Blogging Slowdown Ahead

I expect that the holidays will keep me mostly away from the computer until January, so expect few if any blog posts.

Happy Holidays!

Money Money

I sold the Warlord titan I got extra from Mail Order and put the money towards purchasing one of those humongous hard-plastic cases from GW, twice the size of the normal cases. Call it impulse purchase. The large case I use for the chaos army is always straining under the pressure and I never feel 100% sure the models aren't breaking in there.

I'm planning to downsize the black storm a bit, getting rid of models I never use and probably will never get around to painting. No hurry though, I need to get the Lost and the Damned out first. Time to bug Lawrence and see if we can make some headway there.

How the Heck Did that Happen?

So I had a quick 3000 pt game against Dave (aka theDragonsBane) yesterday afternoon and found myself getting slapped around like a pinata at a 6 year old's birthday party. And then at the end of turn 3 found myself victor.

How the heck did that happen?

Black Storm:
Platoon #1 - 8 marines, 4 havocs, 6 rhinos
Platoon #2 - 8 marines, 4 rhinos
Platoon #3 - 8 marines, 4 rhinos
2 x Forlorn Hope - 4 marines, 2 rhinos
Bike Company - 8 bikers
2 x Terminators - 4 Terminators
2 Deathwheels
Hellblades (using Swiftdeath rules)

Imperial Guard
Command Platoon - 13 infantry + chimeras, 1 hydra
Infantry Platoon - 13 infantry
Storm troopers in Valkries - 4 Valkries, 8 Storm Troopers
4 Vultures (ouch)
3 Shadowswords
2 Warhounds
3 Manticores
2 x Thunderbolts (2)

Turn 1:

IG get initiative and activates the vultures. Instead of pounding the Deathwheels as I expected, he targets Platoon#1. You see, fearing the Manticores I left all my platoons in their tanks. He took advantage of that and got 7 hits destroying all 6 rhinos, and the infantry armour saves were on odds so I lost 6 of 12 stands of infantry. 12 dead units in one salvo. Ouch!

He retains and then pummels the bikes with the manticores, killing four of them and breaking the rest. I haven't even activated yet and I've got two formations broken and below or at 50%. Ouch!

Everything else is mostly advancing and a couple infantry stands from each side dying. At the end of the turn my broken formations rally and we prepare for turn 2.

Turn 2:
I decide that the shadowswords have to go before they can draw bead on my Deathwheels, especially after learning how Titan Killer with D3 or D6 work! Yikes! So I teleport the two terminator formation in front and behind the shadowswords and hope I can win initiative (I get +2 to the roll).

We roll and Guard win the initiative AGAIN! Arrg! Well, Dave brought back his infantry platoon and command platoon to engage and destroy the first terminator formation with massive numbers, and then retained to fire the shadowswords on the second terminator formation. Titan Killer weapons really, really hurt. Both terminator formation down with only a small handful of dead guardsmen to show for it. I was not in a good place.

I was desperate now and tried to get some revenge by engaging the shadowswords with the Deathwheels and managed to kill one superheavy and break the rest. Finally, some good news! The first thunderbolts tried a ground attack and I intercepted, killing them both. Then the warhounds sustained fire and killed 5 marines and 2 rhinos of platoon #3, and followed by the stormtroopers engaging the 6 stand remanants of platoon #1 and easily dispatched them near the blitz objective.

More desperation showing I threw the surviving bikes against the storm troopers and after 3 rounds of combat the bikers were dead but the storm troopers took enough casulaties to break.

So, at the end of turn 2 the broken Shadowswords and Storm troopers failed to rally while my broken platoon#3 managed to find some courage. Tally for IG had the undamaged Manticores, Vultures, one thunderbolt squadron, 2 warhounds, and two mostly undamaged platoons of infantry still alive and unbroken. Chaos had one undamaged platoon of infantry. 2 forlorn hope still kicking, 1 platoon below half strength, Hellblades, and 2 deathwheels. I felt badly outnumbered.

Turn 3

I manage to win the initiative and try to take the manticores out by sustaining fire with the Deathwheels. Four shots at 3+ to hit against 6+ armour? Easy I thought. Then I rolled 1, 1, 2, 2. AAARRRRRGGGGG! Manticores suffer a blast marker. Desperate to keep them from pummelling me I sacrifice two hellblades through hydra flak to put another blast marker on the artillery.

I think that put some panic into Dave as he decided to try and destroy the Deathwheels by engaging them with the two infantry platoons. A vicous fight erupts which sees one Deathwheel go down and the other break, but they managed to win combat anyways! The infantry are broken and suddenly a gap is opening. Dave trys to finish off the last deathwheel using the Warhounds but the armour of the chaos war engine stands up to task. However, the warhounds are in the danger zone and I engage with the platoon#2 marines and take one of the walkers down, breaking the other. The door opens more!

I then send a forlorn hope flying through the gap of broken units into range of the blitz and fire at the nearby manticores. I fail to hit but the third blast marker breaks them and before Dave knew it I had the Blitz and Take and Hold goals secure. His vultures secured his Blitz but he lacked an unbroken unit to take anything else. Chaos wins!

Analysis

What happened? It seemed like to me that the Imperial Guard was ready for an easy victory and it slipped through their hands in turn 3. Well, I think a few things contributed.

1. Shadowswords and Stormtroopers didn't rally at the end of turn 2. Had either one found the faith to fight on, I was screwed.

2. Deathwheels broke two infantry platoons. It was a risky engagement and I would not have done it, especially considering they had already activated in turn 3 and were not near any objectives.

3. Warhounds put themselves into close combat engage range with an undamaged marine platoon in a vain effort to get the last Deathwheel. Even had the tactic worked and the Deathwheel went down, it was still a 2-2 game and losing 600 pts of warhounds would have really stung. He would have been better served shooting at the unactivated marines and contesting the objective.

It wasn't much, but it was enough to let me sneak in an undeserved victory. I definitely want a rematch though, both because I think I can do better and Dave deserves a chance to redeem himself.

Dave: Great game. Sorry if I was a little bitter in the early going, but almost nothing seemed to go my way for the first two turns and I'm still in shock that I won. Everything was dying and nothing of yours was, it was frustrating. I'll be more patient next time now that I see how fragile the guard can be in the right circumstances.

Dragon's Bane, your time has come.

I've got a quick 3K pt game against Dave (aka theDragonsBane on Deep Space). He plays a mean Imperial Guard army so I'm a bit nervous. I expect a rough time of it.

My list is very simple. Three platoons in rhinos, one with attached havocs, 2 Forlorn hope in rhinos, 2 small terminator formations for artillery patrol, Bikes, Hellblades for AA cover, and 2 Deathwheels as targets for the big nasty Shadowswords and such. My plan so to close as quickly as possible and CC him to death. No artillery duels or risky drop pods for me this time.

Finally, Pictures!

Finished the Hellblades well enough for now, although don't flip them over yet. Here they are with the original Helltalons, with and without flash.
 

Next is to finish the two new Helltalons and then the next three Hellblades.

Ack! Where did the weekend go?

I did not get any painting done this weekend, although I did spend a couple hours cleaning up my work area a bit. I had to put away my 40K models from two weeks ago when I crushed Dave and his Blood Angels once again, and my Epic army from last week. My goal is to finish the first three hellblades this week at the very least, and the rest of the flyers hopefully over Christmas holidays.

Battle Report - Revenge of the Eldar

Saving myself a lot of typing, I'm shamelessly stealing Adam's written report from Deep Space:

 Oh I'm sure that Bill is going to put up details as he gets his pictures. But I'll recap here:

Deployment was an oddity. Bill placed his objectives VERY far from eahc other in an effort to draw my forces thin, which worked, I deployed mainly left and right far sides of the table with an artillery battery (nightspinners) and Revenant Scout Titans in the centre so that they could move where-ever they may be needed.

Bill had his largest formation sitting on the Blitz with 3 Defilers, all safely ensconced in cityscape buildings. He had a more standard deployment with 2 bike formations on the extreme right (otherside of the defiler formation) and some formations in the middle with Rhinos to aid in their movement. By and large the bulk of his forces were on the far right, I figured he was going to push for a flank attack and roll up my right.

First turn, Bill wins, but hands it to me. Of course my Void Spinners fail their activation, I burn my reroll, roll a one again, I lump it and hand the conch to Bill.

Bill fires Defilers destroying one Nightspinner and breaking the formation... Turn one, my artillery counts for squat... Not a good start for the Eldar.

Things get considerably better as I advance my Falcon and Aspect Host up to the centre of the board, near a crossroads in a forest that is being held by a large group of mechanized marines. The extreme right, which was looking pretty outnumbered with a small Guardian formation gets considerably bolstered with the arrival of the Titans, which attempt to blast away at a bike formation that has come within threat range of the guardians (and my objective they are holding) but their MW pulsed shots only manage to scratch paint... Adam gets worried.

I decide to retain the initiative and engage with my second Aspect Warhost (2 Exarchs, 4 Banshees, 4 Warp Spiders and 4 Wave Serpents) in an effort to get rid of the first group of Bikes because the second look like they will be Bill's next activation to make a nice little assaulting force right on my doorstep. I manage to anihilate the first bike formation with the Aspects (but lose my banshees in the mix) and they consolidate near the other Aspects and the Falcons in the centre of the board to prepare for an assault on turn two. Bill moves his second bike formation right where the first where... Oh well, at least it's not two bikes! With the Revenants there I'm not terribly worried though Bill does have a large demon pool... Hrm.

Over on the left Bill does some minor positioning and triggers my Ranger's overwatch, I do squat to the Forlorn Hope scouts and decide to leave my Blitz with my second Guardian Formation and support the scouts, since their screen is down. I'm fully expecting a large assault in the city since Bill seems to like doing that and the casualties get pretty high.

Both our aircraft do squat as we both go on CAP. Me first in anticipation of Bill's new swank fighters, Bill goes on CAP, I think to draw out an activation from me. Turn one over.

Turn two: All hell breaks loose. Bill drops two -mamoth- sized Terminator formations right on my blitz (and within assault range of my Void Spinners) and on the other side of the Void Spinners so one Terminator formation can assault either the Void Spinners (or crossfire them) or the Nightspinners. Bill's obviouslly got it out for my artillery! I drop my Swooping Hawks behind his Marines at the crossroads and the bikes in the hopes I can lend assaulting power or get some crossfire if need be...

I win the initiative roll... Time for the ol one, two, three punch!

Agonizing over timing of things and what is most threatening (Bill seems to be perfectly set up everywhere!) I finally opt to screw the better part of valor and sustain fire the terminators between my void spinner and my nightspinners with the voids rather than run... I only kill two of the termies but because of the Disrupt (2 BMs for coming under fire and 4 more for the hits!) I manage to break the formation! What luck!

Next I retain the initiative with the Revenants and decide to sustain fire on the bike formation gearing up to assault my little Guardian formation (and threaten my rear and flank). With 2+ MW Pulsed shots I manage to score 7 hits, the missile racks take care of the rest. Two threats down.

Going for broke and figuring it didn't matter if I handed my opponent the bottom half of the turn since he'd forced my hand I decide to excercise my Eldar ability and retain a second time with my Aspect Warhost in the centre of the table. Being within 5cm of the Falcons I use my Autarch's Supreme Commander ability to pull them into the battle. I figured since I was worried about the size of Bill's marine formation and I could squeeze out some movement on a consolidation from the Falcons I had nothing to lose (except, maybe the battle). Overwhelming numbers proved the mainstay and I won the assault by a wide margin. Marines in the centre crushed I felt more confident, I controlled the centre of the board and my formations started fanning out to get into support positions and hold objectives.

Bill retaliated by assaulting my void spinners with his termies. In a fluke roll I managed to win the assault by 1 (though I sustained 4 hits, killing one of the void spinners and breaking them) thus breaking the termies, which fled by my blitz where if they rallied they could really cause problems for my rangers and guardians in the city (bascially getting crossfired and pincered).

Bill, deciding that he had to crush -something- assaulted with his raptors (and demons summoned) on the entrenched guardians and rangers in the city. I managed to win that assault too through the resiliant saves of Wraithguards (god bless em!) and repel the Raptors. Things weren't looking good at all for Bill by this point.

Determined to hit me where it hurt he brought his starship in, unfortunately the bombardment didn't have anything under it's drop placement, but the pinpoint shots vaporized the remaining Void Spinner, meaning Bill's artillery worries were effectively crushed. He then dumped a horrifically huge force of marines with dreadnaughts near where his terminators were hiding (right behind my rangers!) and a small forlorn hope scout squad landed in the woods near the crossroads where my Aspects had taken out the previous marines. Again, he was threatening my objective with those forlorn hope scouts.

Retaining the initiative, Bill decided to assault my Rangers with his huge dropping marine force with the dreads. Unsurprisingly they eviscerated the poor Rangers and took up position in a crater that was previously occupied by the rangers... I was worried this nasty force might turn the tide and repositioned my Swooping Hawks by assaulting the last dropping forlorn hope (after I'd repelled an attack from them by my Warp Spiders) and then consolidated closer to the centre of the board to hopefully move where ever they were needed in the third turn.

Bill tried to ground attack with his fighters but failed and I ended up ground attacking broken terminators and artillery baraging them with the remaining nightspinners. The first termie formation by my blitz was effectively reduced to nothing with a lone termie and an obliterator as backup. To help finish things off I brought the guardian formation back to shoot at them (more casualties) and settup for an assault in the third turn.

Turn Three: I win the initiative roll again and decide that if it worked in the second turn it should work in the third and did my old one, two, three punch again. This time I summon the Avatar with the guardians near my blitz, since I know the termie won't be a problem, but if that big marine squad with the dreadies and forlorn hope get close I'll need all the backup I can get. I engage, wreck the termies and position myself by my blitz but out of site of the big squad.

Retaining the initiative I fire my artillery at the large marine squad, manage to lay down some BMs and then retain a second and final time to advance and fire my Falcons at the large marine squad. I vape all the dreadies which manages to break the formation. I reposition the Revenants as well as the rest of my army to assure a 2 objective point win and Bill and I call the game.

Overall, Bill's army is -sick-... Lots of troops, very mobile and you have no idea where they are coming from. His strategy was to spread my army thinly over the whole board and then focus on taking out one part and rolling up the other with the rest of his army. Problem was, I'm damned manueverable and everytime I saw him starting to set things up for a massive assault I decided to go for the jugular and beat him to the punch. This is exactly the kind of game I love, being able to rush my Eldar up and beat on opponents before they are able to impliment their strategy. Still though, I had a number of assaults go my way when I needed them to and it could have gone badly with a few ill-placed dice rolls.

It was a great game though and Bill is a sneaky, sneaky player! Having learned from my last game with him, I don't take anything for granted anymore: Even when it looks like a win is assured Bill can find anything to turn the tables. Wild animals and Bill both fall into the same catagory of when you have them cornered they are their most dangerous, so I played a pretty cautious game really, hedging my bets until I knew I had overwhelming odds and when I didn't I made sure I at least had cover where I could get it.

 Excellent report, but you forgot one important detail: The lone terminator and obliterator taking down the charging Avatar!!! W00t!

My thoughts:
Past success against the Eldar have come when I keep my forces as close together as possible for supporting fire and overlapping zones of control, as well as advancing slowly to force the Eldar to manuevure a lot to get the assaults they needed. On the "right" flank with the platoon of marines and two bike companies I did the exact opposite. I spread out and advanced like mad men, and the Eldar took full advantage.

This poor tactical decision lost me the game. Having the assaulting terminators breaking when fighting the Void Spinners (I had +6, he had +2. I rolled double ones, he rolls a six. FRIG!) was merely icing on the cake by that time.

I was shellacked and I was due for one too. I've had a couple wins against Adam in a row and my luck was due to run out. Its good to get smacked around a bit, it will force me to tighten up for next game as I think I was getting sloppy in my successes. No one better to lose against than Adam.

Pictures: Start at this one and keep hitting next:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/quintaan/73796515/

Or see the whole set (in reverse chronological order) here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/quintaan/tags/dec142005/

(Damn! No good pics of the Hellblades. Tonight, I promise!)

No Pics Sigh

Between packing for tonight's game and wrapping presents last night I did not get a chance to take any pictures. But fear not. The half finished Hellblades are in tonight's game and I brought the camera. Expect Battle Report tomorrow.

Still Alive

Sorry for the slow posting rate. Weekend travelling always screws up progress. I've got the three hellblades sufficiently painted for buner use so long as none of the staff look too closely at two of them. I have a game Wednesday so tonight and tomorrow I'll try to get them further along. Hopefully pictures tomorrow night or Wednesday morning.

Hell from Above

I'm making decent progress on the hellblades and helltalons in the painting queue.

As you can see, one hellblade and one helltalon are close to finished on the top while two more hellblades have the silver lines.

Battle Report - How I Became Warmaster Bill

FallenAngel_864 and I had our 3000 pt Challenge Grudge Match on Sunday.

Here are some pics (click next to go through all of them about 24-30)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/quintaan/70523685/

We rolled up a Seek and Destroy mission which seemed kind of appropriate. Dave deployed in a spread out area on the 8'x4' playing area, while I placed everything except my Defiler in one corner. My plan was to try and bring almost all of my 3000 pts to bear on a fraction of his force and win by attrition.

The battle was very bloody. We both brought upwards of 50 marines and by the end of the battle there was only a handful left on each side. Both sides brough two big characters each and all were off the table. Vehciles did not suffer too much on my side with only my defiler and predator dying leaving 3 rhinos, land raider, and Helltalon fighting. But on the Blood Angels side of the balance sheet all vehciles except for one rhino were dead by the end of the battle having lost the Land Raider to a duel with the chaos LR, the Baal predator also to the chaos LR, and both dreadnoughts to various enemy weapons.

Highlights

- Turn 2 the BA Terminators land and fire a salvo at the Chaos Terminators. Six normal wounds are scored, and I roll 4 ones on the 2+ saves. Ouch.

- Death company charge and remove a 10 man tactical squad without blinking. I countercharge next turn with my assault squad, sorcerer, and Daemon Prince and kill the Death Company and Chaplin. The Daemon Lord himself killed 6 models.

- Dreadnought droppods in, flames the rear of my predator and destroys it.

- Three multimelta attack bikes blow weapons off of Defiler, so deflier charges and kills attack bikes in close combat.

- Land Radiers duel from across the table and the Chaos LR scores a lucky kill

- Helltalon makes two attack runs on Librarian but Iron Halo holds on.

- Librarian charges Daemon Lord and fails to wound him, taking one in return. Next assault phase without the furious charge he manages to roll a 6 to wound and I fail my 5+ inv save. One soul sucking force weapon later, the daemon loses four wounds and dies.

- Alpha mission so scoring units count. Blood Angels have three scoring units, Chaos only one in the redoubtable Obliterators. Dave throws everything and a kitchen sink at the oblits but fails to kill more than one of them. In return on turn 6 the Baal Predator faces the wrath of the Chaos LR and dies, as well the Dev squad faces the wrath of 3 rhinos and fall below half. With the game tied at one scoring unit apiece we go to Victory Points as a tiebreaker where Chaos has the slight advantage.

Victory: The Black Storm

Analysis: This was a very back and forth game. It had the opprotunity to turn into a massacre for either side but fighting back was the theme of the game. That the game came down to tiebreaker is not surprising, it seemed like our forces were very evenly matched.

The librarian was a hero. Not only did he kill the Daemon Prince, he survived a flurry of attack in return thanks to the iron halo, stopped the sorcerer from ever using his Wind of Chaos power, and then charged and killed an entire tactical squad to boot (killed 6 and made the other 3 run away). He singlehandly almost won the game for Dave.

On my side, my Land Raider performed exceptionally in killing both its counterpart and the Baal pred. The rest of the army performed adequately with the minor exception of the Helltalon who proved he wasn't up to the task of character killer very well.

Great game Dave. It was a pleasure facing you again.

Mutant Army For Sale

After much consideration, I've decided to part with the majority of my Lost and the Damned army. I just can't find the time to devote to 5 armies and this is the one getting the least amount of love.

I'm going to try and sell it all in one batch but most likely I'll have to divy it up.

Progress Report

Hellblade and Helltalons underway:
 

And the new Ravager battle titan takes his spot on the other side of the Banelord: