G. took his 1500 pt Blood Angel List out against a Space Wolf army for his round 1 match for the Winter League.
It was a six-turn game with pitched battle deployment with VP victory conditions (200VP= minor = 13 battlepoints/600VP= major=17battlepoints/1000VP= massacre= 20 battlepoints) and with up to 6 bonus points, 1 for killing an enemy HQ, and 5 for having uncontested control of the single objective in the middle of the table at the end of each turn from 2-6.
He fielded:
Librarian with Fear of the Darkness and Shield of Sanguinius
2x Furioso Dreadnought with Blood Talons and Magna-grapple
3x 5-man assault squad with a power weapon and a meltagun in Las/plas Razorbacks
1x 7-man assault squad with a power weapon and a meltagun in Rhino (bodyguard for librarian)
Baal Predator with Flamestorm cannon and Heavy Flamer Sponsons
2x Dreadnought with double TL-Autocannons
Opposing him were (iirc)
1 Rune Priest in Terminator armor with Tempest's Wrath and Jaws
1 Rune Priest in Power armor with Living Lightning and Jaws
1 Heavy Wolf Guard squad - 4 cc terminators with the termie RP, 2 Powerfist/combimelta who joined the Grey Hunter Squads, 1 Cyclone ML terminator that joined the Long Fangs
1 Lone Wolf - terminator armor, thunderhammer and Storm Shield.
2x10 GH - melta, plasma, plasma pistol, mark of the wulfen
1x 6 Long Fangs - Sergeant, 2x Plasma cannon, 1x missile launcher, 2x heavy bolter
Land Raider Crusader.
The Space Wolves deployed first, with the Landraider central with a GH squad waiting to embark. The Heavy squad (WG termies + RP termi) took his far left flank in a trench. Lone Wolf between the two units. On the far right the other RP deployed with the second GH squad and the Long Fangs camped in a ruin just to his right of the LR.
G. made a spread deployment across the whole width of the board with the Librarian's Rhino on his far left, then the Baal Pred, the Rifleman dreadnoughts, 2 Razorbacks, the Furioso's then the last Razorback opposite the WG heavies.
The S.W. first turn saw the GH squad embark into the LR which moved up 6" and fired, wrecking a razorback. The long fangs fired on the other central razorback shaking it and taking out the lascannon.
The foot GH squad and the Lone Wolf moved forward.
G. rushed his remaining vehicles forward, with the Baal Pred and the Rhino heading for the GH squad, the dismounted marines, a furioso and the damaged razorback moved up towards the objective. The flank razorback zoomed 12" back towards the center to boost the firepower now lacking there. The second furioso headed for the lone wolf.
The shooting phase resulted in a bunch of shots bouncing off the landraider, and the autocannon dreadnoughts picking off both heavy bolter longfangs.
Turn 2 - the GH foot squad moved up and fired on the Baal Pred, doing nothing. The Landraider killed 3 of the 5 dismounted marines, including the sergeant and the meltagun marine. The squad fails morale and retreats 7" behind a big concrete wall. Lone wolf continued to advance. The Long fangs had to move to regain coherency so could not fire.
G. moved the 2 razorbacks forward again firing on the Landraider for no effect. The Central furioso fired on the LR for no effect after closing to within 6" for a good melta shot. The Baal pred closed and flamed 3 marines with the flamestorm cannon and 5 with heavy flamers, but with poor rolls only killed 3. The librarian used Fear of the Darkness, and got past the runic weapon, but the LD test was passed. The casualty LD check was failed though and the GH squad fell back 8". On the other flank the Furioso charged and killed the Lone Wolf before he could swing, thanks to an extra attack from the Blood Talons! The dreadnought consider consolidating towards the WG heavies, then decided to head for the center of the board. The Autocannon dreadnoughts continued their assault on the Long Fangs, killing a plasma cannon and the missile launcher marine. A failed morale check had them running back 6 inches and out of their ruins.
No bonus point from the objective as it was contested.
Turn 3
The GH and LF squads auto-regroup. Firing from the GH squad takes out the flamestorm cannon on the Baal predator. The landraider explodes the nearby Furioso dreadnought. The WG cyclone missile launcher fires at the intact razorback to no effect.
G. makes the right move and rolls both razorbacks up to 6" from the landraider, turning sideways. The assault squads jump out and take aim on the landraider. In the shooting phase everything goes right: The first assault squad explodes the landraider with a meltagun shot. The razorbacks, the furioso and the other assault squad shoot the surviving Grey hunters inside down to just the Wolf Guard alone. The autocannon dreadnoughts continue to shell the Long Fangs, killing the last plasma cannon marine, leaving only the sergeant and the WG terminator.
The Baal predator moves up and again flames the marines, killing a couple more. The librarian again gets a Fear the Darkness off on the GH unit, causing it to break and run back again.
Turn 3 ends with a BA assault squad controlling the objective for 1 bonus point.
Turn 4 sees the lone WG in the raider's crater charge the nearest assault squad. The WG heavies finally move out from the trench, then run forward to get into the battle. The LF squad moves towards the center, firing missiles to no effect at the razorbacks
The GH squad finally kills off the Baal predator in another explosion from a side melta shot.
The Wolf Guard valiantly charging in the center is cut down before he can swing his powerfist.
G. moves his assault squads into the craters of the landraider and the Furioso dreadnought and they fire along with the razorbacks at the long fang squad. That kills off the sergeant.
On the flank the Librarian's squad shoots a GH dead with a meltagun, and the librarian gets off Fear the Darkness again (3 failed runic weapon tests in a row!) which causes the squad to break 8" towards the table edge. Fire from the autocannon dreadnoughts kills two more, causing another morale check (which automatically fails) routing them off the board.
At the end of turn 4 G. picks up the HQ-kill bonus point and the objective bonus point. There are only 6 Space Wolf models on the table (all terminators though). The remaining two turns see little effect due to bad rolling.
The cyclone missile launcher termi kills 2 assault marines, then dies to lascannon/plasma fire from the razorbacks.
The Rune Priest gets two Jaws of the World Wolf abilities off, killing only two assault marines in the undamaged squad.
The rest of the Blood Angel shooting in turns 5 and 6 are ineffective from bad rolls and good terminator saves, killing only one of the wolf guard.
End result. Blood Angels win by 735.5 Victory points for a 17 point major victory with 5 bonus points. A total of 22 out of a maximum of 26.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Paperhammer 40k
The cardboard tank factory finished Rhino number 3 today. Due to not being able to run up a large deficit budget, equipping both G's Blood Angel army and my Space Wolves army with genuine GW Rhinos, I have resorted to building them from posterboard using the the templates from the bwc-archive yahoo group.
Results are very satisfactory so far. From a distance they blend in very well and you have to look twice to notice they aren't the real thing.
I just stuck down the templates onto the next sheet of posterboard for numbers 4 and 5, so within the next few days I'll have enough vehicles for the 1500 point list for the first round of the winter league.
Experiments with making turrets for Razorbacks have been less successful. I have 4 lascannon turrets now which are.... adequate.... I guess. They should look OK painted but are a bit tall. I'm sure someone will accuse me of deliberately modeling them high for better LOS, but they were just assembled out of stuff I had at hand.
Next I need 8 spare plasmaguns to add on to the turrets so they will be WYSIWYG for las/plas.
On another topic: All my Skyclaw marines elected to defect to the Blood Angels this weekend and went bathing in brake fluid. They are now enjoying their spiffy new red paint job and are actually agreeing with the orks that it does make them go faster!
Results are very satisfactory so far. From a distance they blend in very well and you have to look twice to notice they aren't the real thing.
I just stuck down the templates onto the next sheet of posterboard for numbers 4 and 5, so within the next few days I'll have enough vehicles for the 1500 point list for the first round of the winter league.
Experiments with making turrets for Razorbacks have been less successful. I have 4 lascannon turrets now which are.... adequate.... I guess. They should look OK painted but are a bit tall. I'm sure someone will accuse me of deliberately modeling them high for better LOS, but they were just assembled out of stuff I had at hand.
Next I need 8 spare plasmaguns to add on to the turrets so they will be WYSIWYG for las/plas.
On another topic: All my Skyclaw marines elected to defect to the Blood Angels this weekend and went bathing in brake fluid. They are now enjoying their spiffy new red paint job and are actually agreeing with the orks that it does make them go faster!
Friday, October 29, 2010
Result of Librarimania vs Tyranid All-Stars
I have to say this was one of the most entertaining battles we have fought in some time. The armies were:
Librarimania (1850pt Blood Angels)
2 Librarians with Jump Packs
1 Sanguinary Priest with Jump Pack, Power weapon
1 Sanguinary Priest with Bike, Power weapon, Infernus Pistol
2 Furioso Librarian Dreadnoughts
1 10-man Assault Squad with Jump Packs, 2 meltaguns, Sergeant with power weapon (JP libby and Sang Priest joined these guys)
1 5-man Assault Squad with Jump Packs, Meltagun, Sergeant with power weapon
1 10-man Tactical Squad, Missile launcher, meltagun, Sergeant with power weapon
1 5-man Scout squad, Sniper rifles, Heavy bolter
1 Landspeeder, Double Multimelta
Tyranid All-Stars
Swarmlord + 2 Tyrant Guards
Parasite with Mortrex
Deathleaper
Doom of Malan'tai with Mycetic Spore
2 Zooanthropes with Mycetic Spore
2 Tervigons with TS, AG and Catalyst
2 10-bug broods of Termagants
Old One-Eye
10 Gargoyles with TS and AG
An annihilation match with Spearhead deployment was rolled, and the Tyranids won the roll to start.
Turn 1 saw the infiltrated scouts who deployed too far forward get eaten by a Termagant brood pooped out of a Tervigon (the 6" deployment, move, shoot, 6" charge caught them). In return the large assault squad multicharged a termagant unit and the Swarmlords brood. The Termagants lost 7 out of 10 out along with 3 marines, resulting in 2 fearless wounds on the Swarmlords unit.
Turn 2, Doom of Malan'tai shows up and manages to kill a biker and a couple of marine, A termagant charge on the bike squad killed off the attack bike (the fearsome pink termagant in action). The Doom's kill of the biker prevented Old One-Eye making a charge on them.
The Parasite and his gargoyles charge into the back of the assault squad attacking the Swarmlord
Another Termagant brood of 10 charges the combat squad of tacticals after shooting one of them. Poor rolls result in all 4 marines surviving and only 2 Termagants.
A couple more marines die to the Swarmlord, and the Parasite and the gargoyles combined kill one more. The marine beat on the gargoyles and kill 3, tying the combat.
Marine turn 2 brings the dreadnoughts into action - one uses his force weapon to instakill a Tervigon, the other crushes the Parasite with his DCCW.
Doom of Malan'tai survives heavy shooting and an assault from the assault squad and librarian. he loses a couple of wounds to the squad, but makes both force weapon saves from the librarian.
The bike squad kills a few more of the brood of termagants, and the tac combat squad finishes off the one it is engaged with.
The librarian with the big squad drops to the Swarmlord.
Turn 3 sees Deathleaper and the Zoanthropes appearing. Deathleaper pops up in cover an inch from the missile launcher combat squad in the far corner and kills one marine with his fleshhooks. The Zoanthrope's pod scatters, but is still near enough to the Dreadnought libby that just instagibbed the tervigon to lance it twice for a measly stun result.
The remaining Tervigon does itself an aneurysm trying to FnP the Swarmlord, then charges the combat squad, killing 3, leaving one survivor. On the other side of the battle, Doom again makes his invuln save against the librarian's force weapon, and takes 2 out of 5 wounds from the squad, leaving him with 2 wounds left. Old-One-Eye charges into the back of the combat, getting 7 attacks on the charge (4+ to hit, rerolling 1's) hitting ONCE!!!!!! And then fails his to-wound roll (2+). The swarmlord finishes digesting the assault squad and piles in on the dreadnought.
The marines turn 3 sees the remaining 4 men in the tac squad shoot at Deathleaper and wound with a missile and 2 bolter shots. Deathleaper then flubs his 3+ cover saves with a 1, a 1, and a 2 and drops dead on the spot.
The landspeeder arrives behind the Zoanthropes and fires two multi-melta shots into them - failing to hit with either. The stunned dreadnought pops smoke.
The dreadnought and the swarmlord trade punches, with the swarmlord immobilising the dreadnought and tearing off the force weapon arm. The dread swings back with the DCCW, and kills off the last of the gargoyles, tying combat. The tervigon eats the last marine in the tac combat squad.
Doom of Malan'tai gets a lucky wound in (at S2) and kills the librarian, Old-One-Eye uses his bucketload of attacks to finish off the squad. The squad had hammered everything at the Doom, and only inflicted one wound, leaving Doom back down to 2 wounds again.
Turns 4 and 5 see a slugging match continue between the Swarmlord and the damaged Furioso Librarian Dreadnought. The Swarmlord is unable to roll well on the vehicle damage table, scoring 1's and 2's only, the Dreadnought only manages to score one wound on the Swarmlords group, killing off the injured Tyrant Guard. Eventually at the bottom of turn 5, the dreadnought takes a wrecking hit.
The Landspeeder evades fire from the Zoanthropes and the Mycetic Spore long enough to put the second Tervigon on 5 wounds taken, then gets exploded. The Tervigon dies to a krak missile from the remains of the combat squad that killed Deathleaper.
On the far side of the board the other dreadnought kills off the last termagant squad, but is left exposed to a charge from Old-One-Eye, who has eaten the bike squad.
Doom recovered three more wounds from sucking the life from the remains of the assault squad.
The roll does not end the game and turn 6 sees Old-One-Eye charge the dreadnought and take 3 wounds, one short of killing it. The librarian fails his psychic test thanks to the Shadow in the Warp effect from Doom of Malan'tai. Old-One-Eye crushes the dread beneath his claws in return.
The missile squad continues to prove its worth shooting and killing a Mycetic Spore.
The roll at the end of turn 6 does not end the game, but nothing much happens on turn 7 - one of the 4 remaining marines dies to a psychic attack from the swarmlord, and he uses Paroxysm on them to reduce them to Bs1. This saves the second mycetic spore from being hit with a missile as it goes wide.
Game ends with 10 models on the board - 3 marines, the Swarmlord and one Guard, Doom of Malan'tai, Old-One-Eye, 2 Zoanthropes, and a Mycetic spore.
Killpoints score was 13 to 11 in favor of the Tyranid All-Stars.
Librarimania (1850pt Blood Angels)
2 Librarians with Jump Packs
1 Sanguinary Priest with Jump Pack, Power weapon
1 Sanguinary Priest with Bike, Power weapon, Infernus Pistol
2 Furioso Librarian Dreadnoughts
1 10-man Assault Squad with Jump Packs, 2 meltaguns, Sergeant with power weapon (JP libby and Sang Priest joined these guys)
1 5-man Assault Squad with Jump Packs, Meltagun, Sergeant with power weapon
1 10-man Tactical Squad, Missile launcher, meltagun, Sergeant with power weapon
1 5-man Scout squad, Sniper rifles, Heavy bolter
1 Landspeeder, Double Multimelta
Tyranid All-Stars
Swarmlord + 2 Tyrant Guards
Parasite with Mortrex
Deathleaper
Doom of Malan'tai with Mycetic Spore
2 Zooanthropes with Mycetic Spore
2 Tervigons with TS, AG and Catalyst
2 10-bug broods of Termagants
Old One-Eye
10 Gargoyles with TS and AG
An annihilation match with Spearhead deployment was rolled, and the Tyranids won the roll to start.
Turn 1 saw the infiltrated scouts who deployed too far forward get eaten by a Termagant brood pooped out of a Tervigon (the 6" deployment, move, shoot, 6" charge caught them). In return the large assault squad multicharged a termagant unit and the Swarmlords brood. The Termagants lost 7 out of 10 out along with 3 marines, resulting in 2 fearless wounds on the Swarmlords unit.
Turn 2, Doom of Malan'tai shows up and manages to kill a biker and a couple of marine, A termagant charge on the bike squad killed off the attack bike (the fearsome pink termagant in action). The Doom's kill of the biker prevented Old One-Eye making a charge on them.
The Parasite and his gargoyles charge into the back of the assault squad attacking the Swarmlord
Another Termagant brood of 10 charges the combat squad of tacticals after shooting one of them. Poor rolls result in all 4 marines surviving and only 2 Termagants.
A couple more marines die to the Swarmlord, and the Parasite and the gargoyles combined kill one more. The marine beat on the gargoyles and kill 3, tying the combat.
Marine turn 2 brings the dreadnoughts into action - one uses his force weapon to instakill a Tervigon, the other crushes the Parasite with his DCCW.
Doom of Malan'tai survives heavy shooting and an assault from the assault squad and librarian. he loses a couple of wounds to the squad, but makes both force weapon saves from the librarian.
The bike squad kills a few more of the brood of termagants, and the tac combat squad finishes off the one it is engaged with.
The librarian with the big squad drops to the Swarmlord.
Turn 3 sees Deathleaper and the Zoanthropes appearing. Deathleaper pops up in cover an inch from the missile launcher combat squad in the far corner and kills one marine with his fleshhooks. The Zoanthrope's pod scatters, but is still near enough to the Dreadnought libby that just instagibbed the tervigon to lance it twice for a measly stun result.
The remaining Tervigon does itself an aneurysm trying to FnP the Swarmlord, then charges the combat squad, killing 3, leaving one survivor. On the other side of the battle, Doom again makes his invuln save against the librarian's force weapon, and takes 2 out of 5 wounds from the squad, leaving him with 2 wounds left. Old-One-Eye charges into the back of the combat, getting 7 attacks on the charge (4+ to hit, rerolling 1's) hitting ONCE!!!!!! And then fails his to-wound roll (2+). The swarmlord finishes digesting the assault squad and piles in on the dreadnought.
The marines turn 3 sees the remaining 4 men in the tac squad shoot at Deathleaper and wound with a missile and 2 bolter shots. Deathleaper then flubs his 3+ cover saves with a 1, a 1, and a 2 and drops dead on the spot.
The landspeeder arrives behind the Zoanthropes and fires two multi-melta shots into them - failing to hit with either. The stunned dreadnought pops smoke.
The dreadnought and the swarmlord trade punches, with the swarmlord immobilising the dreadnought and tearing off the force weapon arm. The dread swings back with the DCCW, and kills off the last of the gargoyles, tying combat. The tervigon eats the last marine in the tac combat squad.
Doom of Malan'tai gets a lucky wound in (at S2) and kills the librarian, Old-One-Eye uses his bucketload of attacks to finish off the squad. The squad had hammered everything at the Doom, and only inflicted one wound, leaving Doom back down to 2 wounds again.
Turns 4 and 5 see a slugging match continue between the Swarmlord and the damaged Furioso Librarian Dreadnought. The Swarmlord is unable to roll well on the vehicle damage table, scoring 1's and 2's only, the Dreadnought only manages to score one wound on the Swarmlords group, killing off the injured Tyrant Guard. Eventually at the bottom of turn 5, the dreadnought takes a wrecking hit.
The Landspeeder evades fire from the Zoanthropes and the Mycetic Spore long enough to put the second Tervigon on 5 wounds taken, then gets exploded. The Tervigon dies to a krak missile from the remains of the combat squad that killed Deathleaper.
On the far side of the board the other dreadnought kills off the last termagant squad, but is left exposed to a charge from Old-One-Eye, who has eaten the bike squad.
Doom recovered three more wounds from sucking the life from the remains of the assault squad.
The roll does not end the game and turn 6 sees Old-One-Eye charge the dreadnought and take 3 wounds, one short of killing it. The librarian fails his psychic test thanks to the Shadow in the Warp effect from Doom of Malan'tai. Old-One-Eye crushes the dread beneath his claws in return.
The missile squad continues to prove its worth shooting and killing a Mycetic Spore.
The roll at the end of turn 6 does not end the game, but nothing much happens on turn 7 - one of the 4 remaining marines dies to a psychic attack from the swarmlord, and he uses Paroxysm on them to reduce them to Bs1. This saves the second mycetic spore from being hit with a missile as it goes wide.
Game ends with 10 models on the board - 3 marines, the Swarmlord and one Guard, Doom of Malan'tai, Old-One-Eye, 2 Zoanthropes, and a Mycetic spore.
Killpoints score was 13 to 11 in favor of the Tyranid All-Stars.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Showdown at the OK battletable
Looks like the next battle coming up is going to be more for amusement than serious army testing:
G. fielding: 'Librarimania' - a Blood Angels army featuring 4 librarians (2 HQ, 2 Furioso)
Me, fielding: 'The Tyranid All-Stars' - a Tyranid army with all 5 named Tyranid characters
Both armies are actually workable lists, just very far from optimised or balanced. Still, it should be an interesting game with a boatload of special abilities in use.
G. fielding: 'Librarimania' - a Blood Angels army featuring 4 librarians (2 HQ, 2 Furioso)
Me, fielding: 'The Tyranid All-Stars' - a Tyranid army with all 5 named Tyranid characters
Both armies are actually workable lists, just very far from optimised or balanced. Still, it should be an interesting game with a boatload of special abilities in use.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
In the Future there is only War!
As one of the favourite GW sayings about the WH40K universe goes....
War is definitely upcoming for us too. A one-day 3-game charity tournament on December 4th and a winter league (6 games over 12 weeks) are on the cards.
I've decided to take my Space Wolves out for a spin in both. I've been playing Tyranids for the last few games and tournaments and it would be nice to have a change of pace.
G. will be taking his Blood Angels chapter of marines out for both - although that is more a limitation that he only has the one army to go with!
The Toys-for-Tots tournament will be with a 1750 point army, so we have been concocting different army lists at that point level to see what we can come up with that is both a good army, and one that we have the models to be able to field.
So far we have had two test games, each of us fielding very different armies each time. The first battle was a total destruction of the Space Wolves by turn 4, the second game was payback with the Blood Angels routed or destroyed also by turn 4. Drawing conclusions from the games is a bit hard as the dice gods were definitely playing with us mere mortals in both games, with strings of bad luck turning the battles into massacres.
The enthusiasm levels of both generals remains high and further test conflicts seem inevitable!
We'll get out the camera for the next matches to provide a bit more detail on the result.
War is definitely upcoming for us too. A one-day 3-game charity tournament on December 4th and a winter league (6 games over 12 weeks) are on the cards.
I've decided to take my Space Wolves out for a spin in both. I've been playing Tyranids for the last few games and tournaments and it would be nice to have a change of pace.
G. will be taking his Blood Angels chapter of marines out for both - although that is more a limitation that he only has the one army to go with!
The Toys-for-Tots tournament will be with a 1750 point army, so we have been concocting different army lists at that point level to see what we can come up with that is both a good army, and one that we have the models to be able to field.
So far we have had two test games, each of us fielding very different armies each time. The first battle was a total destruction of the Space Wolves by turn 4, the second game was payback with the Blood Angels routed or destroyed also by turn 4. Drawing conclusions from the games is a bit hard as the dice gods were definitely playing with us mere mortals in both games, with strings of bad luck turning the battles into massacres.
The enthusiasm levels of both generals remains high and further test conflicts seem inevitable!
We'll get out the camera for the next matches to provide a bit more detail on the result.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Getting started....
Well, since I have some spare time on my hands right now, I'm going to use up some of it blogging about Warhammer 40k - probably my biggest time-sink of a hobby.
If you aren't familiar with it, Warhammer 40k is a tabletop wargame set in the far future in a really dark and unpleasant setting. You can get more information on it from the publisher's website, www.games-workshop.com.
What it really boils down to is an opportunity to be a kid again, stick together plastic model kits, paint up the resulting figures and vehicles and then play toy soldiers with them to a set of rules. Fortunately I have a partner in crime in this hobby in the same house: G. , my son, is also a keen player and is learning fast.
If you aren't familiar with it, Warhammer 40k is a tabletop wargame set in the far future in a really dark and unpleasant setting. You can get more information on it from the publisher's website, www.games-workshop.com.
What it really boils down to is an opportunity to be a kid again, stick together plastic model kits, paint up the resulting figures and vehicles and then play toy soldiers with them to a set of rules. Fortunately I have a partner in crime in this hobby in the same house: G. , my son, is also a keen player and is learning fast.
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