lol, even at my age, Christmas is all about the toys under the tree...

Yes I got a lot of other stuff too and like them just as much, but they're not really 'blog-worthy'.
Anyways...

I hope everyone had a great Christmas (or insert whichever other holiday you like), we certainly did! I recall as a child dreading the thought of Christmas as a 'grown-up' because all you would get would socks and underwear, other clothing items, and that's about it. The idea of 'no toys for Christmas' was rather horrifying. Being the little tyke that I was, I hadn't even heard of the concept of miniature games. Thus I had no way of knowing that even as an adult, on Christmas morning I would still getting toys!!! To that end, I'm not sure where to start on the painting/building front come the new year, but amongst all of the on-going projects I have, there's quite a few more to add it.

Starting off on my GF's Tau: I gave her some rather cool, and anime-styled banner poles by Paulson Games for her Fire Warrior Shas'ui's. Not sure if they'll work on her metal Pathfinder Shas'ui's or not though. Additionally, I got her a squad of Kroot, and a small squad of Hasselfree minis, that will work nicely as an inquisitor and retinue (all female of course). Whilst desperate allies, they will give her her only access to psykers, since to date she's only been on the receiving end of psychic powers. She also received another Devilfish, and a gift card to the FLGS. Thus the ranks of the Fem Fa'Tau will be growing considerably (not to mention her still unbuilt Piranhas…).

I did quite well on the gaming front as well! Da boys have a new kustom fotifikayshun along with a FW Runt Bot (curiously, its Grot controller speaks with a Russian accent…), which will be either the warlord of the grot divishun, or a deff dred depending on what sort of list I am using. My Arbites have a new Chimera along with the Chapterhouse wheeled conversion kit and the Storm Wardens now have a bike squad! On top of that I also got a gift card to the FLGS!

So look for a lot of new projects getting started here in the next few months! Of course, being the typical gamers that we are, don't go looking for them all to be finished in that, or any reasonable timeframe…

;-p

Time for a half-assed Battle Report.

o/

I was hoping to do a proper battle report today, however on getting to the FLGS Saturday, we soon discovered that I had forgotten the case that held the bulk of the Fem Fa'Tau's infantry! (Again? Really?) Thus with all of the Pathfinders and Fire Warriors being proxies, I decided to skip it. However part of the way thru, my GF wanted me to do a bat rep anyways, and starting taking pics of the game (with the proxies omitted). So here goes...well, sorta.

Purge the alien, 1500 points, dawn of war deployment, Rob's Plague Marines vs. the Fem Fa'Tau and a small contingent of my allied Orks.

Rob stated beforehand that he was 'bringing the chesse' and boy did he! Omitting vehicles and dumping (seemingly) all of those points into this friggin' Daemon Prince. Who made short work of my Tankbustas and Big Mek with KFF.  

I need 5's to hit & 6's to wound? Sure that sounds fair, 4-5 dead Orks later, they tried to flee but were instead cut down.

On the same flank, a squad of Stealth Suits arrives to bring the pain via a bucket load of burst cannon shots. Rob was rather impressed with this unit!

Whereas on the other flank, the god-awful looking spawn, took down a Hammerhead, though they lost one of their number on the way in...

An oblit. arrived via deep strike, only to roll a snake eyes on the multi-melta's attempt to penetrate the other hammerhead. in return, he absorbed a hellova lot of fire, for no ill effect.

Fearing the firepower of the Tau gun line and not the Deff Dredd (borrowed from Neverness, and being the first Deff Dread that I've fielded...EVER!), the Daemon falls back into cover, though still takes a bunch of wounds from Tau shooting.

Proving invulnerable to the Daemon's witchery, the Stealth suits hammer the bastard with overwatch fire. However Mr. 4+ FnP (among the myriad of other goodies) makes his FnP save, clinging to his last wound, and summarily wipes out the squad.

Hide your eyes kids! Rob's touching with his sack...

Just prior to that disaster, the Termies lost a member or two from the burst cannon onslaught!

Having lost another spawn to concentrated Tau shooting, Rob claimed "I'm not trying to be a douche"  and then the spawn, using far more intelligence than it ought to have, proceeded to hug the wall denying the shooting of most of the tau on the floors above it. 

However, on it's charge of the Devilfish, it found the transport was within 6" of the fire warriors, and their shooting along with the still attached gun drone brought that douchbaggery to an end!

The Deff Dread, *my* sole remaining model, decides to eat some termies...

 

With the Spawn threat eliminated, the Pathfinders and fire warriors went back to sniping at the above squad, which was out ranged and never made any attempt to advance.

Nomming two of them, he then turns his attention to the helpless Termie Lord and his weak lightning claws...

Whilst the Devilfish looks for some fresh targets...however these Plague marines would also refuse to advance, and thus never make it into the D-fish's range.

Desperate to save his Termie Lord, Rob brings that rotten chunk of cheddar in to save him...

Meanwhile the Oblit still fails to do any damage, though he finally succumbed to the Tau's shooting...

Typical. I can only hope the next, far off edition of 40k does something to rectify the fact that a Dreadnought of any sort, still has an almost 0% chance of surviving in close combat with a monstrous creature (barring some epically bad rolling, which as you can see, was not the case here).

This time Rob clearly stated he 'was engaging in the douchebaggery' by dropping this beleaguered squad into the building and out of site of the Tau. That said, a Rail rifle shot or two still went thru that bottom floor window, to no effect other than to let them know that they were not forgotten...

Whilst in the center the last surviving plague bearer (sorry, all other pics of this fight were blurry to the point of oblivion) succumbs to the Pathfinders' shooting. Though a squad of fire warriors died before to these Daemons.

At games' end, Rob had us by four points. Sadly, Amy's dice were not pleased by the proxies, and that itself had a telling effect, especially among the almost worthless shooting from the pathfinder units (averaging just 1 marker light hit per squad, per turn). The Daemon prince wiped out my Orks single-handedly (and anything else it came in contact with), and was 'just a little over the top'. It amuses me that he was screaming cheese about a similarly equipped daemon prince that Neverness threw it at him some ways back. Still we a good time so all is well.

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!!!

Sing it like its the 'Partridge in a pear tree' song...

THREE rokkit boyz,

TWO missed shots…

ONE glancing hit!

AND da' LAND-raiderz' still COM-ING for MEEEEEeee!!!

lol, That's all I got, no more to the song. 

These guys have looted everything from Kaos beakies to Cheezy beakies, doubtful they blown up any tanks though...

Anyways, last time I played Rob's Nurgle marines with my Orks, the tankbustas repeatedly hit his Helbrute, for little if any effect. Thus my solution: I needed MORE of them! (Now I have 8) Odds are that these three boyz won't change much, but they look cool. Especially with all of the gubbinz that that are available for Orks…not to mention all da' skrap that they find on the corpses of 'beakies' to loot for trophies!

ONE. LOUSY. MARINE.

That's all I got painted this week...that's it. Just one. Its not even a great paint job, merely decent.

At least he better matches the predator than the captain, though its kinda blah looking, even for a Sgt.

Where in the hell did all of my free time go all of a sudden? Perhaps, post holidays, things will settle down and 'free time' will reappear? The GF moving in will pass the 90 day-trial period and we'll settle into our 'new normal' or something like that. Or at least I hope its something like that...I was tempted to make a low-blow remark along the lines of 'I feel like Neverness now' but hell, I think his painting progress has easily surpassed mine by this point!

...sigh...

Those look like the Jokers's clown cars...

o/

Just a quick post as there's been little time for hobbying this week. I did manage to repaint a pair of Hetzers. Now in Marik's Militia colors, you can easily see where the blog post's title came from. Whilst goofy looking, lets face it, NOTHING will ever make a Hetzer look pretty anyways. Unless...maybe it manages to survive long enough to get into short range, WITH precision ammo, AND it actually has a target...

Before you say they look dumb, remember all of the goofy colors you see on Space Marine tanks...

I also just wanted to give a quick shout out to Iron Wind Metals. I've never dealt with them much as their shipping is horridly high, but when I inquired about a mismolded part from a tank I bought  on ebay (one of the twin autocannons on the Partisan tank below). However, they handled it quickly and without question, shipping it out Thanksgiving weekend!

Battletech NEEDZ MO' DAKKA!!!

So...does Escalation = GW's version of Warmahordes?

Just a thought I had whilst reading Skulker's review of Escalation and Stronghold Assault. My thought was that if you kill a 'Lord of War' in a 'normal sized game' (1500 points locally), the game is effectively over. Granted its a nightmare to kill unless you tailor a list to kill it (AND you manage to steal the initiative before it throws a strength whatever dinner plate at you...). Whereas in Warmahordes I would imagine that killing a Warcaster, whilst difficult, isn't quite that hard to do...

On the left you see a variation of the only Warmahordes mini I have...

That said, regardless of game system its still essentially: 1 kill = win.

Right?

So what the hell?

Notes from the Frontlines...

o/

With the arrival of the new inquisition PDF codex, I can once again field my old and beloved 100-150 point inquisitorial 'circus side shows'. These little units are more for shits and giggles than for any sort of effectiveness, though they do sometimes earn their points back. Indeed I think the SM's got more than enough in their new book, and don't need a lone inquisitor tagging along just to give them divination...or any of that sort of nonsense. I'll leave those shenanigans tor the tournament crowd.

This is also a boon as my GF has a new work schedule which allows her to come and play with us at the FLGS on weekends. So I can add a little (desperate) allied contingent to her Fem Fa'Tau for the next few weeks till the repetition of the game, and all the assorted rules/numbers she needs to remember are memorized. After that, I can start fielding my own armies again, whilst she goes off and beats up on the guys!

Oh how I've missed playing with these guys!

As it was, this past weekend, the Illustrious Ranger Smith of the Imperial Forestry Service returned to the table top! He and his foresters road around in their rhino (never deigning to get out of it), and contributed very little to the Fem Fa'Tau's glorious victory. About all that they did manage was a lucky hot-shot lasgun kill on a SW termie who had a T-hammer and storm shield (almost paying for themselves!). I doubt that was even needed though as Bob's dice were not with him, and the game soon became a 40k reenactment of Pickett's charge...

On a totally different note, my GF's new work schedule also allows her to join in on our Warhammer Fantasy Role Play games as well. We're still hunting for a suitable Elven mercenary mini for her to use, though my Hafling has had his old paint scrubbed off (for the most part), an added watchman's pole and a new pack that's stuffed full of anything he could find of use!

Little Gonnabe Muggins has yet to contribute much, side from being used by my GF's elf as a pillow at night (with threats of severe bodily harm should he 'try anything funny'), and (unsurprisingly) will probably end up as the party's cook (as he's outfitted for war in that area).

Subjugators 3rd Company, all of it!

Well, maybe...

So as I said earlier, I've been pondering a small allied force of the Subjugators Space Marine chapter. Again this is really just an excuse to drag my old Dark Hands Predator out of retirement without making another DH army. The Subjugators fit the bill, although as you can see, the newly painted captain (now with a visibly distinguishable shoulder icon) doesn't quite match it. I wonder if I should forgo the wash and paint the grunts to better match the pred? That ought to allow me to keep the chapter icons black as well...

The 'T's' and 'D's' on the bases distinguished tactical and devastator marines previously.

Anyways, I'd only picked the 3rd Company as the Predator was bedecked with 3's, and so added a '3' to the captain's shoulder as well. Having since read the Chapter's fluff on Lexicanum a little closer, the 3rd was 'almost completely wiped out'. Thus, its conceivable that my 500 point contingent could in fact be the entire company (assuming roughly 80% casualties from full company strength). Conveniently, this is yet another obscure chapter with only a smidgen of canon fluff, leaving me to fill in the gaping holes with whatever I want.

Such as:

The 3rd company's captain ordered the Ramilies star fort's reactor to be overloaded when he realized the station was lost to chaos. With most of the company going down with the fort (the captain included), only a handful of marines in the rearguard were able to escape the debacle.

With the dire news coming from their losses in the Cadian warzone, the Chapter Master pulled the beleaguered vanguard off the line to rest and refit. Of the shattered 3rd company, he reorganized the
company's 19 survivors (including the 2 in the predator) into the most combat effective force he could muster: two under strength tactical squads, with a single predator in support. Two marines were then promoted to the rank of sergeant to lead the tac. squads.  The company's sole surviving sergeant (prior to the reorganization) was elevated to the rank of captain. To instill in him the chapter's confidence, as well as to rekindle the sense of purpose into the defeated 3rd co. (which was ordered to leave the Cadian war zone rather than risk annihilation), the newly minted captain was given the privilege to use a chapter relic: The Primarch's Wrath.

So, 19 marines, 1 tank, and (presumably) a ship of some sort, probably an escort with a single Thunderhawk to shuttle them around...plying the space of the Imperium, and looking to ally with whomever in an attempt to regain their sense of purpose (and a paint job).  Yup, that'll work just nicely I think. Also, I realized that I have almost another full tac. squad of the same generic bolter marines still on the sprue. Meaning the loss of the 16 marines above will have a minimal impact on the Storm Warden army from whence they came.

Yup, sledge hammers still work...

o/

My only gaming/hobby stuff over the past weekend of sheer gluttonous eating, was when Kushial and I played a game of Classic Battletech Saturday night. 8k points, 3030s timeframe units (he had a few royal variants, and idea that completely escaped me), Eridani Light Horse vs. a combination of the 2nd Legion of Vega and the Free Rasalhague's reserve readiness corps (the FRR was still an unwilling member of the Combine during that time period).

We seemed to be trading blows fairly even early on, until a lucky SRM hit produced 3 criticals, and blew the gyro out of my catapult killing it. That, lead to the immediate collapse of my flank and it was all down hill from there. I did hang on for quite a bit before raising the white flag an hour or so later. Of my units though (a medium mech lance and a heavy tank lance), the tanks impressed me more than anything.

The best pic of the tank that Fasa/Wizkids ever made.

I think that vehicles suck in CBT because they're easily immobilized (which happened to virtually all of mine), and thus outmaneuvered are easily taken down (though turrets do mitigate the out manuevering part somewhat, unless of course the vehicle doesn't have one...). That said, the Axel Mk I's that I was fielding a lance of easily did the lion's share of damage to Kushial's ELH force. Indeed, the Axel's took down 2 Jenners (vile looking things), and a Saladin almost single-handedly, and left a few big holes in his surviving units as well. In tonnage its a piss poor trade off, whereas in battle value, probably not quite as bad. They were fielded by the FRR's weekend warriors after all...

The Axel is basically an ICE powered Rommel, which adds a machine gun and trades the LRM5 for a LRM10. Sounds great except its mud slow, and the 'big gun' has a woefully short range. Still Kushial's (quite effective) preference to surround a tank for the 'circle of death' still resulted in several mechs taking a 20-point slug and the occasional MG hit for their efforts.

Conveniently, this tank chassis comes in a bucket load of variants, ranging from the 900 point Axels used Saturday, on up thru the 2k point+ (WTF?) Clan versions! So in the future they'll become a jack-of-all-trades unit. Though, the humble (and probably worst of the bunch) Axel is already a favorite!

A new lease on life for an old favorite...

o/

Amusingly, the 'new owners' of this tank only field the Destructor pattern of the Predator.

I've been wanting to use my old Dark Hands predator but there's a bit of a dilemma with that. Mainly as I didn't want to (a) repaint it as its nicely painted already, (b) just use it as a proxy Storm Wardens Predator again, or (c) restart another Dark Hands army as I don't miss them (though ol' Captain Kurtz was a rather pretty mini).

Thus I was perusing Lexicanum to see if there were any other SM chapters out there with similar color schemes (even though the official Dark Hands color scheme uses a much lighter green) and iconography, as GW is notorious for reusing icons. Given the Imperial Fists front plate, I started there and quickly found a successor chapter I'd never heard of, but still fit the bill nicely: The Subjugators.

Perfect! Once again, I can use a bit of artistic license to alter the colors to my liking (i.e.: Catachan green instead of that more emeraldish green), and put the ol' predator back to work. About half of the minis I have for the Storm Wardens are still primed green (because Hawk Turquoise covers that much easier than it does black), and as such they're half way ready already.  No worries, I still quite like my Warden army, just not too keen on painting anymore of them here lately.  Also, these guys are actual IF descendents, so I can still use the IF chapter traits, allowing me try a different chapter trait for the Wardens.

Not enough contrast on the shoulder icon, hmm...

One thing I lacked for this little endeavor however was a leader, as all of my suitable minis are already painted. Well, except for my Angry Marines' leader 'The Fist Fucker'. Yet with a name like that, how can he be anything other than an angry marine??? lol. That said, one  of his angry marine subordinates volunteered to leave his brethren, to be re-equipped as a captain for the Subjugators. Trading in his bolt pistol and chainsword (and helmet), he now has a power sword and the 'Primarch's Wrath' relic weapon.

Old timers will recognize that gun as coming from a 2nd. ed. scout's heavy bolter, albeit trimmed down and modified a bit. Also, the Subjugators don't seem to display company colors anywhere. However the predator has 3's all over it from its former company, so I added one to the captain's shoulder to tie him in with the tank, and announce which company it is that he leads. Not too well though, as the chapter's fluff on Lexicanum states that the 3rd co. was almost completely wiped out during the 13th black crusade. Indeed, of the 3 companies initially deployed (the 1st, 3rd and 5th), 168 battle brothers were lost in short order, most with their gene seed unrecoverable! Leaving the chapter master to decide on whether or not to pull out of the conflict...

On a totally different note, Mac (last week dubbed as 'Mac n' Cheese' by Screech) sent me a pic of two of his newly acquired and now painted Red Corsairs:

Amazing! He made more progress in mere days than I did with them in 2ish years. Damn they look good too! Neverness commented: Wow! Fuck it, i quit...lol.

Also tomorrow is Thanksgiving. So to all of you out there in the good ol' US of A, I wish you a good day replete with entirely too much good food, a football game to fall asleep in front of afterwards, and then followed of course by pie! :-D

Thus I wish you all safe travels as the snow has arrived!

The view off of my deck this morning.

...and yet another hero falls from grace...

o/

The photo of his original paint.

A good ways back I decided to field an all scout army, even going as far as to have BS 3 predators with Scout crews (and all too often THAT was kinda painful). Leading my Aurora Chapter's venerable 10th Co., was the Aurora's rising star, Captain R. Lee Ermey. It was his job to mold the 10th into a supreme fighting force, and unlike most chapters, he insisted on doing so by fielding the company enmass. No divvying out a squad or two to assist their brethren, under Ermey's command the Aurora 10th took to the field as a whole and...generally failed miserably.

Oh I didn't lose all the games...but the statistics were pretty ugly. Worst off were the fucking scout snipers, where even the stupid Sgt. with a sniper rifle ALWAYS rolled a '2' to hit...worthless bastards. Only after many attempts and a price reduction did that particular squad find a buyer on ebay. One in Stockholm, Sweden as I recall. All too appropriate I think, as there are plenty of icy waters available to dump those bastards into when they no doubt failed their new owner.

Bitter much? Oh yes...

Stripped of his command and his dignity, the Auroras exiled Ermey to a personal penitent crusade to atone for his failures. A concept that appears occasionally in the fluff/BL novels and I wonder: How do these guys travel around the galaxy on their own? He was not expected to return, rather just to die on some forlorn and unknown battlefield.

Briefly he tried to pull a stint as a mere Sternguard veteran amongst the Storm Wardens, but was found wanting. He finally did find a new calling though. It seems that, in the quest to enlarge his chapter to legion strength, the Tyrant of Badab was all to willing to take the failed captain in. If not qualified to train and lead marines into battle, he should at least be able to lead the Legion's Auxilia units. As you can see, Ermey is now bearing the colors of his new chapter: The Astral Claws and has been given the rank of 'Centurion'. Whilst not as highly ranked as his former captaincy, his position does allow him to kill his minions when he needs someone to blame for his failures.

A new and quite pleasing 'fringe benefit' of his new posting...

The Red Corsairs

o/

As I mentioned briefly in my last post, last weekend I fielded a veritable menagerie of CSM forces at the FLGS. Leading this mess of inconsistency was my Red Corsair Centurion (taking the name from FW's Tyrant's Legion list) who was being used as a Chaos Lord. Nothing too fancy really, Aura of Dark Glory, VotLW, bolt pistol and (for a little bit of flair) the Murder Sword. Facing me were the so-called honorable Ultramarines lead by the infamous Tigurius.

Thus at the beginning of the game my Centurion proclaimed that his Murder Sword had Tigurius' name written all over it, and he made a bee line for his target. Tigurius for his part would use craven cowardice to save his skin...an odd trait for Mac's Ultrasmurfs. Indeed, after just one round of the psychic slinging of his powers, he promptly left his command squad (can he do that?) and fled into the safety of a nearby landraider. My Centurion had no way of cracking that beast open (nor apparently did my all-lascannon predator), so denied his prey my lord went on instead to rampage thru the 'veteran ranks' of the Smurfs! Over the course of the game, he personally took down the following in hand-to-hand combat:

a Termie Sgt. (the gods found this an unworthy offering)

The entirety of Tigurius' Command squad.

a Sternguard Sgt. (the gods offered him a boon of redundancy for that one...) along with the rest of the 5-man Sternguard squad.

...and he was on his way for more when the game ended. Not too shabby! Despite the games' loss, I was rather pleased with it overall. Indeed Mac, my opponent commented: 'That didn't feel like a win...'

Pleased as I was with my lone Red Corsairs' performance (the rest of the lot were at best mediocre), it got me to thinking about the Red Corsair army from which he came. This model was broken on arrival when the army was amazingly given to me free of charge. Thus he was removed from his fancy resin base, and replaced with the 1-off Corsair that I had originally painted.

For those who don't recall, the army was beautifully converted and given to me by a reader who had determined that we was never going to paint it. Honestly it felt kinda like winning the lottery, and that gift still amazes me to this day! I presume the prior owner felt that it did the army no justice after all to remain in a permanently primered state. Sadly, 2ish years on, I find myself in a similar state. I'm not entirely thrilled with the CSM codex, and thus my CSM forces have for the most part languished. Indeed of that army, only the Centurion above and one other have been painted.

That's pretty sad on my part.

Suffer not the Blood Angel to live...

The only other change has been the short lived addition of Harold of Nurgle. However the CSM codex's loss of daemons (and with it, the Corsairs' deamonette and plague bearer contingent which were given to Rob). Harold was rebranded as a sorcerer who seemed incapable of anything other than to give my opponents a cover save via clouds of flies (WTF, really???). Thus he too has been removed from his fancy resin base, and has now been relegated to a mere Tyrant's Legion Marauder Brute, though he may occasionally moonlight as a CSM champion-turned-spawn after a successful challenge and disastrous roll on the boons table.

Thus the the Red Corsairs army is now lighter by about 20 or so models from when I got them. The loss of the daemons to Rob, and another 5 who have been put on standard bases to match my Centurion above. So where does that leave the remainder of them? Why yes, still primered black and in their case, rarely seeing the table top.

Well, not for much longer...

Many times there has been discussion over the fight for the army in the case of my untimely death (I'm sure I can expect some nerd raging after what's next coming...). Especially as I've said I'd never get rid of them. Let me rephrase that, I'll never sell them. (I'll let that sink in for  a few...)

Recently a new guy has entered our gaming group, the aforementioned Mac and his cowardly Ultramarines. Last week he showed me a Red Corsair test mini he did, as he was pondering starting an army of them (yes, you probably now know where this is going...). Mac is something of a painting machine, and quite a good one at that. Damn good actually! Also, unlike the rest of us who often sell an army once painted. Generally because we're bored with the army by then as its taken us years to paint! Whereas Mac won't even field an army till its painted! Quite a rare mind set around here.

I'd much rather see the army painted and shooting at me, as opposed to all black and hidden in their case. So I asked him the other day if he'd be interested in them and...his reaction sounded much like mine when I received them. Felt kinda good actually. He'll be the 4th owner of the army, and my hope is that the 'bad things coming in 3s' has come to an end, and he'll actually paint them all up!

Time will tell I suppose, but the prospects look good. Regardless I still feel that I am forever in the debt of the reader who originally sent the army to me. I was given the stipulation that I do with it as I pleased, up to and including passing it on as I am now doing. My thanks to you again kind sir, but like you, I think its finally time this army was given the colors it so deserves! Hopefully in a few months I'll have pics of it all painted up to post on here.

There's too many of them!

This past Friday, we descended on Neverness' house for a 2k, 2v1 game of 40k. Having gotten the both of us sick the week prior, we were intent on exacting our revenge on Screech and his thousand Sons (of Bitches). However we were instead surprised to find his Space Wolves had come out of cold storage for the game! It would be a 2k game of: WAAAAUUUGH!!! Neverness with 500 points of the allied Eleet Grot Mountin Duvishun, vs. The Spess Puppies. Scouring mission, dawn of war deployment, Orks set up & went first, with first round as night fight.

 The kitty was a tempting proxy for a squiggoth...

 Army deployments (with both sides of the green skin's deployment zone).

 Turn 1, Ork shooting was typically ineffective, and saw little else other than a general surge forward. Whereas the Spess Wolves landed a drop pod far forward with a deathstar contained therein. That said, their shooting was no better with only 2 dead orks and a half dozen grots removed from the board.  

 

 Having failed to kill much, the Wolves' Deathstar (consisting of: a SW Lord, Ulric the Slayer, Arjack rockfist, and some Grey Hunters) prepares to weather the orks' incoming fire. They didn't realize that that would be a literal translation though, till Mad Doc Grotsnik and a bucket load of burnas hopped out of the battlewagon!

Yes folks, 51 total Burna hits!!! Arjack would soak up 16 of those before finally melting into oblivion. Ulric went shortly thereafter and when all was said and done, just the Lord and 2 grey hunters remained. Da Grots gunned down one grey hunter and da' shoota boys the other. After da' boyz charged in to get stuck in good and propa!

 The Wolf Lord wisely challenged the Nob. Outnumbered a gazillion to one, the Nob had rerolls galore, however the Wolf Lord had the 'saga of something, something' (the Eternal warrior one), so survived the fight whilst only wounding the nob in return. 

 Prepared for their commander's demise the SW line moves up to avenge his soon to be death!

 Fed up with the shokk Attack Gun's Mek making all of his cover saves, the Predator resorts to popping grots with its' lascannons...

The Wolf Lord dispatches the Nob, only to fall under a rain of choppas shortly thereafter. Da' Boyz don't go far though, as they fight over 'da good skrap!' that termie armor provides...

Meanwhile, da' flankin' manoover proceeds (albeit slowly) on the uvver side of da' board...

 Whilst the SW Lord was finding his way to Valhalla, Grotsnik and his boyz failed to charge the grey hunters by the tiniest of margins. This would cost them dearly...

 

Such abysmal SW shooting...the dice were not kind.

 Da Grots' green plutoon would soon become mired in the creek, diving under the waters in a desperate attempt to gain cover! (don't ask how they were breathing, I think as many drown as died to SW shooting...

After suffering a mere 2 wounds from the Shokk Attack Gun, the Long Fangs see where all this is heading and turn tail, running off the board!

 

 The horde grinding forward towards yet another objective...

 

Alongside da' boyz, da' Grot Spee rides the heavy swells of rough terrain with all gunz blazing (and typically hitting nothing).

 

Some 'hot Dread on Dredd  action'. Even though the SW dread was already down to 1 HP, statistically it should have won this as it went first. However I believe this was during the point in the game where Screechs dice were in 'fuck you buddy' mode and failing at everything...

 I say that, as in the same turn, a Yahtzee roll of 1s and 2s by the grey hunters, saw them fleeing from Groztnik and the burnas they had charged!

 

With the demise of both nearby dreadnoughts, the Boyz claim another objective!

 

Grotsnik and friends continue to run amok on their side of the table...

 

The dice suddenly turned in Screech's favor when a lone Grey Hunter found himself in shoota boy range, yet made an inordinate number of saves!!!

 

Already wanting to concede, but brow beaten into continuing the Wolves fallback in an attempt to simply survive...

 

 SCHULTZ!!! triumphantly plants his flag on an objective, and a goodly portion of his duvishun starts celebrating victory early...

 

The end is nigh as Grotsnik, the Grot Spee and cy-bikes run rampant in the backfield...

 

Firing a full broadside, the Grot Spee takes out a rhino and 2 nearby Grey Hunters!

Many thanks to blogger for its mysterious, and seemingly un-fixable spacing issues...

 Grotsnik finishes off the vindicator, and the last few marines start to fall...

Ork shooting finally takes down the drop pod (along with a few half drown Grots).

 

Speaking of shooting, things go horribly awry for the Shokk attack gun, slaying the Ork's warlord...

 

 Despite a last ditch rout of the cy-bikers in close combat, the game ends on turn 7 with nothing left on the Spess Wolf side but a predator stuck in the river (though it did manage to vaporize Gotsnik in a final parting shot).

Tallying things up, the VPs were clearly in the greenskins' favor with 14-1 (and that '1' only resulting from the shokk attack gun's misfire...). Demoralized by the experience, Screech's Space Wolves summarily went back into cold storage, lol.

Screech's Thousand Sons (of Bitches) took to the field Saturday in a huge game, which I didn't see the end of. Whereas my Saturday game vs. Mac's Ultramarines ended in a loss, though there was an honorable mention, but I'll save for my next post...