A detailed account of my various commission/hobby projects.
Warhammer 40,000 – Our Battle Honors campaign has moved into the fourth week. This week we played the fourth Eternal War mission from Chapter Approved 2018. With the weather improved there were four of us so we played two 1000 point 1v1 games. Xenos vs Imperial and Chaos vs. Imperial. We had the non-imperial players roll off to choose their table and opponent before setting up the game.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – For the first part of 2019, I’m running a Battle Honors campaign. This is a super flexible system that allows players to participate whenever they can. Since each non-character unit gains honors the more you play with it, most of the players are keeping the same 2000 points to maximize the growth potential. If players miss a week or fall behind the power level increases help to balance out the games by giving the lower power level a ruse card or sudden death card from the open war deck.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – It’s been a little while since I did anything with my chaos forces. After having some time to paint up some Flesh Hounds and picking up two Helverins that will be joining my Renegade Knight as a very shooty detachment, I wanted to put them on the table.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – My usual Chaos opponent has been building a cool Blood Angels force using bits from the Horus Heresy line. So far what he has looks very cool and pretty brutal. Having built a solid 1000 point core force he’s been borrowing models from my collection to see what else he wants to add for his final 2000 point army. I’ve been experimenting with my CP Farm list adding in other elements to see if I can make other thing i want to play more functional. I realize the Guard + Blood Angel battery might not be feasible after the next FAQ but until that drops I’m going to play as many games as I can. I really like how the small Guard contingent works, they can hold objectives, drop mortars on things they can’t see, surprise an attacker with Brutal Traps and combine to be a giant blob of surprisingly effective attacks.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – Game night this week saw my Twilight Ravens taking on a Slaanesh Daemon list. I hadn't run my Typhon Siege tank in quite some time and wanted to put it on the board again to see if my opinion of it has improved in 8th edition. (In seventh and previous editions it was great anti-hordes because of the 7" template 2D6 shots isn't quite the same as the huge numbers you could clip if your opponent wasn't spread out).
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – I recently had the chance to face off in a 2500 point battle with my Imperial Knights vs a combined team of Thousand Sons and Death Guard. It's an odd point level that my opponents regularly played so I tweaked my standard 2,000 point list to include an Archeron. My opponents chose to fight in the city, so my Knights weren't going to be as maneuverable and we opted to use the Open War Deck.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – I really love the look of fighting in a city. Having to get down and check line of site, navigating around cramped quarters, makes for a more interesting game than shooting each other from the edges of the table. Having played Open War last week we opted to play Maelstrom of War this week. My opponent ran close to the same list as he did last week swapping out a Librarian for a Lieutenant to benefit from the re-roll auras.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – The recent release of the Imperial Knight Codex has given the giant robots new life. Thankfully the new book looks to make the army playable. To put them to the test I built a basic Knight army with a Space Marine Battalion to give me access to much needed command points. (Note: This game was played prior to the FAQ having 15CP is going to be bonkers).
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – When 8th edition came out I had decided to focus on learning to play my core troops and leave the super heavies in the cabinet until after the first of the year. The majority of my local group has stuck by that, except the guard players have been chomping at the bit to put the Baneblade variants on the table. Being as I really want to play my Knights more often I put out a warning, "In the event someone brings and Super Heavy and I'm paired against them, I'll be running a four Knight list." This week guess what I got paired against?
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – Our week one event went off with only a minor hitch. Two of our players couldn't make it which left us with 6 guys. It would have been easy to play a team of two and a one vs. one game, but because three of the players hadn't played since 6th edition and hadn't had any play experience we opted to do a team battle of 3 vs. 3 (total of 1500 points per side).
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – Cover is one of the things that doesn't seem to really matter much in 8th edition. You're either in it or not and if you are you get +1 to you armor save. When you're blasted by something that's ap -4 it won't matter to most models. The advanced rules add a little bit to the terrain rules but the core is still really simple.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 – Having played a few games of the new edition of 40K my gaming group decided to do a large battle bringing all out big toys to the table to see how they work in this edition. Initially it was going to be 6,000 points per side but one of the players had to bail so we dropped it down to a 4,000 point per side team game.
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Warhammer 40,000 - I miss being able to play 40K 2-3 times a week. Back when I could play more often I think I was either significantly better or my opponents were significantly worse. Regardless I was glad to take some of my toys for a spin on the new terrain set I've been working on to make sure it's functional before I finish painting up this set of mining company terrain. I'll post about it's construction at a later date as I need to make a few more pieces to fill out the table.
Warhammer 40,000 - Having tested my Black Crusade list against a Battle Company it was time to try my luck against an opponent of a completely different nature. Tyranids are a very different type of opponent and I was curious to see what my mishmash of Chaos could do against them.
Read MoreWarhammer 40,000 - I finally put together a viable 2000 point list of Chaos Marines with an Daemon Allies. Although I have these painted as Night Lords I think I prefer the Traitor's Hate Black Crusade list better than the legion list in Traitor Legions. What I built will work with either style list but I think giving up the Feel No Pain and Initiative bonus for the Night Lord traits isn't something I want to do just yet.
Here's the list I'm trying to make work:
Black Crusade Detachment
Raptor Talon - (4) units of Raptors with melta guns (1) Raptor Lord
Lost and Damned - (4) units of Cultists (1) Dark Apostle
Sorcerer on Bike
Allied Daemons
Keeper of Secrets
(2) units of Daemonettes
(1) unit of Seekers
The Raptors all bear the Mark of Slaanesh carry the Icon of Excess and are led by a champion with a pair of lightning claws. Being able to assault out of deep strike; having the initiative bonus should see them going first against most targets. Having feel no pain should allow them to survive most return swings or a round of shooting after a bad scatter.
The Slaanesh Daemons are something I kept from the massive chaos forces I sold off during fourth edition. I kept them because even if they're not as good as they used to be, the models are amazing looking. Once I finish repainting and rebasing them I think they'll be an eye catching portion of the force.
With the force assembled I took them to the table to see what they can do. My first test is and Ultramarine Gladius force. The mission is from Maelstrom of War, three cards per turn.
Unfortunately my notes on this are the best but here's a summary.
The Keeper of Secrets rolled Invisibility as a psychic power which elicited a groan from my opponent. Throughout the game the Keeper was able to stay invisible and tear through small units easily.
The cultists leaders were super stars. During the course of the game I rolled the Dark Ascension three times creating Daemon Princes from cheap cult champions. It was pretty amazing, not having a wingless Daemon Prince I just grabbed a 60mm model from my cabinet to be a placeholder.
Less than impressive were the Raptors and Sorcerer on the Bike. I'm convinced that if I put melta on anything I'll roll "1's" more often than not. This annoying fact was extra evident in this game as I failed to pop a single vehicle with melta fire and instead had to charge in and beat them to glance out plethora of transports I had to face. Once the Raptors got into combat with regular marines they were amazing however they were decimated during shooting and once I lost the Icon Bearer they units quickly died to my horrid die rolls.
The Daemonettes did amazing when they got to combat but the shooting phase and overwatch took its toll and not many of the twelve models in the units made it to combat and those that did quickly dispatched the unit they assaulted only to be shot to death standing in the open.
Gladius is tough to face and I'm surprised I did as well as I did. If more of the die rolls went my way it seems that this would be a fairly strong force. The free roll on the Boon Table can be pretty amazing if you get lucky. Rolling for the cult champions is safe and if you get something good it's a freebie. If you roll a spawn it's also a free upgrade. If you roll a Daemon Prince ... well it's just plain amazing.
I want to run this a few more times before I make changes. On paper it seems solid in practice there's some pretty substantial weaknesses that may just boil down to luck. The biggest weakness I see if how much the list relies on the assault phase. It's hard to get into assault with numbers big enough to do something. Yes being able to assault out of deep strike is a huge fix to the weakness of Raptors. However the flaws with the assault phase in seventh edition put a damper on what should be an amazing ability..
I'm looking at swapping out the Daemons for a Renegade Knight as a secondary build using the same formations. I'm also going to see what happens if I drop the marks and run this as a true Night Lord list using the legion rules.
Warhammer 40,000 - After playing the Genestealer Cult for a good while I decided to go back to my marines. I'm all for trying to learn a new army but at some point I want to win or at least have a chance that isn't dependent of rolling good results on a random chart. (I'm not abandoning them just taking a break, I'm sure there's a way to win but I think it might involve changing my list and I'm not looking to add to that force at the moment.)
Idon't often get a chance to field my Fellblade and at 2000 points I feel like it's reasonable to bring it. My grav centurions haven't seen the table in some time so I wanted to field them as well. After session of what if I ran this on Battlescribe I came up with the following list:
HQ- Chapter Master on Bike with Thunder Hammer Storm Shield
Troop - (3) Bikes with (2) Grav Guns
Troop - (4) Bikes with (2) Grav Guns
Heavy - (3) Grav Centurions in a Landraider Redeemer
Heavy - (3) Grav Centurions in a Landraider Crusader
Lord of War - Fellblade
I faced off against a mixed Castellan force consisting of Space Marine Scouts, Astra Militarum Vets, a Vindicare Assassin, Sentinels and Leman Russ battle tanks. The Mission we played was out of the Altar of War book and put the Space Marines in the center of the board protecting a single objective with the Castellans surrounding them.
My notes on this game are a little sketchy so I'll summarize to the best of my ability.
The Fellblade in the middle of the table held the Castellans from the primary objective and while it's offensive output was less than stellar the amount of fire it soaked up during the course of the game made it well worth taking.
Maneuvering the large tanks around the densely packed city proved to be difficult but the limited amount of fire power that could damage AV 14 made it a safer choice to keep the Centurions safe until they had a good shot at taking something out. When they did pop out it was devastating to the Castellan force but did leave them open to return fire were I rolled an unnatural amount of "1's."
The bikes came in popped a Chimera and then failed to do much. The limited area in the city really limited what they could do with blocked streets and few clear lines of sight. On a board with more room to move they probably would be a bigger threat.
The Catellan list didn't really seem to be that impressive. I think it's one of those formations that people will use just to get random models from their collection onto the table top. Coming back on a 4+ is cool but in a Kill Point game that's really not a benefit.
Warhammer 40,000 – Weeknights i try to keep games to 1500 points a side. it makes it possible to finish a game within the few hours, This week three of us got together to play 1500 points of Genestealer Cult vs 750 points each of Deathwatch/Inquisition and Tau.
We played the football field deployment, maelstrom mission with the reducing objectives. The city set-up had plenty of blocked lines of site so it wouldn't be a shooting gallery.
I stuck with the same list I've been playing. I don't think it's optimized but it was the most cost effective choice with the two Deathwatch: Overkill boxes I acquired. Each game I get a little better and have an easier time remembering all the special rules and interactions. Repetition is the best way to learn right?
My opponents had a Deathwatch squad in a drop pod, two inquisitors in chimeras with henchmen squads. The Tau had a few suits, fire warriors and pathfinders. No 100% of the complete list breakdown but that should be pretty accurate.
They won the roll to set up and go first, I got some really good rolls on the Cult Ambush chart, including a "6" with my first curse massive formation. Throwing caution to the wind I place them very aggressively and hope to seize the initiative. Sadly that roll doesn't go my way so my super aggressive deployment meant heavy casualties. The few that did survive made it into combat and tore through everything unfortunately leaving them open for another round of shooting.
On the opposite side of the table the Deathwatch very thematically faced off against a horde of Neophytes and Acolytes. The chimeras were the star of the show on that end of the table and I really need to start them on the table every time I play. Outflanking never seems to pay off for me as well as trucking across the board drawing fire.
At the end of the game I had 9 points to their 6, but lost my last model on the top of turn five. It was by far the closest game I've had so far. Part of it was lucky rolls on the Score D3 cards that put me ahead on points. If I could have managed keeping something alive I would have got my first win.
Genestealer Cult is a tricky army to play, on paper it feels like it wants to get up in your face and win in the assault phase. In practice there's only a few units that you really want to get into combat: Genestealers and Mutants are amazing when they can get into an assault. The small units of neophytes and acolytes are better used to grab and hold objectives, I think. In practice when I get aggressive with them, five man units die to easily in the shooting phase. Being able to Return to Shadow and bring back friends should be really good, but I've yet to master the art of using it effectively.
Warhammer 40,000 – Do you remember those cult movies form the '80s? Fanatics enact some crazy plot to summon a big nasty from another plane and inevitably it would eat them or do some other nasty nonsense. Well that's pretty much the theme for this game.
Read MoreBATTLE REPORT: Warhammer 40,000 – I recently made a trek down over to Flatlands Games in Wixom,MI for a team game. We decided to play 1500 points a player with a standard malestrom mission.
I put together a simple CAD to bring since this was the first time I played with one of the guys and only my third game against the other. I didn't want to do anything to crazy. I opted for White Scars (However looking back on it the Iron Hands would be way better for the Feel No Pain roll.)
HQ - Tech Marine on Bike with Conversion Beamer
TROOP - Three man Bike Squad with (2) Gravgun
TROOP - Three man Bike Squad with (2) Gravgun
TROOP - Three man Bike Squad with (2) Gravgun and Power Lance
TROOP - Tactical Squad (Combimelta, Melta, Imperial Marine) Razorback with Assault Cannon
TROOP - Tactical Squad Rhino
HEAVY - Relic Sicarian
HEAVY - Grav Centurions in Landraider Crusader
FAST - Landspeeder Mulitmelta/Assault Cannon
FAST - Landspeeder Mulitmelta/Assault Cannon
It's a pretty straightforward list that should have been pretty good. My opponent played Guard with a bunch of tanks and basilisks as well as an infantry blob squad lead by Yarick.
We faced off against Ultramarines using the Scout Company formation and Orbital Stike Force Formation with a Flyer Wing teamed up with a Wulfen and Thunderwolves. This was my first time seeing the Wulfen in action and I was curious to see what they could do.
We set up first and were ready to lay down some hurt on the first turn, however they siezed the initative and we got to be on the receiving end of the hurt. The Wulfen some chart they roll on that grants special abilities to other Space Wolf models. What that meant for my squishy guard ally was a face full of hammer and fur as the Thunderwolves moved twice and assaulted his lines. The Orbital Strike force and Space Wolf Drop Pods crashed down in front of the guard player essentially cutting off his LOS to most of the table. After the smoke disapated a bit I had lost the Siccarian, and the majority of the blob squad was cleared as well as the sentinals on the far edge of the board.
On our turn all my grav didn't have many hard targets just a bunch of jinking speeders. So I felt a bit ineffective, my partner on the other hand could do no better. I had an ominous feeling at this point things were not going to go well for us. The Malestrom card didn't help either as our objectives seemed to always be on the other side of the table.
The second turn continued the meat grinder as the Thunderwolves continued to eat the guard side of our lines. Manuvering around the mess of drop pods and speeders proved difficult and once again it was a pretty ineffective turn for us.
Over all this was quite the tromping with the guard player being tabled by the time we had to call the game due to the store closing. It was still fun and great to see assualt isn't dead in 40K.
BATTLE REPORT: Warhammer 40,000 – I'm not sure how I feel about random team events. On one hand they're fun and it's a great way to meet new players. On the other hand it can be grueling trying to play a team game with someone you don't know with lists that may or may not work well together. To offset this most events of this type that I've played in are raffle events that don't give a real prize to the overall winner but rather tickets for participation and other random events over the course of the day. Some do it better than others but overall the goal is to keep it casual and focus more on having fun than being the top dog.
The day of the event I got packed up and headed out early figuring I'd have plenty of time to get there and relax before the event started. Unfortunately it's construction season in Michigan and most of the major highways I'd take to get to the event were closed ... good thing I left early. When I got to the event they had already wrapped up the sign ups apparently the organizer posted two different times in two different places. So far this is looking to be a great day. Oh and every mission is Malestrom, yet I left my cards at home...
Round one I faced the ringer for the event in an 800 point match up. He was playing Dark Angels Raven Wing with the big skimmer that gives everything a 2+ re-rollable jink save. I spent the whole game inflicting a tons of wounds that were ignored because of the re-rolls. It was a little frustrating having never faced the force I realized after the fact that I should have just charged and hoped for the best rather than wasting the waste the game hoping he'd roll two ones in a row. My opponent was pretty nice guy which helped make the trouncing tolerable.
Round Two I got paired up with Dark Eldar and would be facing odd against a mostly Killa Kan Ork list. Unfortunately the other partner was nowhere to be found so I got to face the Ringer again. The Dark Eldar player was better equipped to deal with the bike nonsense but it was still an uphill battle. The mission allowed you to steal your opponents capture objective 1-6 cards and score on your turn. We go lucky with the way the cards came up and out-scored our opponents pretty badly.
Round Three I was paired with a Necron player against a Khorne Daemonkin and Dark Angels force. This was a weird mix of The Relic with generic Maelstrom Objectives. The table was set up rather odd with a raised city potion on one side of the table. (I really liked the idea behind it and might build my own terrain piece with a fortress to defend set up similarly) We didn't size the initiative so the Khorne player ran to the middle of the table to seize the relic with his Bloodthirster. Since it was on the ground I poured lascannon a melta fire into it until is vanished back into the warp. From that point on the game was more of an exercise in playing smart and killing off threats as they presented themselves. This is a game where the benefits of the Stormlance Squadron really paid off. Besides staying safe in my transports most of the game I was able to gun down a unit of cultists charging me while I was on an objective. Since the cultists had objective secured they "controlled" the objective when I fired overwatch which allowed me to re-roll my overwatch shots. (pretty strong, ability).
Overall I had a good time at the event, 32 players in total made for a busy event. This was my first time at this game store and the overall impression I got was pretty good. They have a good amount of space to play, decent terrain and really nice tables. I'll defiantly be back and might even swing out to meet up with some of the guys I met at the event. The event itself was a little losey goosy for my tastes, even when you're not playing "to win" it's nice to see standings and to keep the rounds tight so the event doesn't go to long. I'm sure for future events they'll pay a bit more attention to that so they can keep this momentum going.
