My first encounter vs a Riptide...

o/

This weekend I got to play with Patrick. He's an old friend of mine, and largely responsible for painting all of that wonderful terrain I posted a few posts back! Not having played in a few years (somehow) we remedied that this past Saturday.

Storm wardens with Subjugators and an Ordo Xenos inquisitor vs. Tau. 1750 points, Big Guns never tire (three objectives, one in each deployment zone and one in the middle of the table), standard deployment. He won the roll and decided to let me deploy first. Failing to steal the initiative I went first into night fight conditions...

The mostly painted Storm Wardens prepare to walk into hell on my right flank.

My full battle line, with Captain I Killed Draigo, the Obsolete Assassin (inquisitor) and a 10-man tac squad in the Landraider.

The predator's performance in this game would not move it up any higher on the painting list, the landraider...maybe.

The Subjugators, many of whom were assembled mere days before battle.

Ugh, I dread what that thing will do...

The Tau center with the Special character tank commander inside the Hammerhead.

2 Broadsides (one is a proxy) with a pair of funny looking shield drones faced me on my left.

Turn one, the dreadnought drop podded in, scattered badly, but took out a quarter of the fire warriors. The Landraider did nothing useful aside from illuminate the hammerhead with its searchlight. The bare plastic pred failed to put a dent in it, whereas the Subjugators pred put all three hull points on it, killing it with the final blow coming from a hunter-killer missile (quite the rarity for that to actually work), giving me 1st blood!

The Subjugators heavy bolters took out the 'shield drone proxies' but the Broadsides held firm.

The Cadre Fireblade, firewarriors and riptide hammer the advancing tac squad. The brute firepower proving too much for the Librarian's 'Invisibility'.

THIS folks is what you call the proper use of cover! This pic was taken from my bare plastic predator's point of view...

One broadside down and the scouts arrive in the backfield to cause problems...

Somehow still untouched (the Tau's opening turns went badly dice roll wise) the Venerable dread wipes out the center Fire Warrior squad.

Invisibility indeed. Overwhelming firepower annihilates my left flank!

Oh yay, Faresight and friends land in my backfield and the Subjugators pred goes BOOM!

PHOTO BOMB!!! lol, compliments of Patrick's brother Matt.

With Tau appearing in the Subjugators' backfield, their Librarian with Iron Arm moves to intercept. You can tell by his absence from this pic just how well THAT worked...

Having gone a few rounds in HTH losing once and fleeing form the broadsides. The scouts are reduced to just their Sgt., who succeeds in wiping out the Broadsides, and saving the Dread from anymore railgun shots to the back (especially as it was already down 2 hull points at this point...).

Oh great, MORE of them...

The last few Subjugators fight bravely, but are wiped out by overwhelming firepower (this seems to be a theme with the Tau...).

Thus my left flank, like the right before it (and my other predator) cease to exist.

The landraider disgorges its cargo into HTH with the monster, to no avail...

The Storm Wardens use their White Scars' chapter trait to leave HTH (and the inquisitor) behind via hit-n-run. Their intent was to avenge their dreadnought which had just fallen to the Cadre Fireblades' EMP grenades (at the expense of his accompanying fire warriors), but the game ended.

4" from the objective, idiot.

Tallying up the final scores, we came up with not a whole lot. Nobody had any objectives, I had 1st blood and line breaker with the lone scout (and only just barely). Whereas Patrick only had line breaker giving me a 2-1 victory. Had he kept his squad on the objective rather than try and kill the dread, he would have had me, but vengeance took over it seems...likewise had I not moved the landraider too far away from it's objective...

In the end a good close game it turned out to be, so we were both happy with it.

The Riptide didn't do too much, as it was his 1st game with it and as my GF doesn't have one, I couldn't help him much with the rules for it (he's new to the new codex and so hadn't heard of 'supporting fire' till I explained it to him, lol!). That said, a dozen shots per turn via nova charged burst cannon was murderous! Beware of that folks...

Riders on the storm...

lol, I've had that song stuck in my head for a few weeks now (which isn't a bad thing really). It came up in a conversation my GF and I were having and it struck me as rather appropriate for a title of this post. That's because I finished my first Storm Wardens' Biker! Here he is:

I haven't fielded bikes in years and this guy is the first of my (current) squad of 3. The other two aren't assembled yet.  I hope to get some more, as I doubt 3 guys riding around with twin-linked bolters will do much on their own. I also plan to get an attack bike to (eventually) flesh out the unit. Once I have the extra bikers, I'll convert one into a chaplain to lead the squad (and keep them from fleeing off of the table as I recall my bikers doing far too often when I last had a squad of them...).

For now though, I have two more bikes to finish (hopefully that plan will go better than my finishing the battlewagon from last week which never happened).

Here's that song, just in case its rattling around in your head now too! :-D

OMG the Terrain!!!

o/


Just a quick post that's really just a shout out to our FLGS.

Lately the turnout at Hobbytown USA has been pretty good, and terrain has been at a premium. Granted, the terrain we have is really good and there's already a lot of it by most stores' standards (going off those that I've been to in the past, some of which were also quite generous in that regard). The weekend prior to this past one we had 7 tables, of which 2 had 3 players at them. The owner stopped by to see how things were going and we asked for more terrain.

Well damn did the store and it's employees (who did all the assembly and painting) deliver!!!

The photo above is our SECOND painted and flocked Realm of Battle board! With a second painted Bastion, and as you can see with a Wall of Martyrs (possibly more than one), a Firestorm Redoubt, along with an aegis defense line! Its not all painted just yet, but pretty damn close, and its also painted pretty damned good too!

Also the table it sits on has a lip around the edge which keeps the RoB sections from sliding around (always an issue in the past). As such, I was told that they're making another for the other RoB as well.

With teh interwebz is constantly maligning GW's 1-man store concept and whatnot (not an issue for us because there are none within several hours drive), and saying the FLGS concept is dead and gone with the advent of online miniature purchases. I thought I'd just mention that the friendly local game store, for us anyways, is still be THE place to be for local and friendly gaming!

Da Battlewagon iz gettin some action!!!!

lol, indeed.

See for yourself:

NOOOOO!!! Don't reroll the difficult terrain check, we WANT to be stuck...

It was her idea, honest...

lol, after its stellar performance in last week's game, I figured the battlewagon deserved to be something other than glaringly white. So I re-primed it all black, and then drybrushed the whole thing with Ironbreaker paint. I then started a tri-colored camo scheme of the original black/ironbreaker combo, Mechanicus Standard Grey and Stegadon Scale Green.

Whilst the little bitz and details will be colorful as is Orkily appropriate, I wanted it to have more color. Thus as you can see, in a prior battle wiv da Blud Angles, it took a serious hit to the rear krew kompartment. However da boyz were victorious, and managed to repair it with some salvaged scrap from the beakie's wrecked tanks!

At this point, its only about half painted. However I'm hoping to have it finished soon as my recent purchase of a tactical squad really has me wanting to build my Astral Claws!

Man, I really wish I'd taken pics for a battle report Saturday.

o/

So, this past Sunday Da Long Wayz Dezert Groop was out in force, with a small allied contingent of the Fem Fa'Tau tagging along. Turn out at the FLGS was heavy, and there was a quick fight to divy out the terrain evenly. One table tried to snag the lion's share, but my GF started commandeering a significant portion of their terrain and scattered it around various other tables (not ours it ought to be said).

Regardless, we ended up with a decent if sparse smattering or terrain on our table, and luckily had brought along my Ork barricades to use as an Aegis defense line (having foreseen the terrain situation in advance). For an opponent, we had the dreaded Eldar, and I figured my beleaguered Orks and their ancient codex were in for a suicide charge.

It wasn't exactly the case as while the Orks did engage in said charge, it didn't turn out to be suicide! Turn two, the Nobs mob lead by Da Masta Cheef himself punched a hole straight thru the Eldar line! At that point the Eldar dice's morale was broken causing them to roll horribly and by turn four the Eldar raised the white flag, fleeing the field (those few that were left).

Usually I have a horde of vehicles careening across the table in a mad dash towards their doom. Barring of course the Matilda (Battlewagon) which trundles across the table in vain hopes that its Zzap gun will kill something. Instead, this time I had a few notable units that were outside my norm.

First up was a 30-strong mob of slugga boys. Lead by a nob with a power claw and having 3 big shootas. Sounds pretty standard except instead of opting for more boys, I made them Ard boys. Clocking in at about 350 points, it was a pricey unit. However they screened the shoota boys for a bit, and managed to weather most of the incoming shuriken fire. Sadly they never made it to HTH combat due to the retreating Eldar.

WAAAAAAAUGH!!!!

Next up was the decked out Nob's Mob. More or less a 'Deathstar', they had all the trimmings: Eavy armor, Cybork bodies, Painboy, Waaaugh Banner (2) big choppas, Da Masta Cheef and of course mounted in the Battlewagon which hauled ass forward! It worked spectacularly! Da Cheef even got an extra VP for the Legendary Fighter warlord trait by killing the enemy warlord (who was the Eldar ranger special character).

Another high point were my two big guns who took to the table for the first time in well over a year. The lobba was spot on for most of the game, only needing its ammo runt once (good thing as it only had one). More than that the kannon never once missed and was only thwarted in killing a night spinner in turn one due to cover saves. As it was, it managed 2 glancing hits. For 57 points total, they performed exceptionally well!

Also of note were the Fem Fa'Tau's drone squadron which killed half of the infernal Dark Reapers and pinned them for turn 2, allowing my nobs to survive after slaughtering their first unit of Eldar in HTH. The fire warriors killed a few Eldar, but sadly the enemy never really advanced into their range to make use of the Cadre Fireblade's addition to their firepower.

So, as you can see, the Orks had a great game though it does make me wonder why Neverness' Orks have so much trouble with the Eldar...

Tyrant's Legion vs. the Fem Fa'Tau Battle Report

Last night during dinner, my GF challenged me to a game of 40k, huzzah! Coming up with the idea on a whim and with neither side ready with army lists, nor was the table set up, we decided on a small 750 point game. This was also the first time my GF would be coming up with an army list on her own. With such a low point total, I was able to make this the battlefield debut of my slowly growing Tyrant's Legion army.

We used a standard sized table despite the limited point total. We rolled Crusade (3 objectives), standard set up, with the Tyrant's Legion setting up and going first. First turn was also night fight.

Still lacking Astral Claw models, a few Blood Eagles were happy to play the part.

Another Combat squad, deployed in the center, just behind the sentry gun, that would annoy the Tau for the game's duration...

My right flank had the basilisk which will need an eventual repaint, and Arch Centurion Carnac Commodus who was leading a squad of legion Auxilia. The Marauder Mercenaries were held in reserve to outflank.

Fire Warriors with a shield drone deployed in ruins on their right flank.

The rest of the Tau deployment. The Crises suit is the army commander, with a 2nd Crises suit in reserve, as well as a small squad of Stealth Suits.

Turn 1, Commodus leads the Auxilia into the ruins, and they quickly secure an objective! The Combat squads advanced, and the sentry gun killed a lone Pathfinder. The Tau's Turn one was likewise uneventful, with advances on the center, and killing a lone marine on my left flank. Annoyed at the Tau's shooting, my GF tossed some of her errant dice to the floor, much to our kitties' delight!

Turn 2 Started off with my Marauders outflanking right into point blank range of the fire warriors on my left flank...however for all of their shooting, they killed just 2 models, one of which was the shield drone.

Quickly my left flank turned into a mess as the Stealth suits outflanked behind my advancing Predator, whilst the Fire Warriors hammered the Marauders!

In the Center, the Tau brazenly contested the center objective, whilst hammering the combat squad of marines, though luckily their armor held true!

Turn 2 put my left into disarray as the Marauders broke (and they can't rally as dead mercs don't get paid), and my predator went BOOM! Granting the Tau 1st blood.

In the Center I sent the Fire warriors running after killing 2 in HTH, but foolishly I allowed them to flee and just consolidated on the objective instead.

Turn three saw the Crises suit deep strike in, whilst the Basilisk did a damned good job of hiding in that ruined building...

His squad gunned down around him, the Sgt. falls back into shelter of the Chaos ruins.

Meanwhile the crises suit rolled an impressive 20 for armor penetration with its twin-linked fusion blaster! Luckily though the ruins took all of that, sparing the Basilisk (whew!).

Taking anther casualty, the combat squad on the left breaks and my whole left flank collapses!

Luckily Astral Claws are still have ATSKNF and rally. Turning their guns on the stealth suits, they kill 2 at the cost of their plasma gunner who's gun exploded.

Valiantly my Sgt. retakes the center objective! Only to be gunned down shortly thereafter, sigh...

Moving around to where there's less cover, the Crises suit immobilises the Basilisk, whilst the Tau commander takes another hull point off of it from the front.

In an uncharacteristic move, the crises suit charges the immobilized Bassie which resulted in wrecking the tank!

Desperate, Carnac leaves the Auxilia in hopes of charging the drones and sweeping into one of the Crises suits beyond. However he fails to both shoot and charge the drones (by a damned 1/4 inch!).

The Auxilia looks at their advancing doom, whilst in the background, you can just make out the HTH combat of the Fire Warriors and 2 surviving Astral Claws on the left flank.

Due to the obesity of the Marauder's Brute, it took these guys almost the whole game to 'run' (more like walk) off of the table.

Having lost half their number to Tau shooting, and worse yet seeing Carnac vaporized via a fusion blaster proves too much, and the Auxilia flee off my last objective.

At that point, it was well past my normal bedtime, and the bottom of turn 5 so we called it. None of the objectives were held by either side, however the Fem Fa'Tau had 1st blood, Slay the Warlord, and Line Breaker, giving them a 3-0 victory. Not bad for one of her first runs w/o my assistance! Pretty soon I expect my GF's army will be going after the guys at the FLGS w/o my allied contingents tagging along. :-)