of change, ~~3 thralls~~
6 Noise Marines - blasmaster, ~~plasma gun~~
~~6 Demonettes~~
~~6 Demonettes~~
Heavy
6 Havoks - MoCU, 3 missile launchers
1 Oblit

Remnants

HQ
Lord - MoCU, power weapon, bolt pistol, aura, ikon, meltas
Elites
Dread - plasma cannon, heavy flamer, extra armor
Troops
10 CSM - MoCU, autocannon, plasma gun, AC w/ power weapon
8 CSM - MoCU, lascannon, flamer, AC w/ fist, combi-flamer
6 1k Sons - sorcerer w/ bolt of change
6 Noise Marines - blasmaster
Heavy
6 Havoks - MoCU, 3 missile launchers
1 Oblit

I can't say that's such a thrilling update to my list! Since a lot of my toys were taken away now, that's something like 179 points to mess with now (not including the demonettes). Given what I know about the new book, and what I've got working on right now, I think I might end up something like the following. Note that even though demons are utterly bad now, I might still keep some girls, out of dedication to what they once were.

New Codex

HQ
Lord - MoK, chainfist, combi-bolter, terminator armor
Elites
Dread - plasma cannon, heavy flamer, extra armor
Troops
10 CSM - Ikon of CU, autocannon, plasma gun, AC w/ power weapon
10 CSM - Ikon of CU, lascannon, flamer, AC w/ fist, combi-flamer
6 1k Sons - sorcerer w/ force weapon, warptime, bolt of change
6 Noise Marines - blasmaster, sonic blaster
Heavy
6 Havoks - Ikon of CU, 3 missile launchers
1 Oblit
Land Raider - demonic possession

I guess the list goes up in shooting a bit, but way down in assault with the lose of the girls. I'd be looking at building 2 combat marines, the termi lord and the land raider. Not so bad, and all of the models should be fun to convert and paint. Still, this all doesn't make me a happy Lord of Chaos Undivided >:P

++++++

Just edited the new list a bit. Nixed the demonettes entirely, pretty sure points will be tight with adding the land raider and dealing with the cost increase across the board. Thinking about giving my lord, who's a fallen chaplain in the fluff, either the mark of khorne or mark of tzeentch. MoK to rep 'litanies of hate,' though here so he has a massive 4 attaks, as terminator armor apparently no longer gives +1A :P Or MoT to rep the 'cursed crozius' save, as it would give him a 4+ save. Probably go MoK, it's the cheapest I hear. There is no MoCU for characters anymore, they all have Fearless.

Painting: Eshin bases

+ ONE YEAR LATER +

2007-08-06T10:31:00.000-04:00

As of 08.08.07 this blog will be 1 year old ... So time for some zombi-esque revivication!

In the last months I've gone entirely undivided with my Chaos lads, and the army @ 1500 points has been painted for a couple months now :D Perhaps some crappy webcam pics sometime, likely when I get the army badges painted and the models sealed up. I've been playing a lot of Fantasy of late - my Eshin army is approaching 2000 of painted & dipped madness - but with APOC looming it's been good to get some 40k in.

Undivided vs. Nids [1500] - This was some time ago, but had a quick match versus some nice mixed nids. Took his list apart as it came to me, starting with the flyrant and ending with the second group of warriors. Broodlord and buddies hit a flank hard, but fists and Sons took care of them. Another highlight was 2x 20 gaunts headed into my lines second turn (I got second on the roll), but then bouncing off the 10-man and the noise marines. With that many attaks, I was sure I'd lose some squads ... Win for Chaos.

Undivided vs. Tau [1500] - After the weekly mega wrapped up early, me and Tau Kid threwdown 1v1. He took shas'o & 2 friends (fusion, CIB, shields), 3 crisis (flamer, plasma?), 3 crisis (???), 2x 12 fire warriors (marker drone, markerlight), pathfinders & fish, 2x 1 broadside (plasma, shield). He usually goes with a load of kroot too, but apparently not this time around. There's a big building in the center of the board, and he deploys the FW in rocks to either side, and the broadsides on the flanks to max fire lanes. The suits wait to strike ... My guys deploy in cover where possible, and my dread hides from the broadsides behind a hill hard left. 1k Sons stand out of cover, ready to be shot.

Tau get first turn and take it, doing not much of note. Broadsides both miss, despite rerolls and markerlights, and some FW kill a havok in cover. Chaos makes him pay next turn - the oblit vaporizes the right broadside with a lascannon and the 8-man lascannon marine (infiltrated into the center building) frags the left broadside. Some FW die, and the pathfinders take a beating but stay around.

Deep strike time! 1 crisis team comes on and scatters (despite positional relay on the fish!) onto my 10-man, destroying itself! Other shooting is minimal, with the 1k Sons starting to take casualties and the havoks losing 2 more to FW. No girls come to play (good), and Chaos firepower clears the pathfinders and breaks the right FW plaguing the havoks, sending them off the table. The dread crests the hill he was behind and yells a lot, while also plasma cannoning some xenos.

More deep strike! Command suits strike next to the dread, and flamer/plasma suits land near the 1k Sons. The HQ suits stun (no move/no shoot) the dread with BOTH penetrating fusion blasters, but he doesn't have extra armor (O_O) and so is just angry. The 1k Sons take some hurting, I think cut down to sorcerer + 2 sons now. In retaliation, the shas'o's friends are trashed by krak and the flamer/plasma suits are flamed, boltered and plasma'd to small pieces. Some demonettes also arrived, and hung out in the central building.

Things look dicey for the Tau - just the shas'o, a handful of FW and the devilfish left on the table. The shas'o fails to hurt the dread, or escape his charge range ... Chaos fire is mostly held off this turn, letting the dread charge the shas'o and the demonettes hit the FW (in cover). The dread explodes the suit and the ladies gut the last 3 FW.

The rest of the game involved trying to kill the fish, and discovering it had flechette launchers when my girls assaulted it! So lost some demons then, but eventually killed that dead too. Win for Chaos.

Undivided vs. Death Guard [1500] - Grudge match with my friend Studder's DG! Usually we're allies, but hey, fickle gods of Chaos and all that. Some irksome moments in this game too, like my entire army blasting his DP about to smash out of some trees into me, but causing 1 wound total. 2+ save is sick! He hit the 1k Sons and kept them tied for 3 whole turns, eventually killing the squad (with the help of a lone fist AC who ran in turn 4) and the dread who raged into the combat :P The 8-man squad infiltrated with the intention of flanking the mutated las pred, but decided to run it in and fist the tank! 5 turns later, dead tank.

We took this game out to 11 or 12 turns, at which point the defiler was finally killed, after it ate the 10-man squad and then was immobilized inside some woods. I had 4/8 of the 8-man squad, 3/6 of the havoks and all the noise marines left at the end. Win for Undivided (by 500 points + quarters).

Building: Terminator Lord, Land Raider

+ Tzeentch Tzucks +

2007-03-13T09:14:00.000-04:00

For once a mega-battle went down with sides that made sense ... sorta. Those ultras are so good they're bad, I tell you.

Undivided Chaos & Death Guard & World Eaters & Ultramarines vs. Black Templars & Armored Company & Space Wolves [7500] - Promise to keep this short and focused on my boys in black & brown. We packed the first 5000 points per side onto a 6x4 table with a number of woods scattered around, with the Ultras and Wolves slatted to show up turn 2. Chaos proudly sported 2 statured princes, 2 greater demons and my speed lord, with a couple dreads and a defiler for armored support. Sadly, I failed the first turn roll, and blaimed the 1k Son Sorcerer with his Talisman of Tzeentch ...

Imperial Turn 1 involved hammering those 1k Sons with the demolister, leman russ exterminator and a standard russ, with both templates scattering onto the Sons from their original targets! 4 Sons and a thrall were blasted apart, with the last Son wounded. The infiltrated 8 CSM lost 4 to Templar fire too, despite lurking in the woods, and the only other casualties were the plague marines who infiltrated too close and were assaulted by Templar assault termies from their land raider crusader.

Chaos Turn 1 saw me roll some apocolyptic difficult terrain rolls - 2,1 for the 8CSM and 2,2,1 for the speed lord! - which gutted my dreams of slamming into some Templar who had jumped out of their rhino the turn before. Instead I cooked some shots off at the 10 crusaders, killing maybe 3 with 3 krak rockets, 2 plasma guns, a blastmaster, autocannon, kai gun, 2 flamers and 10 bolters. Luckily the Templar freaked and charged forward, bringing them into assault range! The lord and 4 remnant CSM oblidged and cleaned them out, consolidating back into the woods. Meanwhile, the cursed Sons did nothing, and the dread melted 2 random marines. The rest of the Chaos mostly killed things in combat - the assault termies and began what would be 2 long combats in the center with Templar. Khorne DP killed the Emperor's Chump.

Imperial Turn 2 was more scattering templates around the board, with not too much effect. 3 noise marines may have died this turn, and the obliterator was killed by a lascannon. The Templar bike squad - 3 bikes w/ meltaguns, 3 bikes w/ bolters, 1 attak bike w/ multimelta - a triple lascannon predator and a chimera full of storm troopers fired on my 4 infiltrated CSM, who made save after save and only lost 3 members, leaving the powerfist AC to die in assault. Badass all the same. The bikes consolidated into the speed lord. Otherwise, not a lot else happened for how long it took the Armored Co. general to debate where to shoot ... Oh, the Wolves moved on too. Khorne DP killed the Templar dread.

Chaos Turn 2, and time for reinforcements. Papa Nurgle arrived, along with 2500 in mechanized Ultramarines and a squad of demonettes. The girls came in off the lord and jumped in to help out with the 3 remaining bikes. Noise marines blasted a couple Wolves, havoks kraked the turret off of the pred, dread flipped out and charged through the forest in front of him, and the Sons killed a terminator with cyclone launcher, running out of thralls in the process. The 10 CSM squad can't hurt a rhino after firing everything into its side. The lord killed 1 bike, the girls managed 0 rends with 18 dice and then cause no more wounds, losing 1 girl to the remaining bikers. Khorne DP got to kill some marines with its glaive this turn.

Imperial Turn 3, and the 1k Sons finally bite it. Bad things happen elsewhere on the board - the Nurgle DP dies in assault after killing the basilisk last turn and absorbing half of the Imperial side's firepower - but back on my side a Wolf assault squad hits the girls, who manage 1 rend and then all die either to the marines or instability. The lord killed another bike, and luckily the assault marines were left out of the fight. The defiler also died this turn, and a template found 1 CSM of the 10 squad. The Imperial Lightning flyer appeared this turn too. Khorne DP died.

Chaos Turn 3, my boys last turn before they evac out of the game as usual. The rest of the demonettes arrive off of the lord's ikon, to jump in and help some Ultra assault marines with the Wolves. The Bloodthirster also shows up, exploding a Khorne biker. My dread fire frenzies this turn, vaporizing 2 terminators and flaming the hell out of the Death Guard dread to no effect. The rest of my units all fire at the lightning, resulting in 1 bolter shot that rolled the 6 to hit, as well as 2 overheated plasma guns, 1 of which killed its owner. Well then. My lord killed the last bike, and the Ultras & demonettes vaped the 4 Wolves, turning to face 10 storm troopers in a chimera and 5 Wolf terminators (2 assault cannons) in a land raider. The Ultras were only dismayed when my girls left, along with the rest of my army.

I'm guessing things didn't turn out too great for Evil Team, but I wouldn't give up hope entirely. By the time I left I had the demonettes and speed lord at full strength, 9/10 big CSM squad, 3/6 noise marines, 6/6 havoks and the dread hanging just inside some woods. Death Guard was down to 2 squads of plague marines with minimal casualties, the GUO, a mutated dread and mutated pred. Khorne had the Thirster and possibly a few straggler champs from squads. Ultras had a LOT of razorbacks and 6 man squads left, as well as HQs and heavies scattered along our edge.

So I'd say it comes down to how long people stuck around. The game really dragged on, as the Imperial turn would involve 20+ min of debate and then every combat had to be resolved one at a time. Killed the fun a bit, and meant we got less turns in then larger games I've played of late ...

Painting: 3/6 noise marines done, working on #4

+ Undivided FTW +

2007-03-02T11:23:00.000-05:00

It's been a long time coming, but my Chaos army is going undivided, trading out all those unpainted AL cultists for some cult marines - 1k Sons & Noise Marines. Honestly this is happening now because I don't want to paint 30 cultists or the über-rhino, but want my 1500 Chaos army painted and done.

HQ

Lord - MoCU, furious charge, power weapon, bolt pistol, speed, aura,
strength, spiky, ikon, meltas, frags = 162

Elites

6 1k Sons - Sorcerer w/ powerfist, bolt of change, talisman, 3 thralls = 222

6 Noise Marines - Blastmaster, plasma gun = 134

1 Obliterator = 70

Troops

10 CSM - MoCU, autocannon, plasma gun, AC w/ kai gun, power weapon = 218

8 CSM - MoCU, infiltrate, lascannon, flamer, AC w/ powerfist, combi-flamer,
mutation = 207

6 Demonettes = 90

6 Demonettes = 90

Heavy Support

6 Havoks - MoCU, 3 missile launchers = 150

Dreadnought - Plasma cannon, heavy flamer, mutated hull = 157

Total
1500 points

In fact, already used this list last Saturday:

Chaos & Tyranids vs. Eldar & Black Templar [3000] - Nids were huge flyrant, 2 gunfex, 3 zoanthropes and 6x6 'stealers. The Templar were podding in, so the Eldar started on the table, and despite going first were pounded badly in the first turn, losing the avatar, falcon, wraithlord, wraithguard, rangers, etc. to eevil firepower or 'stealer rending. The Templar trickled in over the next couple turns, with the podders disembarking into nice bunched formations, which were barb-strangled, plasma cannoned, heavy flamered and generally shot to pieces.

Chaos highlights: Speed lord killing Karandras in one go, as his demonette escort (all 12) does nothing but scream away. Same happens to the Emperor's Chump the next turn. 3 krak and 2 bolt of change all failing to wound the wraithlord was a downer, but my undivided firepower was so much better with this build that I was actively screwing my 'nid ally out of making assaults by anhilating the squads he had intended to charge! Aahaha!

A disturbingly one-sided game, though a lot of fun. Evil team win. The 1k Son squad made be very happy, though the bolters actually killed as many marines as the BoC did - of 6 bolts fired, 2 didn't wound the wraithlord, 2 killed 2 marines, 1 blew the gun off of a pod and 1 missed. I can dig it, and look forward to more testing. The noise marines were a bit of a let down, but they deployed with a pretty limited LOS and were blocked by a pod turn 2 anyway. The blastmaster was the only thing doing any work, and it killed 3-4 dire avengers total. Meh for now, but more firepower is welcome.

To Paint:
- 1k Son Squad [1 sorcerer, 5 converted necrons, 3 zombie thralls]
- Noise Squad [6 noise marines]

+ VID CAPTURES +

2007-01-24T15:01:00.000-05:00

The ANARCHONQUISTADORES were arrayed for maximum kitchen destruction last night, leading to the least shoddy webcam pics currently possible:

All 1500 points.
And another pic, with cultists at fore.

The Reaver, speed lord and small arms magnet.

One of the two units of demonettes, loathed by my gaming group. Note matte black skin and bright green tentacle hair (hotness).

Scout cultists, who should be painted next, but I didn't like the test model and aren't really feeling it.

Cithorax, the lone obliterator.

Dreadnought VORN, with glowy green chainfist, flamer, plasma coils, exhausts, powerplant, top hatch, etc.

My webcam is too crappy to pick up much of the CSM, so no pics of those for now.
But what's an army without accessories:

Matching dice! Good at rolling The Important Rolls - deployment, first turn, etc - but pretty marginal at hitting, wounding, penetrating ... though that may be me :P

She keeps my boys (& girls O_O) company in their army case, and also stays safely hidden from the girlfriend.

Painting: Rhino, 20 assassin cultists, 10 scout cultists.
Will To Paint: Not much.