Kill Team - The Voidscarred Arrive!

 My son Terjoe and I set up for a game of Kill Team letting me use my Eldar Corsairs for the first time, against his Tau Pathfinders which is his second time playing. 

We set up the board with the big ork fortress in the middle, and 5 objectives spread out evenly, one on top of the fortress and the other four around. It takes 1 AP to pick up an objective, and whoever carries the most at the end of the game wins (i.e. 1 VP per objective).

NOTE: we changed the map after the above picture to put the oil tanks equal distant between us.

The Eldar with their agility moved quickly onto the fortress to secure the high ground while the Tau adavanced on the flanks. Everyone was carefully concealed so no shooting early on, but the Eldar controlling the fortress had the Tau worried.

Turning point 2 arrived and the sound of thunder rolled as the Wayseeker called warp lightning to strike out on the right flank from the high ground on the oil rigging, and a brain Tau Grenadier climbed up to whip fusion grenades at the psyker. The wraithbone armour resisted the high energy and only wounded the Wayseeker.

Will the Fatedealer's long rifle keep the Tau at bay?

The Eldar on the fortress threw themselves off to charge at the Tau on the left flank, the Duelist using his fusion pistol to melt the big MB3 Recon drone to slag. Counter fire from multiple carbines missed or rang off his armour until the ion cannon of the Weapons Expert hit true. The weapons expert, now exposed though, wailed in terror as the Heavy Gunner with a Wraithcannon saw the movement and sucked half his body into the warp.

More fire exchanged and slowly the marker lights and accurate combined fire of the Tau pathfinders started to take their toll as corsair after corsair fell. The Felarch on the fortress with one objective fell to a rail gun round as the Soulweaver ran away with another one. 

The Tau gained complete control of the fortress and used the heights to finish off the Soulweaver and the Heavy Gunner. The Eldar Fatedeal, seeing his own fate sealed, did a heroic doomed charge to try and exact a small measure of revenge but the Tau Marksmen was protected enough by his armour to survive and deliver devastating return fire .

As the last Corsair's body tumbled off the edge of the fortress, the Tau cheered in victory.

Kill Team - Veteran Guardsmen versus Arbites Extraction Squad on the Gallowdark

Last night I had the pleasure to meet up with my friend E and get a game of Kill Team in on his awesome Gallowdark terrain. The pieces are so modular and we set them up like this for a mission in a spacious hanger with corridors on the outside and doors that can open and close into the hanger.

The orange dice are markers that have to be investigated for the actual objects to control to win the game.

I selected my trusty Veteran Guardsmen since they are pretty forgiving with lots of numbers and a few decent guns, and E used his space police, the Arbites Extraction Squad.

Firefights ensued in the side corridors...

... where casualties on both sides mounted. Meanwhile in the hanger guardsmen and arbites hunkered for cover while trooper Jim from Iowa got lucky and found an objective on the first roll. He took a bullet in the shoulder but was still healthy enough to pick up the objective and run out of the hanger.

In the left corridor bodies hit the floor as shots and bursts of flames were traded:

But close quarter combat erupted in the right corridor as the K9 unit flew through the hatch to rip into a guardsmen followed closely by the Proctor-exactant. 

But the tide began to turn as a slice of a powersword put end to the growls of the beast and a krak grenade sent the Proctor flying back through the hatch, never to get up again.

In the hanger more spots were searched by both sides but still no more objectives appeared, and shots traded back and forth killed more (expect my melta gun gunner who could hit nothing!).

In the end only the one objective carried by Jim from Iowa was found and he hit in the back of my deployment zone, calling on the comms for help. 

 
Great game that came down to only the one objective being found. Just another 6 on the dice or two and it would have ended very differently.

Kill Team Game Photos

 I was talking with a friend about the game and realized I never posted photos of actual games of Kill Team on here. So lets get some on here.

June 2023 - Tutorial Games of Veteran Guardsmen versus Ork Kommandos

These games were from the tutorial booklet with just the terrain that came in the basic box with my two sons

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July 2023 - Full game of Orks versus Veterans, starting to get the feel of it now with the awesome Octarius terrain. 

Why does it always come down to the last few dice rolls!

August 2023 - Ork Kommandos versus Tau Pathfinders. My son got the Tau and they were as shooty as expected, but I was the one that remembered that objective markers are the only markers that count!

Now that we're caught up, I can post about my game last night!

Voidscarred Heavy Gunner

 No fancy Eldari name for this guy, he's just the heavy gunner.

My choice of weapon is the Wraithcannon, for when you just really can't stand a single target and you want to make it go away. 

With this model complete, that brings the team up to 5. The next five I'm going to paint altogether so might be a while before another model post but I'll get some games in post about those.

If anyone from my old company is reading this, drop me a line and let me know how your painting is going! I miss the channel.

Scythe

 Nothing like a lazy rainy Sunday morning to make the big board games come out.

And nothing is quite as nice of a big board game as Scythe, which can be set up, played, and put away in 3 hours. I played with my sons Terjoe and Aarjay and took off the kids gloves and gave them a right shellacking, winning 78 to 63 and 57.

We had fun and still one of my favourite games. 

Eldar Corsair Wayseeker

I finally finished my Corsair Voidscarred Wayseeker between leaving one job and starting another with a camping trip thrown in between.

 

Overall I'm pleased with how he turned out, despite some mistakes on the face plate. The gems particularly are coming along well. I do wish I had done more colours on the helmet, maybe making the whole faceplate wraithbone instead of just the mask, like the one from Citadel: 

 

Oh well, I'm still pretty happy. Next up, I need some firepower!

Book(s) Review: Swords & Fire Trilogy and Rooks & Ruin Trilogy by Melissa Caruso

 

Last year I read the Swords and Fire trilogy written by Melissa Caruso and this year I just finished the Rooks and Ruin trilogy last week. Both are set in the same fantasy universe with the former being about a generation or two before the latter, so similar setting but different characters.

The Swords and Fire trilogy focuses on two young women who become bound to each other through kismet, one a member of nobility and the other a poor wretch with uncontrollable magical power. The books follow these characters and a host of supporting cast through adventures and challenges. I really enjoyed the series and found both the setting and the characters engaging and would highly reccomend them to anyone looking for a lighter fantatsy fare.

The second trilogy has a single main character who is a warden of a castle with dark secrets, and also has uncontrollable magical power, who meets a group dedicated to solving magical problems. The dark mystery of the castle causes issues and she works with this group to prevent catastrophe. I enjoyed this second outing less than the first but still found it engaging with a solid satisfying finish.

There are a lot of parrellels between the two trilogies but also enough differences to make it feel like I was reading a new story in the same world and not just a rehash of the same story with different characters. 

If you are looking for light fantasy fare in a unique world with a clear voice and writing style, I can reccomend  these series.

Eldar Corsair Kurnathi

Finished my third Eldar Corsair, this one the Kurnathi blademaster. Sorry for the poor quality of the pictures, still getting my feet under me.

I had a lot of trouble deciding on the lizard skin cape. Should I make it green? Should I make it hues of black and green? Or alien like blue? In the end I played it safe with the black templar contrast paint and dry brushing lightly with fang grey.

The swords on the other hand, I did not play it safe and it took two or three tries to get something close to what I wanted. Part of the problem is that I'm really out of practice blending paints and the other part was I used a blue to start that washed the sword out instead of making it vibrant. I'm moderately ok with the end result, but hope the next sword comes out better.

Next up, the wayseeker!