Pesky Eldar and a true hero

 I managed to get a game of 40k in last week, for the first time in ages. It was only a small 1000 point engagement, but I had good fun.

It gave me the opportunity to test out the force I'm wanting to paint next for my Sons of Horus (I figure having a preset list will help me stay focused). Horus Heresy lists struggle at lower points and I was against Eldar, who are hideously undercosted, so I didn't hold out much hope of victory tbh, but it was nice just to be able to play for once.

I brought the following:


Karsson Merradon - Legion Delegatus with Power Axe, Artificer Armour, Refractor Field and Pride of the Legion

Veteran Squad Korkann - 9 x Veterans, 3 with Power Swords, 1 with Power Axe, 1 x Meltagun in a Rhino with Heavy Bolter, Sniper 

Terminator Squad Sekundus - 6 x Legion Terminators with Power Fists, 1 with Plasma Blaster

Javelin Speeder - Heavy Flamer, twin-linked Cyclones and a HK missile.

Laser Destroyer Array

Predator 'Drukkar' - Predator with Plasma Executioner Cannon

Whirlwind Scorpius 'Athekan'


A very small list, but like I said, Legions struggle in lower points games. I figured the heavy firepower from the Predator and Whirlwind would help me tip the balance if the Eldar did their usual 'hide and shoot' thing.

Off the top of my head, my opponent brought this:

Farseer on Jetbike

3x Jetbikes, one Shuriken Cannon

3x Jetbikes, one Shuriken Cannon

Vyper

5x Wraithguard with D-Scythes in a Wave Serpent

3 x War Walkers

5 x Warp spiders


A very tough list to face with what I had, but not massively cheesy, aside from the D-Weapons on the Wraithguard.

We rolled the mission with two objectives (can't remember what it's called these days. I know it used to be Take & Hold in 5th Ed) and I won the roll off for deployment. I set up a rough battle line, hoping to spread out and trap the Eldar wherever they happened to go, deploying my Rapier Laser on my right flank to sto him advancing his vehicles across the more open terrain, whilst my Veterans and Predator advanced on his objective and the Terminators secured my own.

It was a good plan I thought. He promptly scuppered it by holding most of his force in reserve, deploying only his Jetbikes, Farseer and Vyper behind the silo which his own objective was in.

Unperturbed, I made my turn one, using my Javelin to score a clean kill on his Vyper. The combined fire of the Predator and Whirlwind did far less damage than I was hoping though, with the Whirlwind only managing to kill two Jetbikes and the Executioner Cannon overheating on me! (First time that's ever done that to me too).

After that the game went massively downhill. The Eldar reserves came on pretty much all at once and my force was surrounded by outflankers and taken apart.

 After the Warp Spiders killed my Scorpius, my fate was sealed. I put up a valiant fight though.

The Vterans were forced out of their transport by the Wave Serpent, using the wreck in a less than noble manner to avoid the Wraithguard D-Scythes. They did manage to take the Wraiths apart the next turn though, so I had a measure of revenge before being gunned down almost to a man.

The Terminators managed to hold on far longer than either of us expected though, even managing to kill two out of the three War Walkers bearing down on the objective with Combi-Bolters and Plasma Blaster before the Warp Spiders finally jumped in to finish them off.

The only guy to survive the battle was Merradon, my Legion Delgatus. Thanks to a combination of his Artificer Armour, Refractor Field and the cover afforded by the smoking wreck of the Rhino, he survived fire from pretty much the entire Eldar force for two turns, actually allowing me to reach the natural end of the game. It was amazing to watch and I wish I'd gotten a photo of it, but we were both too absorbed in the unfolding drama to think about getting a pic.

Needless to say, the Eldar won, but it was one hell of a match and it reminded me why I love smaller points games so much. They seem to have a much stronger narrative focus and sense of drama than larger games. I remember laying a lot of 1000 point games with my Space Wolves a few years ago and got the same impression then too. It's a shame the focus of the game these days seems to be on ever larger forces.

After the battle I felt bad that the heroic Merradon had only been a proxy from another Veteran Squad who I'd brought in test the Delegatus rules. To make up for this, I've decided that he's going to become my proper Delegatus model from now on (also doubling as a Vigilator when needed), complete with a spiffy new paint job and a backstory written to reflect his feats. He's now sitting on my painting desk, awaiting his transformation. Hopefully I'll actually get around to it soon. I've got a lot going on atm though, so I'll have to see.

Intro game to Epic - Orks vs Khorne

After many, many years of wanting to try it, I played my first ever game of Epic the other night and it was well worth the wait. Now that I've fixed the issues with the photos I can re-post this write-up of my experiences.

We decided to play NetEpic rather than Armageddon due to my friend's personal preference and borrowed a 3000 point Khorne army to face off against his Ork horde. They were both very aggressive assault armies and in hindsight I think I played too cautiously for a Khorne force, but it was still good fun and I'm looking forward to playing it again. I think in terms of play style I would have preferred a Thousand Sons force or maybe recreating my Sons of Horus in 6mm, but I got a basic understanding and a good feel for the rules and now I can start working out my own lists to try and collect.

I even managed to get a few photos of the game in progress:

Looking out over the battlefield on Turn 1. You can just about make out his Gargant on the far hill. He had some Madboyz, a Klan of Goffs, a Klan of Bad Moonz and a Kult of Speed plus a Stompa. I had some World Eaters, lots of Deamon Engines with some Flesh Hounds and a Banelord Titan in support

My fiendish (for Khorne at least) flanking  manoeuvre with my Berserkers and Flesh Hounds to try to avoid being hit by two clans at once. This was foiled by the Gargant and Braincrushas (I think that was their name, I forget it exactly) smashing my main advance to bits though.

Angron ended up taking the rather undignified step of diving for cover behind the Banelord Titan!

Then came Dan's altogether more successful rush with his Kult of Speed down the other flank which swept round behind my Banelord Titan to catch my basic World Eaters and Angron off guard. Only some hasty discarding of Reward cards save me from the ignominy of losing Angron to a bunch of opportunistic bikers!

Angron soon got his revenge however as he carved his way through most of the Kult singlehandedly!

The game ended up as a win on turn 3 for Dan, due to running out of time with him holding three out of five objectives and my inability to break his Bad Moon Klan, which had I managed, would have netted me a win. Still, it was great fun and a solid intro to the game, even though I can't afford to invest in it at the moment. It's definitely one to go on my future 'to collect' list.

Sons of Horus vs Necrons

 I managed to get a game in tonight for the first time in a few weeks, pitching my Sons of Horus against a Necron army down my local club. It ended in a victorious slaughter for the Necrons, with the XVIth Legion being torn apart by gauss fire, or else utterly failing to do anything against his Wraith unit, resulting in three of my units being tied up in combat and unable to support the rest of the force. This coupled with a few tactical errors on my part and my usual atrocious dice luck meant that I really struggled to do much all game.

On a plus note it did allow me a chance to field my Squats as allied Imperial Army before the new IG codex hits. Interestingly enough they did the most damage out of all my units, defeating a Scarab Swarm in combat after it had munched through my Javelin Speeder.

I also managed to get some pics of the game and, even more amazingly, I actually remembered to post them up - wonders will never cease. I only managed to get a few, but here they are:

My XVIth Legion/ Squat Alliance post-deployment. I left the Army forces to look after the objectives, while the Astartes advanced.

The Necron force: A few units of Warriors, a unit of Immortals and a whole lot of shooty vehicles. He also had a unit of Deathmarks coming in via Night Scythe along with a Cryptek carrying a nasty flamer thing which demolished my big Tactical Squad.

 The Wraiths advancing on my Reaver Squad. Given the fact that they butchered their way through a CSM army last game, I thought I'd be fine...

 How wrong I was! This was the scene after a single round of combat. Only Morkaddon, the Apothecary and a single Reaver were left standing. Reinforcements soon arrived in the form of a Tactical Squad charging in, but they didn't managed to do much either. When the Techmarine with Rad Grenades failed his charge from 4 inches away, I knew the dice gods had abandoned me once more and my fate was sealed.

That's all I've got for now, but I'll make sure I take more when I go to have the rematch me and my opponent said we'd have at some point  By then I should have most of my force painted up- another awesome thing to come out of the battle is that it's sent me into a painting and fluff-writing frenzy, so expect to see a lot of stuff posted up on here in the next few weeks.

Dark Elf battle reports and insane chaos warriors

2+ Save on your basic warriors, what the hell?!

For those who were paying attention last week, you'll remember that i built an insane amount of Dark Elves in an afternoon.

Well, i managed it, surprising even myself on that count. I managed to muster all this:



Note the plastic Executioners, converted from spearmen and green stuff. I'll cover these in more detail later.

Anyhoo, moving on. My first game was pitched battle vs dwarves. Unfortunately, i'd brought a fairly static gunline of 45 crossbowmen, with Executioners, Harpies Corsairs and Cold ones for counter-attack. Outclassed didn't even come close. The game consisted of me trying to close with him before his cannons took me apart, without much luck. The game ended in a massacre to him.

This week, my game was against a bloke named colin and his nurgle chaos horde.

My list was roughly the following:

2 lv 2 sorceresses, one with lore of metal and the other with dark magic
45 crossbowmen
15 corsairs
1 death hag with banner of hag graef and witchbrew
12 exectioners with banner of murder
2 units of 5 harpies

Mission was breakthrough - get more units into the opponents deployment zone than your opponent in yours

The plan: pelt his big blocks of chaos warriors with magic and crossbow bolts,using harpies to slow his marches, then counter-attack with my corsairs and executioners, relying on the powerful death hag and executioner combo to break through.

The reality: Now i knew his army was tough, with me often need 6's then 5's to even force armour saves on them, but i knew if i got a few good spells off (i rolled spirit of the forge for one of my lore of metal spells), then i'd stand a chance. Unfortunatly, the winds of magic were blowing fitfully and i rarely managed to cast any spells for the whole game. the few that did make it were swiftly dealt with by his scroll caddy. Even Power of Darkness couldn't help!

A huge mistake i made was getting over confident with my executioners/death hag and charging a block of 18 chaos warriors in the centre of the table. My dice failed me on damage dealing. Then i found out that what's the equivalant of power armour at range turns into a 2+ save in combat!!! Can you say broken?

Well, unsurpisingly, my unit was ground into the dust, then the warriors overan into my corsairs, who at least died slowly enough to give me some thinking time. One of my units of harpies had fled too far (ie. off the table) from a charge from his chaos knights, turn 2, but i still had a unit of the winged vixens flying around just behind his lines, not really doing very much as he was too close to march anyway. I flew these into his back field, far away from any possible retaliation, giving me a victory point.

Then lady luck threw me a bone. The warriors unit had been joined by a marauders unit in destroying my corsairs unit, but once the pirates had been crushed, it turned out that only the marauders were alined in such a way that they'd end up in my deployment zone, leaving the chaos warriors running lengthways across the board, unable to wheel enough in time to make it (it was turn 5 by this point). All i had to do deal with was bringing the maruaders below scoring, so tbhey didn't count as a unit for the victory conditions.
There were 15 or so of them in the unit, so this was a tall order considering my shooting so far, but the fighting had brought them into short range of all my repeater crossbows and sorceresses and they didn't have the advantage of chaos armour, unlike their borderline broken comrades.

Unsurprisingly, my magic did sod all, bar killing one, but then 45 crossbow bolts were loosed. 8 or so hit their mark and 5 killed, forcing a panic check. Unfortunately they passed it, giving me a turn of my own panic as he strolled right into my deployment zone, smug as anything. Then last turn, another 45. this time about 12 or so hit, 7 of which hit his sorceror!! luckily the sorceror went down and there were enough left on the unit to kill 4, ending it's scoring status and pulling out an incredibly narrow draw for me.

It was a great game and it taught me a great deal about my army and how to play WFB

1. My Dark Elves are best at mid to short range shooting

2. Never charge/engage chaos warriors - shoot them or melt them with magic, but facing 18 terminator equivilants in combat is not good

3. Chaos players fear Lore of Metal and will go to great lengths to stop you using it

4. Relying on magic could be good if you have power stone or two - i didn't, hence my trouble with magic

5. Even if you load up on goodies, you still need to support your Executioners - i really should have combined it with a corsair charge

6. Harpies are useful. Very useful.


Where next?

1. I got a manticore through the post today, so i want to play a game or two with that, see if it works for me or not.

2. I also have a Cauldron of blood that might be interesting to try in conjuntion with the Executioners and Death Hag


As usual, thoughts and opinions are welcome, especially on the style of battle report i used

Deathstrikes are fun!

Sometimes you just have to cackle maniaclly and hope that your doomsday device works!

Played my first game with a deathstrike today and i have to say, it was a blast!(no pun intended)

Deathstrikes pretty much sum up the way i like to play. Fun, quirky and they doesn't always pay off, but it's awesome to play with them anyway.

I reckon i need to convert up a guard officer with a suit and moustache, just for effect. He can be a 'counts' as Creed, with the four orders a turn representing him going nuts and shouting at everyone in the general vicinity!

Essentially, my guard were holed up in the building they'd hidden the deathstrike behind and kept feeding the Deathwing infantry squads until it went off.

Luckily, it went off turn 2 and hit bang on target in the centre of the huge cluster of Deathwing terminators bearing down on my squishy infantry squads with the full blast of 6". I have never seen anyone roll so many fives and sixes as this bloke did, although i did wipe out a good half-dozen or so terminators. The look on his face was worth the points cost of the missile on its own!

Unfortunatley, it didn't slow him down and his army swept up my flank, all the while under fire from guardsmen with Autocannons and Plasma Guns. One plucky Commissar wiuth a power sword even managed to kill one up close and personal before being gutted by Belial. In the end we called it a draw, due to the fact that my opponent had to dash off, but it was a very fun game and i'm looking forward to facing him again in two weeks time.

Would a second Deathsrike be excessive?