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Having wasted the time of the handful of people who read my musings enough, I have decided to combine it all into a single place from now on. With 6th ed. 40k having just been released it seems a good time.

The Setting Dawn

With the coming of the new 40k I had a quick solo game to briefly run through some of the basic rules and see what happens.

The forces

Space Marines -
Librarian
10 Man Tactical squad - ML, Fl and PF
10 Man Tactical squad - ML, Fl and PF
Dreadnough - Lascannon
Vindicator - storm shield

Orks
Warboss - PK, EA, Squig
7 Nobz - banner 2 x PK, , eavy armour on all
Trukk - red
5 Nobz -Bikez, 1x PK, banner, painboy
Killer Kann - Rl

Mission: 3 objectives with Kill the warlord as secondary mission

Turn 1 - Orks advance as do most Marines - 1 Nob Biker killed.
Turn 2 - General shift to the left of the table and the Nobz bail out of the truck to secure an objective. The Nobz on Bikes gunned down a couple of marines.
Marine combat squads with flamers push forward shooting was ineffective.
Turn 3 - The bikes strike again wiping out a combat squad for the loss on a single man, the KK immobilises the dread.
Marine vindicator blows the bikerz apart and the libby fails a perils of the warp - wuth 1 wound left I guess I won't see what the new spells/powers do yet. KK destroyed
Turn 4 - Ork Nobz spread to secure another objective.
Marines rush forward but shooting ineffective.
Turn 5 - The warboss leaves his unit and rushes towards the advancing marines. The SM have secured 1 objective and his tries to stop them contesting one of the others. Double 2 for the assault leaves him stranded.
Vindi fires its storm bolter into the injured warboss 2 hits, 2 wounds, no saves. Im ace with dice. Warboss dies and the marines contest the objective.

Final score marines win 2-1

Lessons -
The rules have enough small differences to slow down initial games quite a lot.
I still can't roll dice.
Nob bikerz are good but need support
vindicators are still a threat

Given the game was done quickly and I rolled all the dice not much got tested due to all the misses. Hopefully next time I'll learn more.

The Setting Dawn

A bit of background for the Space Marine army I'm (very) slowly building.

The Order of the Sacred Book dates back to ancient Terra. Originally an order of Warrior Monks with a passion for witch burning, it is believed to have been dissolved at some point in M2. How a chapter of the Imperium's finest came to take the name of this mysterious and bloodthirsty order is not known.

Like many marines, those of the Order are fanatical in battle and, much like the monks of old, make widespread use of fire in its many forms. Unlike other chapters, they also have a dark secret. Knowledge and artifacts of bygone eras hold the fasination of many warriors of the Order. Rather than fight as a Chapter it is more common for small taskforces, drawn from across the different companies, to be sent to remote sectors seeking a book or strange device. Such investigations have led to a number of marines learning things best left unknown and a signiicant number of expeditions lead to battle brothers falling into worship of the dark gods. This is something the Order keeps very quiet.

One day the Order will be forced to confront this truth and choose which side of the line it falls. Until that day they will continue to smite the enemies of man, as long as it suits them.

Rolling 1's is your skill..  I don't know how you fail a break test, actually.   :))  Nice to see some original ideas and someone doing a marine army that isn't one of the books.  Setting dawn has me confused, but hey

Also me, Stevo and Mike W are all doing vanilla marines as well.... :thumbsup:

The setting dawn things comes from the dawn of a new era (6th ed) combined with the slow decline of man.

The setting dawn

So I had my first proper 6th ed game last night. 1,500 points

Libby, 3 x tac squad, 2 x terminator assault squad, vindi, redeemer, land speeder

against

Orc warlord with megaarmour mates in trukk, nob bikes, 2 x 30 boyz, 10 flamers in trukk and dakkajet

Mission - the relic, vangaurd deployment

A great start saw the orcs dying in droves as the advanced. Terrify is a great power stripping them of fearlessness and forcing morale test. The vindi also did a good job of bashing bikerz, although they got a tac squad.

Sadly it wasnt too be. Lots of 1s by the termies (what else would I roll) saw them cut down by the survivng boyz.  Then it was just a matter of time...

Lessons

Lightning claws were more effective the thunder hammers. The maths says they should be a worse option but re-rolls are cool. I'm not convinced this is a long term solution.
One squad of assault termies may be enough - the points are needed elsewhere
vindi are still great. Necrons could be a problem but a pair of them sounds useful.
Krap MISSiles are just that.
CAPs are needed. The Dakkajet had free reign and although not a game winner I know they can be really nasty.
Speeders are pointless by themselves

50 shades of pink

A bit of fluff to kick of the tester campaign G and Tom H are running.

We are pleased to announce that our loyal servant, Earl Bodmin, shalt repair to Portsmouth and there take command of an expeditionary force. It is commanded that the servants of Sigmar and our own magical college shall also make ready a goodly force and aid this endeavour for the glory of all Albion.

Furthermore, it is with glorious heart that we announce Earl Bodmin shalt be named Overlord of an alliance of our friends; the stout dwarves and the fairey folke of the Athen Forest. May he win great glory for our kingdom and we wish him fair wind and much fortune in this most noble endeavour.

QuoteFurthermore, it is with glorious heart that we announce Earl Bodmin shalt be named Overlord of an alliance of our friends; the stout dwarves and the fairey folke of the Athen Forest. May he win great glory for our kingdom and we wish him fair wind and much fortune in this most noble endeavour.

What no arena of death to decide...... disappointing  :))

That may come if/when the alliance breaks down and open war erupts between team evil and each of the team good alliance fighting as individuals.

I've not bored you all silly for a while so here it goes

The Setting Dawn

I had against Ol's Marines with Eldar allies at 1,500 last night

My list was:

Libby
Tactical squad - ML, Fl, PF combi melta
Tactical squad - ML, melta, PF
Scouts - ML, PF
Term assault squad - TH/SS
Term assault squad - TH/ss

2 vindis with extra storm bolters
Redeemer

The mission was crusader played down the length of the board.

The game began well with the threat from the vindi's causing problems even with night fighting. A general advance and more movement from Ol's assault marines roasted by the redeemer but the fists got cut down by pathfinders.

I had a unit of termies deep striking that refused to come down robbing me of an attacking option and my army got worn down. The arrival of some war walkers saw my casulties start to mount and my vindis were taken down.

An epic fight between 2 units of termies seemed to go on forever but Ol put in a tactical combat squad that made the diference. Ol won 2-1 on objectives.

Lessons

Using reserves is not reliable
I really need something that can cope with enemy air
Terminator spam isnt great for SM

50 Shades of Pink

It turns out Elves cannot be trusted as the wood elf contingent has pulled out the alliance. Blood will flow for this. Fortunately, as a result of a historic alliance formed by the Duke of Yorke in the reign of Roland I, a lizardman army is available.

This alliance came about when a small force captured the now popular holiday result of Skeggi. The defeated norse were found to have a large amount of treasure which, it transpired, had be stolen from a nearby city. The occupants of that city wanted them back.

The Duke was able to avoid the destruction of his force by canny diplomacy. The brutal execution of the norse prisoners and return of the holy items saw the local slann form an alliance with the men of Albion. This was re-affirmed in the recent lustrian campaign.

A small lizardman force has recently been training in Salisbury plain and, with the withdrawal of the elves, they quickly agreed to join the invasion of the badlands.

Until next time. I bet you can hardly wait.

Quote from: roland murat on July 31, 2012, 06:03:49 pm
Until next time. I bet you can hardly wait.

I can't! Excited to see how our campaign will go!

50 Shades of Pink

The campaign is underway with a race for a lost city.

No sooner had the Albion forces secured a base of operations than wierd and wonderful sightings began to be reported. To west a tower, a small settlement to the north and a cave rammed with gold to the south. Bodmin reacted quickly and the armies marched.

The canny commander sent the forces from the college towards the tower to gather what knowledge they could. As the army approached and ensured the ground was secured all was eerily quiet and the part-time lecturer opted to hold his ground.

To the north the Bishop's host headed for the settlement, only to be slowed by local rain. Unable to reach the town, scouts reported heavy Skaven activity with a number of armies on the march and heading south. The wet, tired troops were set to work and the position was fortified to restrict any potential for a land grab by the chaos worshippers.

To the South Bodmin found his intelligence reports had been faked. Warriors and beastmen armies were mving in his direction and a trap had nearly been sprung. Nearly, but not quite. All was not lost as geologists found iron deposits and the Royal Engineers constructed a new mine complex.

Word soon reached Bodmin from his allies. The Dwarves had found an idol to the dark gods and had moved to destroy it. To the far north the lizards had built a mine and expanded there lands, threatening the skaven empire and pushing towards the lost city.

50 shades of pink

'It's all been quiet Bishop; a report of the ground shaking, but not seri...'

The ground shook. The ground roared in protest and the walls fell.

'To arms men. Captains form your regiments. Prepare for an attack.'

The army of the church mustered as the hordes of evil ratmen marched south. The sappers had destroyed Castle Crookesmoor, opening the invasion route. To the east the magic shool's contingent was engaged and the Bishop decided he would try and stop the momentum of the attacking army. With a daring counter assault the army of the church advanced against the dwarven city that had recently fallen to the foul beasts. The skaven generalwas pushed back within the ancient walls but the glorious host was unable to storm the defences before retiring in good order.

Far to the south the rumours of wealth had not been as unfounded as feared. In caverns leading off the new mining complex revealed a hidden stash of items, including a miraculously shiny sword.

50 shades of pink

Men of Albion before us march the forces of hell. The evil beastmen must be driven from our lands, destroyed like the scum they are. Today we shall win a mighty victory and the tale shall be told through the ages. To battle and glory.

Or not.

With a battle for a wizards tower underway the skaven launched a swift assault. The slower moving humans had difficulty reacting and struggled to deal with the A-bomb as they tried to form a battle line. A vermin lord grabbed a focus point  (using storm of magic rules) and was able to launch a few fireballs robbing the outriders I was using of their effectiveness.

Two rogre blocks and the A-bomb was too much to handle and with a charge of the Reiksguard getting bogged down I failed to take the initiative. In the end my army controlled the area around the tower in the centre of the table (which cast a random spell at the nearest unit each turn) for a 500 point bonus but that wass all the points I got and so the skaven won by 1,000 points with my general picking up a pshycological injury, the nature of which to be decided.

I'm falling a bit behind so here goes...

50 shades of pink

"Men of Albion. Before us lies a horde of foul beasts. They would take all you have worked so hard to gain and despoil all you hold dear. We may be outnumbered this dead but we shall prevail and the poets will tell of this battle for decades to come. On men of Albion, for your King, for glory and for riches..."

The Professor woke with a start. He was lying on a crude strecher and looked around in desperation. This was not an army celebrating a glorious victory; this was a broken army in retreat. Slowly he began to remember: the screams of the wounded; the heat of fireballs; the moment of unbridled terror as the rat orge punched him in the face; and the pain. The pain had been to a degree he had never felt before but it had been fleeting as his head rocked back and darkness claimed him.

Now he did not feel terror, anger or hate but instead a sense of calm filled him. Next time, next time it would be different

A stroll in the countryside

I had my first game of FoW last weekend, taking command of an army fighting to restore the glory of a once great nation against those which sought to break its spirit. Yep I was the Germans and the mission (it was a campaign game) was to capture a bridge and crossroads at the village of Bourg Madame. The battle was scheduled to end at 3.30 pm in real time and kicked off around 10.30am

My forces:

Panzer Brigade - 2 x Panzer 1, 3 x Pz II
                           5 x Pz II, 3 x Pz III

Infantry - Command, light mortar in Sdkfz 251
                HQ, 3x2 Rifle/MG stands in Sdkfz 251
                HQ, 3x2 Rifle/MG stands in trucks

                3 x 37mm Anti-tank guns
Recon     2x Sdkfz 222 and 2x sdkz 221
Forward artillery observer
               2x 20mm AA guns mounted in a vehicle
Pioneers HQ 2x3 stands
Off table 105 mm gun
Priority air support

Reserves

4 Inf units, 2 x 2 Infantry guns, 2 x 2 HMG and 2 Mortar units

Terrain

The game was played on a larger than normal table with deployment on the short edges. Right of centre running from my deployment zone to the other end of the table was a road which passed a chateau and crossed a river in the french deployment zone. About 2/3 of the way across the table the road split and ran past a farm and up to a second bridge by a bunker. The main bit of the road ran through the village and was connected to the cross roads.

Turn 1

An infantry unit checked the farm with support from the 20mm and PZ 1's finding it empty otherwise my army pushed up the road at a steady pace.

Turn 2

The force at the farm pushes forward towards an orchard and french troops are spotted by a recon unit by, but not in, the chateau. The infantry in the 1/2 tracks moves up with tanks and AT guns in support to engage the dug in french infantry. At this point an ambush was launched from the orchard on my left with 2 25mm AT guns opening fire and blowing up 2 recon vehicles (the unit had been divided into 2 blocks of 2 armoured cars). On the rights the 1/2 track infantry opened fire and launched an assault. The french pushed back the attackers but were forced to withdraw after suffering heavy casulties.

French T2

Light tanks emerged from cover around the chateau and destroyed the PzIs and an artilery strike caused the 1/2 track infantry to rout.

T3

No reserves arrived and an artillery srtike took out a french infantry gun. The Orchard was cleared by the infantry around the farm and 2 tanks were blown up by PzIIIs.

F T3

The remain tanks moved up and the artillery killed 2 stands of pioneers. The tanks assaulted the pioneers, who fell back.

T4

The French tanks were quickly taken out, clearing the west side of the river and German artillery started to batter the town. Whilst the clear out operation moved forward another ambush was triggered but no damage was done by a 25mm AT gun.

F T4

No reserves and firing has no effect. Good turn that.

T5

Finally a unit of infantry arrived to support the attack and raced up the main road toward the village. The inf by the orchard moved into cover opposite the bridge on the let which was defended by an infantry unit, 2 25mm AT guns and a bunker with a 45 (or 47) mm AT gun. German artilerry and aircraft hit the village.

F T5

3 Souma tanks turn up and move into the village taking up positons around the x road. Shooting ineffective.

T6

German tanks lined the west bank of the river and engaged the french infantry in the town along with the artilery (my observer was on the roof of the chateau with a commanding view of the village). The inf and pioneers on my right pushed forward to cross the bridge and storm the houses by the river. A stuka blew up one of the newly arrived tanks

F T6

Some Renault tanks (that can't move and fire) arrive on my left flank threatening the infantry by the bridge which have no real AT equipment.

T7

A renault is destroyed by an airstrike and an infantry assault on the village pushed some french infantry off the river bank and into the village but at the cost of heavy casulties.

F T7

Some infantry guns and 47mm AT guns arrive to support the defence. The fast firing french artilery (which gets re-rolls to hit if it is correctly called down) again causes no damage and the renaults push across the bridge on the left in an attempt to launch a counter attack. The G inf in the village is wiped out by MG fire.

T8

Another wave of german troops move onto the bridge on the right and reinforcements start to arrive in numbers (finally). 2 Fr infantry units are broken.

F T8

The fire from the village breaks the pioneers crossing the bridge.

T9

Artillery and air power is not effective, tanks and  AT guns move to counter the renault assault and some houses fall to german troops. More reserves arrive.

F T9

Some light casulties inflicted.

T10   

The Renaults are badly mauled and break whilst the new infantry units launched a large assault on the town. With the french troops getting bashed up the commander calls it a day and evacuates what he can of his army. The town fell 10 minutes before the cutoff point when the Corps commander would seek decide the attack should be recalled.

A close battle. My opponent had expected an assault on the seemingly weak left flank and placed his main AT capacity there to maul the panzers. Sadly the trap was so subtle I didn't take the bait and chose route 1 and launched a series of frontal assaults to batter my way into the village. Although the french commanders were poor the troops they led were capable of putting up a fight when given a reasonable opportunity and this seemed to be recreated by the rules.

I've not provided an update on the campaign for a while so I guess that should be corrected. Miss me? Probably not.

50 shades of pink

The Earl of Bodmin stood on the city walls and considered the task ahead of him. The Chaos army had been camped outside the city for a couple of weeks and food was starting to run low. Fortunately the impatience of the enemy meant they lacked the heart for a formal sige and the Albion army was intact. The vile forces from the north began the assault and with a shrug of his shoulders he joined his bodyguard, a proud unit of knights.

Missile fire rained down on the advancing horde to little effect and soon marauders and warriors were climbing the walls under a hail of rocks and boiling oil. Assault after assault was pushed back but the prowess of the warriors began to tell and the Albion army began to give ground allowing sections of the wall to fall. A unit of Inner Circle tried to regain the initiative by riding out only to be utterly destroyed by some marauders and the chaos BSB. Oops.

As the army of Albion desperatly tried to re-organise and sections of the wall started to be re-taken with the detruction of the enemy regiment of renown horns began to blow and the thump of drums became audible over the sounds of battle. At the same time sections of the wall began to collapse. The dwarf army tasked with holding the catacombs had failed and the skaven were on the field.

With the failure of his allies, the Earl knew his depleted forces could not hold on for long. In a brave gesture the Earl launched a charge, smashing through the remaining marauders and taking on the entire skaven army. A unit of Rogers were next to fall and then came the Abomb. So that would be game over then.

Still, the regiment of renown champion becomes a captain that cannot take magic items and I gained another artifact giving me total of 5. Albion may be battered on the field but it shall be victorious. Hopefully.

Quick topic change

I saw a man out jogging with two creatures from hell the other morning. He was exercising his demons.

T'ain't easy bein' green

They say once a world has been invaded by Orks it is never free of their taint. For a world like OG that has been a warzone more time than Belgium it is no surprise that greenskins roam the landscape.

The most recent fighting saw the hordes of Fie-uld Marshal Ramma make headway, only to be stopped by the Deathwing just before the waagh's momentum became unstoppable. The survivors of the titanic battle have scattered with an enterprising Nob gathering a few ladz and some hangers on before heading to the spires of the nearest hive....

Quote from: roland murat on October 16, 2012, 06:52:28 pm
The most recent fighting saw the hordes of Fie-uld Marshal Ramma make headway, only to be stopped by the Deathwing just before the waagh's momentum became unstoppable.

cheating ftw!  :cool3: sorry again mike!

Quote from: roland murat on September 23, 2012, 09:54:24 am
I've not provided an update on the campaign for a while so I guess that should be corrected. Miss me? Probably not.

50 shades of pink

No mention of the important role of the Beastmen I see!  :cry:

Wow someone actually reads this rubbish other than me.

Matt - 50 shades is being done from the Albion perspective with a deliberate bias. The beasts will get a mention at some point when they interfere directly with Albion ambitions.

50 Shades of Pink

'Kneel. Kneel and pray to the gods. Pray hard and we shall prevail.'

The rodent horde poured forward, desperate to break through the lines of the hated foe. Then a mysterious thing happened. The air shimmered and the skaven general felt a hand slap him in the face. Once, twice, a third time. He glanced around to see who had dared to law a paw on him and a giant hand grabbed him by the throat pulling him into the ground as it  opened up before him.

The men of Albion prayed on. A giant fireball erupted from the sky, striking the giant hell beast - the A-Bomb - and reducing it to ashes. With a cheer the human army got to its feet and advanced. Victory was assured.

I can only mimic Tom's points really. A game where magic ruled and took out the main skaven threats early. A unit of clanrats with Bsb took out 2 cannon before being taken out by inner circle but all in all the game took longer to set up than play. A slight error was made with the magic and OG comp forgotten. Still makes up for the similar error made when Tom won last time we met in the campaign.

Until next time - if anyones reading this.

I'm reading...and plotting.

(Insert evil laugh amidst shots of double seer, double warlock and double priest lists)

50 Shades of Pink

'I am not a cruel man.' The Earl of Bodmin thought as he stepped over the broken bodies of the once proud defenders of Accrington Stanley. He had given them a choice. Hadn't he? These were men lying dead at his feet, not monsters. Men who had shared a common god and even spoke a similar language.

When the army outriders had found the town the Earl  had asked his priest 'these people of Accrington Stanley. Who are they'

"Exactly" was all the response he got.

He had beseeched the defenders to lay aside their arms, to join the Albion Empire. They had refused and as only a fool would leave a walled town occupied by unfriendly forces on his supply line the Earl ordered an immediate attack.

Too many men had died but slowly, too slowly, the Albion forces clambered onto the walls and forced the defenders back. A relief force had arrived. Where these men came from was not known and, the Earl thought, it never would be. The heavily armoured knights had bravely tried to change the tide of the battle but all lay led along with the priest that led them.

Still, now was not the time to give way to sadness. The King's enemies were still in the proximity and they were monsters he had no concernsabout slaying.

Father Brian

An odd game tonight vs Tom's skaven @ 500 pts.

Early game saw my swordsmen flee the field and the outriders destroyed. I had a single knight and a warrior priest. Tom had 20 slaves, 20 ish storm vermin (champ was the general) and 11 jezzails.

I charge the storm vermin going through a wood. The knight hits a tree and dies but the priest survives. In the ensuing combat the vermin lose break and flee off the table. The pursuit take the priest out of the firing arc of the jezzails.

Priest moves into flank of jezzails forcing them to move before charging. He took a wound but won - wiping out the skaven as they fled. The remaining slaves charged hoping to take the final wound off the priest. They didnt even after blowing up.

Priest on barded horse with heavy armour, shield and magic fruit knife of +1 attack took out the entire army bar a unit of slaves (40 points) all by himself. Mental.

All hail Father Brian the blessed.

Damn you Brian!

Oh dear what with Brian, and Dark Eldar eyes Tom's having bad luck. Am sure it will turn round in time for you to defeat me on Sunday god dam it!

50 Shades of Pink

It had been a week since the army had been scattered and nearly a month since the mists had cleared and allowed the army to march into the northern marches.

Everything seemed strange. When did the Earl command chariots? Why were his followers pushing a giant bell? Still they were all men of Albion and he would lead them to safety.

The only thing that could go wrong was if the army was ambushed, say by demons. Whats that in the distance? Oh.

After a comprehansive beating by Sam's warriors an alliance of man, beast and skaven was formed to fight the dirty dirty demons. Despite having 3000 more points it was close. The mission was to get the generals through a portal at the edge of the demon deployment zone.

My general made an early dash for freedome on his griffon but was charged by a sole jugger. He fluffed, fled and barely escaped fleeing of the field. Fortunatley he rallied and made it through the portal before the end of the game. Followed by the other commanders.

Our plan was to smash through the middle and use the weaker infantry to stop the door being closed. But for a jugger block that just wouldn't die the plan worked quite well. The bloodletters didn't last long and the demons on the flanks (plaguebearers on our left and sl demon on our right) were kept busy at a large cost of allied lives. Billy the thirster was hit by an alarmingly accurately thrown rock from a cygor taking him down to one wound which limited his ability to get involved in big fights.

Until next time.
 

Father Brian

Brian was back at the weekend campaign games leading a unit of Inner circle.

The first game was fought in a giant marsh (heavy cavalry not an optimal choice). With things generally going badly a desperate attempt was made to save the game. Father Brian's unit charged the advancing marauder masses (by the end of the game most knights had drowned) and managed to break the chaos line. Brian survived but he could not repeat his legen...wait for it...dary efforts from the week and the day was lost.

Next came demons. Brian lasted a few minutes before being casually despatched by bloodletters. It seems he has finally met his match but Brian will return.

Wait...


....

Brian's alive?!

All hail Sigmar its a miracle - or the joy of a heroic fantasy setting. An interesting hero never dies, he just slins away to recover from otherwise mortal injuries.

The Setting Dawn

After a period in cupboard my marines made a comeback last night.

Vulkan
10 Marines - fist, MM, fl, combi melta
10 Marines - fist, ml, melta, combi melta
Rhino

Vindi - dozer, extra SB
Vindi - dozer, extra sb
Redeemer - MM

5 assault termies - TH/SS
Dread - HF,MM
Drop pod

First game against Ol's Necrons was a battle for the relic. Ol was a bit worried as my massed gunfire blew large chunks out of his army as we raced for the relic. He had a slight speed advantage as his immortals were able to deep strike near the objective and his ghost arc (or whatever the transport is called) of warriors raced forward.

In the end I couldn't kill enough immortals or their cryptek. They grabbed the relic and teleported to the otherside of the board. The delayed arrival of the killer croissant put paid to any chance of a come back and that, as they say, was that.

Game 2 vs Nick's Nurgle Nutters

Tried one of the Space Marine missions. A single objective was placed near the centre and I got to deploy within 12" of the centre point. Nick could be anywhere outside of 18" from the centre point.

The marines blasted out of the tracks again but Nick had used the terrain well and I only inlicted limited damage with my termies failing to take down a unit of plague marines.

Nicks Spawn ploughed forward, weathering everything I could throw at them. A desperate defense followed but as the marines started to get whittled down the forces of chaos gained the upper hand. In the end a comprehensive beating for the marines.

What I learnt

Nurgle spawn are great - fast, hitty and hard to kill. Even if they achieve nothing they will draw a lot of fire and are immune to instant death at T6.

Plague cultists die really slowly.

Necrons are foul - don't let Ol try and pursuade you otherwise. Even if he thinks they are weaker at 1,500 points.

Quote
Necrons are foul - don't let Ol try and pursuade you otherwise. Even if he thinks they are weaker at 1,500 points.

To be fair, my list was a bit shit and cobbled together at the last minute, I got lucky is all, I had lost so much after turn two I really did think it was all over.
My destroyer lord holding up your termies for ages and passing a few key break tests was so important.
But yes obviously Crons are foul, but it's true that at lower points level they will struggle against other races with proper lists.
Lets not forget that double Vindi at 1500pts is fecking horrible, I was just lucky that you split them up so could not focus their fire because of the  scenery in the middle of the board.
But obviously the truth is that normal marines are up against it at the moment, they are so under powered and over costed compared to all the newer books that they stand very little chance currently...

50 shades of pink

Disaster.

After forming an alliance with Tom's vile skaven (only to stab them in the back within about 10 minutes) it was back to the battle field. A sneaky attempt to take the lost city from round 1 say a version of loot and pillage being played. I had 3,000 points vs 2,400 and had to capture 2 of 3 buildings. A gentleman's agreement saw magic capped at level 2 after our previous games were decided by big spells.

Tom spotted he could win by killing my general in a challenge. Sadly my general has an item which gives him the madness of Marius Leitdorf along with being a level 2 fire mage. Turn 2 saw him fail a LD test and gain frenzy, stubborn and an inability to refuse challenges.

One skitterleap later and a penned in Albion general got challenged by a fellblade toting nutter. The first round of combat was fluffed but there was no way out and on the second effort the skaven general was victorious. The Albion army was beating their way through the skaven ranks but the loss of the general caused the game to a premature end.

Rats.

In other news, newly promoted Bishop Brian led a charge of Reiksguard knights into a block of clanrats. They fluffed, fled and died. That is all.

Rats. 

Vengeance is mine!

Quote from: roland murat on January 10, 2013, 09:44:59 pm
Tom spotted he could win by killing my general in a challenge.

Yep, I actually came up with a plan!  Mainly because Skaven without a rank bonus (and thus base leadership) are never going to hold anything, let alone Buildings of Strategic Importance. 

Unfortunately I am now convinced that a skitter leaping Warlord with fellblade is the answer to all my Warhammer problems.  New list for the Waargh beckons!

The setting dawn

Having had time to ponder the weekend's results and my failure to beat up anything tough with decent armour leads me to return to a familar theme. I will, once again, ponder on how best to use Space Marines. For this I apologise to my regular readers. Both of them.

I've seen Matt post here so he may see some relevance with his Ultramarines slowly coming on. For his benefit I apologise again as I start with a sport reference.

If vanilla marines were a boxer they, in my opinion, would be Terry Carruthers. Who? Good question. Those who wish to do a bit of research can find his record on boxrec.com but for those with a less enquirying mind, or those who don't care, he is a brave fighter who will put on a show and throw some big shots before being found wanting. Now I like Terry, hes a good fighter to watch and did ok in the Prizefighter format but he won't win anything important.

Marines, certainly the way I use them, are the same. Big early damage from the Vindis is vital but if the enemy get past turn 2 in any kind of cohesion then its proably all over with a stoppage or decent win on points.

Now Marines can hurt tough stuff with the array of heavy weapons available and the high armour and versatility of them means they should be ok. They aren't and, as Ol has pointed out, are overcosted and underpowered. Prehaps allies are the key. Ol has tried Eldar with limited results so prehaps a smattering of Guard.

A cheap as chips HQ option plus some infantry blobs with lascannon teams? Maybe a valkyrie? Views, discussion or a pointer to a replacement codex welcome.

Replacement codex is called play em as space wolves!

I've heard of effective marine builds such as all bike mounted, but if you try to play anything vaguely adhering to the fluff it seems they struggle.

SW are a better choice than BA or DA then?

Quote from: roland murat on January 15, 2013, 06:30:54 pm
I've seen Matt post here so he may see some relevance with his Ultramarines slowly coming on. For his benefit I apologise again as I start with a sport reference.

S.P.O.R.T? You what now?

So far I've not played Warhammer 40,000 - let alone my Ultramarines, so I guess I will find out the depressing truth soon enough!

Well, I have no playing experience but from what I hear on various forums...

Blood Angels are nails in close combat, bit pointless unless you like going RAAARGH at people.  If you do like playing sans tactics, they scrap better than the Dark Eldar close combat troops I have to choose from.  And Assault squads are core?   Legion of the Damned are definitely ace. 

Dark Angels look jank.  Just my opinion but the new Deathwing knights/Ravenwing flyer and bikes (and if you're not running something with Wing in the title you'll be Dead Angels) look, well, rubbish.  That's not got hide or hair to do with tactics but on a purely personal level I wouldn't play the models.  Ugly, ugly things.  Have I made my point clear here? Shame as the Dark Vengeance marines look really nice.  But they're just normal marines with a sculpted shoulder pad  :wink;m::

Space Wolves are fantastic.  They have the close combat heft to get the job done, and Long Fangs are wonderful.  The characters are ace too.

Vanilla marines seem just a bit, well, unloved.  As I say, I haven't actually played a game of 6th edition 40k yet but from reading the rule book/some battle reports they still have really good armour/BS/weapon options.  But...well...nothing as good as you can get in a Black Templars list.

Father Brian

So after a short lived promotion Brian was back to the parish, well a lowly priest leading the Reiksguard anyway.

Today was a practice game using Sheffield comp as Ol gets back on the wagon with his 7th ed Dark Elf army.

He had Lv 4 (shadow) on peg with the pendant
Lv1 metal
Cauldron BSB

11 X-bow
10 corsairs
2 blocks of harpies
5 shades
chariot
2 hydras
black guard with assassin
3 x 5 dark riders

I had

Lector, lv 4 (light), bsb, lv 2 (light), Brian, engineer, 27 Halberds, 12 Inner circle, 10 archers, 10 reiksguard, 2 cannon, luminark, helblaster.

I got first turn and gunned down a hydra causing the harpies to flee and shot up the chariot. Ol suffered some pretty dreadful dice throughout and achieved pretty much nothing all game. Missed charges, poor power dice rolls and missed ward saves. Dark riders were shot down by archers or blasted through by knights and by the close of turn 2 it was all over bar the shouting (or drinking).

For the more observant you may have noted I only had 1 unit of normal infantry and they became home to the lector, 2 wizards and bsb. Only brian was mounted and the engineer joined the helblaster.

A Storm Rises

Today was my first effort with the new warriors vs Lizards.

I used a couple of warrior blocks, knights, crushers, chariots and chaff. Ed took a couple of slann, temple guard, sarus, a sallie and various skinks.

Overall, chariots are great at clearing chaff and are resiliant enough to operate independantly, returning later to support the infantry. The knights did next to nothing and were quite disappointing - they just dont dish out enough pain for the points. The crushers were also less than fantastic but I see a greater potential than the knights.

The shock units need support as against determined ranked infantry they will bounce off if the enemy dont break instantly. With this in mind I think a warriors list should be built around khorne warriors and chariots with some shock element.

Time to get thinking.

A question.

I'm thinking of running a lv 4 of TZ as my general and will be using a level 2 (unmarked) in a support role. I'm down to a choice between death and shadow. Which one?

I'm leaning towards shadow as the array of hexes and buffs should be more useful but I'm also worried about skaven magic ripping an all comers warriors list to pieces (plague and dreaded I'm looking at you).

Comments on a post card to the usual address or post below.

A Storm Rises

So tonight was my second game with the new warriors. This time I was facing G and his dirty demons. Even so, despite knowing what letters do to a warriors army, I thought I had a chance.

I didn't.

We agreed G had rolled like a demon for his, well demons, particularly in magic. However, on reflection I think I lost for 3 reasons.

1) Magic

Lore of Light + Letters = carnage. With 2 loremasters (light and heavens) G always had the spells for the job required. Add constant channelling plus some big rolls there was nothing I could do to shit him down. The scroll was burnt turn 1 to stop a comet battering me as I advanced and it was only a matter of time after that.

My own magic did next to nothing. I didn't get glean on the level 4 and he had 2 scrolls.

2) Instability

My chariots (normal one on each flank and 2 gorebeasts up the centre) did a good job of getting in. On my let a lone chariot dismantled a 270 ish block of fiends but they didn't break. Mainly because the rules say they can't. My chariots won combat on both flanks and, if the flanks had broken it would have ben a different kettle of fish. Its of note that both LD tests were failed (certainly the one on the left which would have released the crushers against virtually any other army)

3) Lack of support

I didn't get my warriors in to support the gorebeast charge in the centre. This gave G the chance to add magic buffs and charge me. This led to my centre collapsing. Chariots, no matter how tough, cannot stand against ranked infantry. Must do better next time.

So where next?

They say you learn more from deeat than from victory. In this case I learnt very little. Chariots are awesome but need help. My level 2 (shadow) did nothing. I ailed to get the crushers into combat at all - which was a waste.

Im not 100% the crushers are a good investment to be honest. They add pace but do they carry enough of a threat? Should they be replaced by 2 more normal chariots, using the spare point to build up the weaker warrior unit?

Comments welcome.

FYI I was using unkillable lv4 on disc, bsb of khorne, lv 2 shadow, 4x5 vanguarding dogs, 20 khorne warriors w/halberds and command (movement banner), 15 warriors of khorne w/halberds and command (flaming banner), 2 chariots, 2 gorebeast chariots and a unit of 3 crushers with magic weapons.

My aim is to build a solid, competitive all comers list with a minimum of new models.

Until next time

A Storm Rises

Another monday, another cruching defeat. This time it was Ols warriors handing out the kicking.

So what went wrong? A crucial failed frenzy test pulled my line out of order and a poor performance by the crushers saw the eventual collapse of my right flank. My centre and let did even worse. My unkillable sorceror lord had a fight with an unkillable choppy lord and, predictably, died.

Next up I'll  be making changes. My conservative approach to army building cleary isn't working. What will I produce? Only time will tell. The only certainty is it probably won't work.

The Setting Dawn

So three games: a big loss; a big win; and a small (ish) loss. A bit of an improvement for the marines with guard allies. I don't think I've got the best out of the allies yet but it could be a good combo with some work.

Let me see your waaagh face

It will soon be that time of the month as a warhammer army takes the field for a battering or 3 but...what shall I take?

Warriors, Empire, greenines, dwarves? Or should I take a stab at throwing some Brets together (if I can find enough knights).

Decisions, decisions. Answers on a post card, or below.

A Storm Rises

With a grand total of no suggests for the Waargh, I'm opting for warriors.

A quick run out this evening of my planned list (no sneak peaks, just in case) and a good win over Pete's skaven. Some food for thought and a couple o weaknesses are apparent but to correct them means a full re-write and changing the set up of the army.

I think I'll take the risk and see what happens

Oops! Sorry go greenies!!

A storm subsides

So. The Waagh.

I turned up in the snow with my army from the distant north. Was the weather a portent that the power of chaos was on the up? Would glory fall into my hands? Err...well...um.

Game 1 was against Mike from Texas via New Mexico (I'm fairly sure thats what he said.) OG has gone international. Sadly he was on time so no jokes about the US military turning up late were possible.

He was using ogres - basically the usual supsects in his list. I fancied my chances in a punch up if I could get the charge to negate his impact hits. Turns out I underestimated the ogres a tad. Only one of chariots got in a charge (out of 5) and a most only 2 saw combat at all. My block of Nurgle dudes with Halberds were smashed by Mournfangs and it all went to pieces pretty quickly.

My other warrior block (HW/sh Tzeentch with exalted) tried to turn the tide and dished out some pain but it wasn't enough. Big loss 20-0

Game 2 - Pete

Pete took the list hes been running down at the club. This was his second game vs warriors on the day. His list didn't really have the tools to stop me and when two chariots saw off his A-Bomb it was only a matter of time. Big win 20-0

Game 3 - Tom and WOC

All 4 Warriors played were facing each other with only a few points between us for best warrior. The game started fairly tentively as neiter army wanted to give up the charge. I was seriously outmagicied and tried a coupld of early charges. Some made, others didn't. Then my right flank collapsed. My mage helped by effectively wiping out my Nurgle block with a miscast.

My guys dies. Lots.

Another 20-0 loss and I finished in around 10th place. Yes I made a couple of errors with the list leaving it underpowered in some areas but, overall, not a good day at the office.

Maybe I should have taken Matt's advice and run greenies - doublessly an idea pinched from the tactical genius that is his plant.

Its time for the Easter break. So, until next time....

Quote from: roland murat on March 25, 2013, 12:42:47 pm
Maybe I should have taken Matt's advice and run greenies - doublessly an idea pinched from the tactical genius that is his plant.

Found me out, Sandra all the way!

Yes, I know. Its been ages since I posted on this thread. Did you notice? No? Oh well.

The office cricket season is hitting my wargaming time fairly heavily so I'm not getting the chance to get to the club, however, yesterday I managed to get to the Waagh. Rocking up with the baby brother of Sam's army my first game was against big G.

Game 1 - DOC

Ouch. Turns out giant toads and soulblight are a nasty mix. My secret mision for the game was to get 3 units in the enemy deployment zone. I ancied my chances at this as it was probably the slowest army I was facing.

My knights (most expensive unit) moved a touch too far forward and got hit by toads and pappa nurgle. They took a long time to get cut down (I expected them to rollover tbh) but die they did. Other toads managed to hold my attacks nicely meaning I wasn't able to touch the big blocks. Big loss to the warriors heading into the lunch break.

Game 2 - DE

Andy wasn't too pleased to see chariot after chariot line up against him followed by knights and crushers as he didn't have too much that could deal with the heavy armour. My secret mission was kill the general.

Andy deployed his general behind impassible terrain making my mission somewhat tricky whilst a failed frenzy roll sent his witch elves  (most expensive unit) directly into the path of my crushers and a gorebeast. I obliged and the fight took several rounds but I managed to grind through for the loss of the chariot and 2 crushers. The last one got killed by shade shooting.

I made a mistake in getting obstructed by my own dogs trying to funnel between buildings. When the troops got in they did well but the elf shooting managed to nibble away the wounds before killing 3 or 4 chariots on a turn.

Eventually a combo of 3 chariots and my lord managed to get the general - assisted by a miscast.

Game 3 - HE

More elves, ok. No BOTWD - that helps. Mission remaining, kill the most expensive unit. Where is that unit? starting of the board after rolling a 1 - as did 3 chariots and a gorebeast.

This game was far closer than the score suggests. Dan had terrible luck with a series of miscasts in the first half of the game and this really helped as the armies collided. Lots died and it all came down to 2 horses and a gorebeast fighting a phoenix guardsman. One horse missed, the other didn't. Getting the guardsman (and the mission) was a huge swing taking the game from a draw to big win. Tough game.

Thanks to all my opponents on the day. Overall a 5th place finish, which is around my usual placing at these events when I don't have a total mare.

So how do I pick up that elusive third win? More chariots? A new army? Bring back magic ( I didnt use any)?

Only time will tell.

Until next time.

Clouds will form

As I muttered about on the Tom's DE thread I'm thinking about Counts. Nobody seems to use them anymore so they must be rubbish now - ideal for me to lose more games.

I have ummed, pontificated and generally not done much over many years when it comes to the Undead. The idea always appealled but they seemed a bit dull. With cheap models readily available (and some figures I got off Ol yonks ago in the cupboard) I've decided to try and move things forward.

Theme

This army needs to have a theme. I started by thinking about the character of my general. Where is he from, what is he like etc? I originally thought about a version of the old Tzeentch lords - big on magic and combat - but having a 530 point general who is killy and a lv 4 in an army that really needs to keep him isn't that clever.

So. What if he was older? One of the earliest vampires from the North of the kingdoms of man - that means not much cavalry and my lord rocking about on foot. Also, if he is so old he must be really powerful. Prehaps to powerful to be a normal Lord.

Then I remembered a film I saw years ago - Brigadoon - about a village that appears for 1 day every 100 years.

I've finally plumped for my Lord being an early vampire from the days before Sigmar but who was defeated by the other tribes that surrounded him. The shamans and witch doctors cursed the very land he controlled, something the Lord and his son worked hard to undo. For a few days every 50 years a small town appears on the landscape it residents cursed in life and death but each time it appears the vampires are able to continue their work and the town survives a little longer. One day the curse will be overcome and revenge will be had.

The army

Lord - Red Fury, quickblood, Talisman of preservation, Sword of might, heavy armour, shield, dragonhelm  384

Vamp - Lv 2 Forbidden Lore (beasts) dark majesty, Heavy armour, ahw, scroll, book of arkhan    197
Wight - BSB, GW, potion of toughness   165

40 Ghouls      Ghast     410
5 wolves                       40
5 wolves                       40
29 Skellies FC             175

30 Grave Guard FC, GW, banner of barrows 440
5 Hexwraith     150
5 Hexwraith     150
Spirit host       45

4 Cairn Wraith 200

Thoughts

Well? Please post below

I have absolutely no frame of reference for how good that army is but I love the fluff idea!

why thank you.

As Tom said! Would you be converting/painting your army to represent this?

Not sure at this stage - the ghouls will the more humanoid ones straight out the box as they are just in rags anyway so make suitable peasant types

Clouds will form

Ok so I've done some more thinking (yes, it did hurt. Thanks for asking.) and I've come up with a second idea.

A necromancer army based on someone who has disturbed a long buried resting place, releasing the spirits of the long departed. The core of the army is pretty much unchanged with the charcters being a Wight BSB plus some necromancers.

Everything else with be a ghost of some type (spirit host, hexwraith or cairn wraith).

This would work against the chariot host but what about the other armies rocking about?

Not sure about most armies but could struggle against my Skaven as pretty much all the firepower counts as magical...

Until it blows up, natch.

Same issue against my daemons but thats only 2 armies... i say give it a go  :wink;m::

Hmm - I hadn't thought of the skaven but knew demons were going to be a struggle (there again they always are).

G - I'll finalise some thoughts and drop you a pm at the weekend

Hex Wraiths are the new Snizzle, so keep them big and wack them forwards, some armies cant dealwith them at all..

Make sure you get a few screams in the list, it does horrible things to chariot armies and elite high armour units...

Its been a while since I commented here - largely because I've not done anything of note even by my normal dross standards.

Yesterday I went to the pillage practice Waagh and, having contempled, I've come up with a few thoughts.

1) I don't like the comp. The SCGT comp doesn't balance the armies well and with DoC having no pool choices they will be hard to stop. I got lucky when fighting them and chopped down Papa nurgle but still lost 18-2. The beasts are horrid and I just didn't have the tools to deal with them.

2) Normal warriors are hopless. Man for man they look good on paper but itas too easy for it all to go wrong. Either I need to try MSU or just not ise warriors when chariot numbers are restricted.

3) Blender vamp lords are ace - one took out preety much my entire army by himself.

In other news, my counts are coming along very, very slowly. I'm constantly re-evaluating what I should do but I'm starting to think I need a vampire light council - if nothing else just to combat the mass of nurgle demons that are appearing. I'm also having second thoughts about grave guard but i've nearly built 20 now and painted a test model so I will persevere for now. Hopefully they won't be complete  :endit:

Sad to hear the Warriors are definitely on the bench - the new book seems to have changed the entire dynamic of the army from Marauder/Warrior blocks to chariot spam. 

Looking forward to seeing the undead rising soon - worst case scenario the Grave Guard can stand around in the back ranks of your massive skeleton/zombie blocks  :thumbsup:

The undead are going to ages before they see the table Tom as I'm trying to do as good a job on them as I can. I don't want to buy tons of stuff and havwe an unpainted army as its a bit soul destroying too then try and paint it.

I agree the warriors book has changed the way the army works considerably. The issue I had at the weekend is the SCGT comp stops the chariot spam when combined with the disc lord. Had I had a wider range of suitable stuff I could have taken more crushers, chariots and a differnet type of lord choice but I was restricted by having an old army (although I did get to take a block of 9 ogres which was nice if ineffective)

Biggs did really well on Sunday with his warriors, the DP and big nurgle block of warriors took out Matt's nurgle daemons....

But agreed, I dislike SCGT comp in its current format..

Apart from some Magic and war machine comp, future Waarghs for the short term, will be uncomped....

Uncomped? Interesting shift

The Setting Dawn

A new codex. How exciting  :thumbsup:

My marines using the old were given a big send off last week - it was yet another large funeral for the guys in black power armour as the eldar gave them a proper kicking.

I'll be trying out the new codex tonight with some horrific proxying to try the new stuff and see how it works. The first thing I have to work out is what chapter tactics to use. My chapter fluff lends itself to Black Templars, much like the colour scheme, but the love of fire lends itself to Salamanders.

Tonight will a chance to try the salamander rules out but we shall see. I think I my have to look to move away from the double vindi, which is a shame, but only time will tell.

In other news..

Clouds will form

I'm off this week so hae ve the chance to do some work ony my veeerrrrryyyy slowly forming counts army. It will be good to kick on with these guys as I want to get them up to 2,400 so they can get tested on the field. I'm thinking of tweaking the background a bit though. The Grave Guard are being painted in green which made me think I could try and tie them to my overall 'Black Duke' concept and have them as people who fell to a plague. A couple of chaos bits should sort that out and it opens the door to chaos knights as blood knights should I try that path out.

See you on the battlefield.

I'll be interested to see how you find the new book as I'm about to start a Blood Angels army that appears to have been priced out of competition by their vanilla brethren, boo to change!

Still, Descent of Angels is a pretty cool Chapter Tactic of its own!

The Setting Dawn

Tom - this ones for you.

My army got minced last night. Minced. Now I won't blame the codex just yet (although such a great player as me shoulnd never lose right?) but I did learn some things about the new book.

Sadly, I'm not great at building an army straight out of the book. By this I mean it takes me time and experimenting to pick an army I'm happy with as what I think looks good on paper rarely works.

So last night I took this list

Vulkan
Captain - Bike, combi-flamer, power sword

10 Tac - MM, melta
5 Tac - combi-melta, flamer
5 Tac - combi-melta, flamer
Razorback - lascannon
5 Bikes - melta, power fist

4 Assault Centurians
Dread - MM, HF

Redeemer - mm
Storm Raven - mm, ass cannon
stalker

My early lessons were:-

The assault centurians are rubbish. Yes they are T5 with 2+ armour but the lack of an invun plus the poor number of attacks they throw out means they just don't hit hard enough and are far to easy to kill. If they hit chaff they will get bogged down but fight something good and they are dead.

Razorback - although not expensive it didn't bring much to the party. Running vulkan/salamanders means meltas are very reliable so the lascannon isn't needed.

Bikes - Probably good at range but can't fight for toffee. A decent option to either be held back to take an objective or go for linebreaker. I'm tempted to drop the 5 man bike unit and the captain to go for 2 three man scout bike squads. Not troops but dirt cheap infiltrators - one of which can have a storm talon attached.

Storm Raven - Good and its powerful missiles will cause problems but its not cheap (points or pounds) and is a heavy support choice. HS has tons of good stuff so slots are at a premium unless I ally with another codex chapter (yep I can ally with myself).

Sarge - Vets are the way forward for any unit likely to see combat. The bonus attack and leadership makes a difference. A normal sarge with a powerfist is pretty poor with 1 attack when not charging.

Stalker- Although it didn't do much against the DOC I still see potential and its ability to take down flyers in addition to its anti- light vehicle capacity makes a good bet in my eyes. Maybe I'm to concerned by warwalkers but I wonder if running two of them is a good idea to replace the double vindi (sad panda though). Outside of OG comp the hunter might be a better choice but with 0-1 flyer I think the extra shots are moore valuable.

I have a game of antasy on Thurs so that give me time to tinker with my list.

Interesting read, finally thinking about what to add to my Space Marines inspired by new book - want Centurions, hope they are not a lost cause!

Cheers Mike, enjoyed the update!

Centurions strike me as a lazy loyalist version of Obliterators/Mutilators with similar issues - as heavy weapon carriers they're flexible and can still powerfist in combat, as a close combat choice they're just meh.

I'm going to run a stormraven in my Blood Angels list, with a Death Company dread hanging on to the back.  Was yours carrying troops?

It was just rocking the dread. For my dread build its better to come down in a drop pod turn one to try and take down a tank to get first blood.

I've knocked up a new list to try - I'm thinking:-

Vulkan
10 Tac - MM, melta
10 Tac - MM, melta
5 Tac - Vet, fist, flamer

3 Scout Bikes
3 Scout Bikes
Storm Talon - Typhoon

5 Assault termies - TH/SS
Redeemer (transport)

Stalker
Stalker
Landraider

I think rocking the two raiders will give me some staying power and can house some troops to protect them from the massed firepower floating around now. The stalkers should also help deal with things like warwalkers and aircraft which can ruin marines day.

Clouds will form

Its not been a great week for painting despite not being in the office. However, I have noticed something quite surprising. It turns out after pondering, pontificating and procrastinating I nearly have everything I need for 2,400 points of counts.

It looks quite a lot like this:-

Vamp lord - red fury, quickblood, heavy armour, shield, ogre blade, 4+ ward

Vamp - level 2 (death) heavy armour, add. hand weapon
Wight - BSB, 5+ ward, great weapon
Necromancer - scroll

40 Ghouls - Ghast
5 Dogs
5 Dogs
20 Skellies - Full command

28 Grave guard - Full command, great weapons, banner barrows
5 Hexwraith
5 Hexwraith
2 Spirit Host

4 Cairn Wraith

It all comes up to 2,397 so with a bit of effort this army (or a version thereof) may actually see the field before christmas.

If you have any thoughts, comments, tips or just think I should give up - stick it below

Sandros Mill-easy

So not many actual games to comment on recently and painting is progressingly slowly so there is is little to comment on for my gaming projects.

However, I have been working on my MTG decks, plus helping a friend so in order to get some new content on the forum I thought 'd bore my regular reader with this - unless even the last brave sole has finally given up.

I bought a mate of mine the 2014 deck builder at the same time as I got one for myself. For those in know I'm rocking a blue/black mill deck and a red/blue irritate-eveyone-before-dying-horribly deck. I've managed to pick up a few new cards prior to the big Theros release, which will hopefully help, and finally got around to elping my mate build his deck.

He went for a red/green sliver deck. Now I'm trying to convince him to pop down at some point for a game as this deck does seem a bit brutal. But, its only been up aganst my R/B deck. However, its quick (and will get quicker when stuff gets taken out and put into a sideboard). Does anyone have any ideas as to wewhat should go in this type of deck? It may already be there but just in case....

Quote from: roland murat on September 24, 2013, 12:46:05 pm
...in order to get some new content on the forum I thought 'd bore my regular reader with this - unless even the last brave sole has finally given up.

Nope I'm still here.

I have no idea how MTG works at all, so it mad no sense. But I am still here!

Quote from: cunningmatt on September 25, 2013, 03:10:00 pm
Nope I'm still here.

I have no idea how MTG works at all, so it mad no sense. But I am still here!

Good for you.

Clouds will form

So the Counts made their long awaited debut last night against warriors. For most the game it was pretty close but the end was result was a convincing defeat.

As it was only the first run out the lessons learnt were limited and I'll stick with the force for a while to work out what steps I want to take next. However, I learnt that:-

1) To make the army work I need to play more warhammer - forgetting most of the magic rules didn't help.
2) I'm still pretty rubbish with light cav - when using 2 hexwraith units I need to think about this more.

Until next time

For your mates Red/Green sliver deck, the best bet is to look at Lorraine's Sliver deck when she plays on Thursday, hers is all 5 colours but is about as optimised as you can get...

Show me your Waaagh face

So I'm a late replacement to even up the numbers at planet OG tomorrow. The Orks will be coming out to play and, most probably, dying in droves. An event of DoC, Eldar and CSM - things are looking tough.

Still I reackon I can't lose - it says so in the fluff. If the orks win, they win; if they die it doesnt count; and, if they run, they will only come back later with their mates. Ol may as well give me the  :1st: right now. Or prehaps not.

Show me your Waaagh face

First of all thanks to my opponents - Oliver, Seb and Jd for the game.

Round 1 saw me up against an unusual CSM army commanded by Oliver. Sadly the heart of my army was ripped apart turn 1 meaning my assault faltered before it even began. The failure of my flanking orcs to break through a small squad of plaguebearers meant it was pretty much all over. The Orks were tabled turn 4 - not a good start.

On a side note the demon prince was horrid - it killed an entire blob squad of boys (30 inc Nob) in a single turn.

I came back from lunch expecting to face frequent planet OG opponent Gary in a second round spoon-off only to be matched against Seb and the counter punching BA. I struggled to get to grips with the dancing assault marines in what was a tough tactical battle. In the end the BA had to try and take an objective at the centre and a mass brawl broke out. The BA were defeated and, overall, the battle won.

A special thanks to Gary for this one. Everytime he got within a metre or so of our table Seb's dice went south - including a double six to give his warlord a second wound from perils.

Game 3 and a chance to try and launch a late charge for a decent placing. JD and the pedro marines the potential victims. JD started with most of his force in drop pods off the table and split his force on the table between the 2 far corners. I decided to ignore the side with lots of plasma cannon to attack his devastator centurians and a tactic squad.

The first 2 pods landed with some sternguard and a tactical squad. A wagon and looted vehicle got destroyed but didnt do much to the blokes inside. Most of my army desended on the incoming marines with one ork squad going after the centurians. The centurians survived until turn 4 or 5 but the other marines weren't as lucky.

It was all going well until pedro arrived. His 9 man stern guard unit was brutal and the game ended with the orks forced to back off. A close fought game with the orks taking the game by a single point.


Two small wins led to an overall finish of 6th - not great but a good day with some unusually close games. Normally I find with GW games big wins and, most often, big losses are more frequent than close games.

Good write up. Sounds like you had a fun day!!

The Onset of Meh

Like many others at the club recently I've suffered from the onset of 'meh' when it comes to wargaming, particularly with all things GW. But why?

I've been thinking about this (on my lunch break I hasten to add) and conclude the following:-

* Big swings - what should be a close game often gets recorded as a massive win or, more likely for me, a loss as the result of a single dice roll. Yes I accept this can happen when chance is introduced but the way games encourage armies to be built makes the bg swing far too common.
* Lack of balance - Far too many bad match-ups in both the main systems and this isn't helped when some armies are just so much better than everything else. In 40k we have the Tau/Eldar nightmare, which is like warhammer in 7th ed - ie only 3 builds could win a game - for example.
* Cost - For me I think the line got crossed when the new DE were priced at £35 for 10 models. Even though it is easy to get models at a reduced cost its not feasible to consider new projects in the way it was when, even though the hobbey was expensive it was managable.

Prehaps it would be good to veer away from the negative. I'm very tempted, and have threaten for some time, to try and get back into historical gaming. Exactly what I do will depend on what turns up from Santa. I've also enjoye getting into MTG this year. Sadly my decks are increasingly vulnerable as everyone else makes tweaks and comes up with new fiendish combos.

Deckbuilding is a challenge and, whilst I won't be drawn into a high spending arms race (after trades, sales etc my outlay has been abput £20-30 I think), will be the way to go for now.

Obviously I'm taking part in the 40k campaign but don't intend to provide a commentary unless anyone is particularly interested. If you ar e, please say so ,otherwise I will probably let this thread die.

Sorry to hear you will not be continuing this blog. Always good to have other stuff in amidst game bookings on the forum. But understand your reasons. Enjoy the 40K campaign!

No, I demand further blog.  I completely agree with the Meh factor (Exhibits 1 & 2, my own Fantasy/40K plogs, although at least one ended in a completed army so, that's a 10-10, right?) and yes, Eldar Wave Serpents and Tau, just, Tau, are lame armies for lame people who are lame (nothing to do with my repeated failings against them, this is pure science.  I can point to my many losses against other armies as evidence of lack of bias, none do I hate as much as those two).

And I totally agree with the Dark Elves being over priced.  However.  And this is a big however...There's a renaissance on the horizon.  Hopefully the 2 campaigns will re-energise everyone and bring in new lists.   Once I remember to read the rules and (a) bring a legal army, (b) realise what the mission is and (c) not let you psychically control my reserve rolls, it's going to be a blast!

very well - I''ll try to come up with something suitably witty to keep this going

Arise, dead thread arise.

Ok so I was inteding to try and get going again with my attempt at kill team over the weekend. But, nothing to see here, keep moving etc.

So, instead a plea for inspiration for all things MTG related. My all white deck is struggling at my attempt to go for something more focussed hasn't really worked. I don't want to copy another deck so cat/weeny is out. I'm thinking of adding some red and/or black.

Ideas on a postcard or in this thread.

Hopefully I'll get some fantasy or 40k in soon so can get the ball rolling

Whatever happened to Father Brian?

So, clear MTG isn't to most peoples taste. But with mini-hammer just around the corner its time to answer one of the most repeated questions in the last 10 seconds. What happened to Father Brian.

I don't want to give too much away about what will I'll be using at the club next weeked, however, its time for Brian to return.

Father Brian was last seen on the battlefield wearing the mantle of Arch-Lector. He had been promoted following his heroic victories over the foul chaos spawned skaven but, sadly, just wasn't much good at all the paper work. He retired from public life, becoming a hermit until he got a vision from Sigmar. Thus encouraged, Brian the Blessed cleaned his armour; grabbed his hammer; and rode once more to face the enemies of is god.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!


Thank goodness I'm not running ratties this time.

Quote from: roland murat on March 01, 2014, 04:55:37 pm
Whatever happened to Father Brian?

Thus encouraged, Brian the Blessed cleaned his armour; grabbed his hammer; and rode once more to face the enemies of is god.

GORDON'S BRIAN'S ALIVE!!!!  :wink;m::

Sadly, mini-hammer has been called off and Father Brian's return is postponed. I'm currently lining up an Empire/Skaven battle using the Hail Ceaser ruleset so he may ride again soon.

Just for the record I'd certainly be interested in trying a Fantasy Ceasar game at some point. Would probably have to be a Saturday as we live in opposite weekday slots, of course, but it'd be good to try a different unit-based game.

Im going to do a trial run against Tom in a couple of weeks and if it works I'll do something for a weekend game

A Return

For the first time in ages I actually got in a game of fantasy - using WOC against the new Dwarf army list. I was running an unkillable lord, bsb, 20 warrior (NU, halberd, sh, fc) 4 chariots, some dogs, knights and crushers.

Rob was using a Thane, 2 runesmiths, bsb, 2 blocks of quarrellers, iron drake chappies, a cannon, organ gun and 6 gyros.

We both made mistakes having not played much but it was very much a game of  halves. The gyros did a lt of damage to the warrior block (which failed to see combat) but, as my army closed on the dwarf line, they were forced to take more risks allowing me to pick them off. In combat the dwarves didn't do so well.

I'm not sure what to make of the gyrocopters. Clearly they have the potentially to be really annoying and cause havoc; particularly in  lower toughness units. But the rest of the army can't keep pace. I suspect this rather allows magic/missile weapon equipped armies to treat the dwarves as two armies. Firstly take down the gyroc (gaioning 600 odd points) and then worry about the other stuff if thats not enough to gain the win.

I'd be intereted to here how the army got on against the skaven in slot 2.

Overall, it was nice to get a win and - more importantly - a but of practice ahead of potential involvement in the next campaign.

They didn't do too well against them either. :)

I brought the Stormvermin/Bell Seer/BSB block supported by 2x50 Slaves, a unit of Clanrats, 2 Rat Darts, 5 Gutter Runners, 3 Rat Ogres, the unholy WLC/HPA/DW trio and a couple of Warlock Engineers and a regular Chieftan.

Was very strange playing Skaven for the first time in months, but essentially by the end of turn two the Irondrakes had been 13thed mostly away and pretty much all my infantry blocks were intact and running towards the Dwarven lines. The Gyros behind me were a pain (they managed to wipe out my entire Stormvermin block, for example, and certainly the WLC didn't last very long!) but ultimately there wasn't as much to fear from the Dwarven line as I expected. I was kinda hoping that the Doomwheel would deal with the gyros but he wasn't rolling as well as the rest of my army (and, to be fair, I was having a very good day on the dice)!

That might've been a side effect of Skaven being reasonably quick as a race, of course - it kinda seemed that having a swarm of Gyros buzzing around needs a real hard-hitting anvil for my army to smash itself on as it had no other option but to get into combat asap. But then there's always 13th/Purple Sun/etc for such things so I dunno, I suspect Rob has more qualified opinions on such things. :)

I think Gyros are reasonable and certainly did good jobs. 3 took out Pete's stormvermin, BSB, Seer and put 3 wounds on the bell. However they are slightly expensive as pure chaff... and Pete's doomwheel still killed 3 or 4 out of the 6, heh. I think they need more support than they really got from the rest of the army, so I'll prob drop down to 3, get more war machines and change the nearly useless Irondrakes for Hammerers. Need to think on the character load out too, the Thane general was pretty useless, do I need 2 destroy scrolls at a cost of 230 pts (2 channels and some ap too, but essentially the pts are anti magic).

Needs more pondering...and I have to submit a tournament list by friday  :bash;m:

For what it's worth that was almost exactly the list I was expecting to face, and I wasn't particularly optimistic about my chances against it.

Those destroy scrolls are just one of those things that only feel as good as your last roll though - if you'd managed to destroy both Plague and the 13th rather than roll 3s I'm sure you'd be feeling a bit better about them! :) But then saying that; as a Daemon and Skaven player misplaced faith in the dice gods are kinda my speciality, so what do I know?

So, yesterday Pete and I tried out the Hail Ceaser ruleset with converted fantasy armies. DoC took on Skaven.

Overall, it seemed pretty decent and the armies felt like they should according to the fluff but we did figure some tweaks were needed. The game is designed, seemingly, for an arrogantly large gaming table. The recommended army size is 600 points which is divided into divisions - each at least 4 units strong. To put this into perspective we played a 300 point game with 2 divsions and the skaven ones were 7 units strong.

Ok I should have gone for 3 smaller divisions but 300 points felt like a fantasy 2,400pt game. We decided 300 points was enough and units should be smaller in size. Divisions should have a minimum of 3 units to make the game a bit more managable.

More playtesting awaits - let me know if interested and what armies you want to use.

Return to Lustria

So with the new campaign kicking off its time for some background.

All was quiet in the sleepy bay. A few bird circled over the trees and small lizard slept on a rock in the sun. For Hidiseeki it was a boring day. He and his fellow scouts were tasked with tracking the mercenary bands landing on the coast but at this station nothing was happening. Apart from that small dot on the horizon growing, nothing was happening at all.

The dot grew in size as HMS Vagabond slowly pulled into the bay. Behind it came a swarm of longboats as an army disembarked from the waiting transports. The watching skink had seen enough, it was time to report. As it moved the light shimmered across a bead around its throat and, somehow, the glint was spotted on the waiting warship. It answered with a crashing broadside into the trees and pain shot through the skink's body. The tree next to him had taken a direct hit, cleaving off a foot long splinter that was now lodged in its gut. Maybe he should have reported earlier.

How are the crew of HMS Vagabond getting on?

Sadly I've not been able to get any games in and my time is being taken up by trying to move home/work at the moment so I'm struggling to get to the club. Hopefully i'll have some updates soon

So yesterday was my first waaaagh in , literally, yonks. I decide to give the Empire a run out using a list of

Arch Lector - GW, 4+ ward, 2+ armour
Lv 4 (life) 5+ ward

Bsb - Sh, dragonhelm, plate
lv 2 (fire) scroll
Brian - horse, sh, gambler's armour, sword might

10 Inner circle - FC, banner swiftness
40 Halberds - FC
30 SPear - FC
29 Spear - FC

2 cannon
10 Reiksguard - FC, standard discipline

Stank

Pre game 1

Now I know the list isn't that good but having seen some of the practice games I was a tad concerned. The amount of powerful toys on show would run over my line pretty easily and my plan was to have lots of banners to target the bonus points.

Game 1

Table 6 vs Amit (DE)

For a good turn or 2 I was in the game. The steam tank did nothing of note other than grinding a handful of witch elves (ooo err matron) and my cannon managed even less. My reiksguard launched a brave charge at a tower only to be brutally cut down by massed firepower and I couldn't stop the cold one bus (the number 42 I think).

An early 24-0 defeat but at least I didn't have to move anything for...

Game 2

Next up came Jono and his back of a fag packet High Elf army. As was becoming traditional the tank did nada but my cannon did managed to kill a bolt thrower - panicking the elven general so he ran closer to my troops buut an eagle stopped me getting in the killer charge.

The reiksguard took on a dragonmage and supporting spearmen  - holding for several turns while I lined up a devastating flank charge. Conveniently they died just before the charge could be launched.

Going into the last turns the game hung in the balance. Brian and the inner circle beat off the general led silver helms causing the elf army to reach its break point but the sword masters in turn mopped them up leaving a tired and nervous halberdier block facing the sword masters.

Brian came to the rescue. Sacrificing himself he drew the swordmasters away - allowing a sneaky flame cage to weaken the ranks. No longer confident of victory they didn't throw in the charge. It ended a draw with the lads from the Empire picking up bonus points for breaking the elves. so 16-10

Game 3

The glorious winning draw meant I climbed the table to face G and his demons. Drat.

Turn 1 saw the skill cannons take 5 wounds of the tank (taking it out of the game) and blowing up a cannon - forcing the other one to panic. At a stroke I had nothing left to hold bank the damned tide. Bravely my knights charged, bounced and charged again. Brian slew a vile herald of nurgle in single combat but one man does not an army make.

The end result was a 19-1 loss with 4 bonus points scored for banners in table quarters. It should have been 20-0 so an overall 23- 5 was pretty flattering.

wot I learnt

The tank is rubbish. Too likely to break down, achieved nothing.
Brian is great - we all know this anyway but its worth re-stating.
State troops lack killing power - again nothing new.

With G talking about sending the OG boys out to tournaments far and wide for the greater glory of the club I need to up my game. An army must be raised that can compete with the filth lists and not just cower in a corner trying not to get beaten up too badly.

Empire are not the way forward. Demigryphs, light councils and...snooze don't do it for me. I'd also not take the dull warriors lists doing the rounds so where does this leave me? I guess its a new build army designed not for fluff but the rubbish concept of 'winning is a theme'. Will I see it through maybe, maybe not.

So, what are your thoughts? Can Brian defect to a different cause (is this even possible)? Is there an army I'm overlooking and could actually get some results from? Or should I just stick to playing with [card]wingsteed rider[/card]?

Obviously wing steed rider gets my vote. But I reckon with the new book coming and you can proxy your existing cav, that Brett's are the way forward for you buddy

I was starting to think about that - I could have an army of wingsteed riders! Happy me.

Good write up! Bloody Skull Cannon!

Return to lustria

'Behold we are assailed by the forces of chaos. On both our flanks they press upon us but will..'

A creaking noise cam from the throat of Earl Derby and he collapsed to the floor. With the subsequent loss of concentration the army around him began to fall apart..

So triumph and treachery didn't go so well today. Player 1 turn 1 let loose some death magic and my general was duly killed. With him went a spirit host - that was deployed to stop a couple of chariots turning my flank. It all went downhill from there with my forces chopped up without scoring a single VP.

At least the ROR got a win this round so I'm still in the game

Quote from: roland murat on July 26, 2014, 11:02:42 pm
So triumph and treachery didn't go so well today. Player 1 turn 1 let loose some death magic and my general was duly killed. With him went a spirit host - that was deployed to stop a couple of chariots turning my flank. It all went downhill from there with my forces chopped up without scoring a single VP.

At least I will have competition for the wooden spoon!

Quote from: cunningmatt on July 29, 2014, 07:54:02 pm
At least I will have competition for the wooden spoon!

Its mine I tell you, all mine

As a victorious player 1 I apologise for my loaded dice allowing me to snipe out 3 characters and a blood knight...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Return to Lustria

Its been awhile but the boys in lustria have been busy.

Most recently a rumour of some kind of map or compass that leads to a great treasure led the regiment of renown to a dark cave. One that had already been entered by Sam's evil chaos warband.

Sam found the compass in his first turn but rejoicing quickly changed to carnage as he also found the guardian of the compass. A Trogledon (spelling may be an issue here) killed half his warband and my cavalry tried to slip around the back to pick up the dropped compass and ride out.

It all went a bit wrong at this point and in the ensuing melee the Trog took down some of my chaps before being killed by Sam's champion. The very same champion then cut down all bar one of my force - taking possession of the compass. All he had to do was evade my last man ( a crossbowman) in the dark and slip to safety.

Instead, Sam did Khorne's will and charged. The crossbowman bravely stood his ground. Despite failing every shot in the game up to that point he managed the perfect stand and shoot. A bolt flew into the eye of the already wounded chaos champion and he dropped dead. Victory for Albion.

My demigryph, my demigryph, my kingdom for a demigryph

Ok so the title is a bit of a work in progress for this section of the blog. Today I had my first go with the tale of OG Games project Yorkist army. A small skirmish defending a village from a roaming goblin warband. This was using the Hail Ceaser rules and my fantasy conversion army lists

The forces were:

Yorkist - 1 unit billmen (medium infantry, heavy weapon) 1 unit archer (medium inf, bow) 1 unit spear (medium inf, militia, levy) 1 unit archer (med inf, militia, levy, bow)

Goblin - 1 unit wolf rider (Light cav, levy, milita, feigned flight, bow) 3 units goblin spear (medium inf, militia, levy) 1 unit goblin archers (militia, levy, bow).

Deployment

York (L-R) M. bow, M spear, Bow, bill
Gob (my left to right) Wolf rider, spear, spear, bow spear.

Goblins as attacker went first.

Turn 1

The wolf rider pushed forward and took cover behind a hedge, threatening the flank of the militia bow. The middle spear block then failed a move order so everything stopped.

[In HC if an order is failed that commander can issue no more instructions that turn. In a small battle like this one with one commander per side a failed order can be quite problematic.]

The York archer unit advanced into range of the Goblin battle line with the spear unit advancing to cover its flank. Shooting as uneventful.

Turn 2

The Goblin failed the first order but the wolf riders managed to score a hit on the milita bow with their shooting.

[Each unit has a stamina value to reflect how much damage can be taken before things start to go wrong, normally this is 6. In this case the wolf riders managed 1 hit which wasn't saved.]

The yorkists reacted by sending the bill unit advancing alone towards the goblin lines but it didn't move far

[How well an command test is passed determines how many actions a unit can take. It pays to be bold as units can move up to three times or twice and charge]

The regular bow unit caused a hit on the spearmen on the goblin left (my right)

Turn 3

Only the spear unit in the middle of the goblin line got to move, advancing straight towards the distant village. The militia bow took another hit from the wolf riders hiding behind a hedge.

The yorkist forced failed to move at all and shooting was uneventful

[guess who rolls like a champ as normal] 

Turn 4

The goblins eturn the favour and fail to move (they only need a 7 or better as militia units to move honest) and the goblin bow managed a hit on the advancing yorkist spears.

The yorkist army finally decided to follow orders. The bill unit made 2 moves then charged a goblin spear unit and the milita spear swarmed forward to crash into the spears in the goblin centre. Both bow units advanced. ! hit was scored by the normal bow unit and then it was time for combat.

The militia spear caused 4 hits on the goblin unit, suffering one in return and pushing the greenskin unit back. The bill unit won 3-2  but the goblin unit held its ground.

[In combat each unit has a certain number of dice to roll in the first and then subsequent rounds of combat needing a 4 before modifiers to hit. A unit gets a chance to save as normal with the loser forced to take a break test. This is 2d6 less the amount combat was lost by with each score giving a different result. A 10 after modifiers is much better than a 3.]

Turn 5

The unit of spear on the goblin right charged the flank of the york spear ( which had followed up the unit it pushed back so it was still engaged). The goblin bow unit moved to threaten the flank of the bill unit.

[A unit within 12" can make a single move using the unit commanders initiative rather than relying on an order. In this case the unit tried to go for an order as it had to move into a position to charge before attacking. It was only able to move once so contact wasn't made.]

The bill unit drew combat but as the goblins had reached the limits of their stamina it had to take a break test and became disordered. Meanwhile the militia spear smashed face, breaking one unit and pushing back the other.

Turn 6

The goblin archers charged the bill unit in the flank (meaning it would hit on a 2+). Shooting was again uneventful but in combat the bill unit forced the bowmen to retreat in disorder whilst the unit fighting the yorkist spear was broken.

In the yorkist turn there was a general advance but little happened. As dusk fell the field belonged to the defenders.

Return to Lustria

The campaign has seen a mixed bag of results for the forces of Albion, both living a dead. Some good results by the ROR but also some batterings supplemented by consistent failures in the T&T games.

Today was the final battle. A force of Counts (me), demons, High Elves and Dwarves faced 8,000 points of lizards. All we had to do was kill stuff. How hard could that be.

Turn 1 saw an effective LM magic take down my hexwraighs. Surely no big problem but they were the plan when it came to holding off the herd of stegs I was facing meaning my main battle line was brutally exposed. I won't bore anyone with the details of the game as I was heading home by lunch having been tabled inside three turns.

Maybe next time.....but it won't be with the counts

As you may have gathered from Tom's blog we recently had a game of 2,500 points uncomped warhammer. It was bloody; brutal; and a draw. A fitting result between the best (or only active) Empire and Skaven players at the club*.

So this got me thinking. To be fair I normally comp myself with and insist on writing lists which are pretty rubbish but it would be ice to at least provide a test before getting crushed - maybe the odd 17-3 loss would make a change from the normal 20-0. But what do I need to take?

Core is probably limited to knights, halberds and a couple of detachments of archers.  Special a pair of cannon and some demis. I'm not sold on the steam tank as its too unreliable and other than the luminark the rares don't seem very interesting.

Thoughts appreciated.








*G you play DoC so you don't count as an Empire player.

I think the problem with Empire is you can have a bit of everything, and so it's tempting to do that.  Your combined arms infantry and knights is a good idea, if it all hits at the same time.  Unfortunately the knights and demis will be in the opponent's face 2 turns before the walkers...why not go all cavalry?

Pistoliers/Outriders to vanguard and pew pew stuff whilst the knights and War Altar roll up behind.  The high armour of your heavy cav should keep them safe whilst the sheer firepower from the fast cav means they can't be left alone and should be able to kill off chaff in short order.  Plus you'd presumably have enough points for a couple of cannons and a small halberdier block to guard them.

As you can do a bit of everything, you have to pick a strategy, be focused about what you want to achieve and select those troops rather than a bit of this and that. 

Quote*G you play DoC so you don't count as an Empire player.

No argument from me buddy having not picked them up for a couple of years  :wink;m::

I'd suggest the Hurricanium over the Luminark if you running Cav... that +1 to hit is huge!

Also Empires access to all BRB Magic lores is huge.. you could use that to your advantage (I'd advocate trying Light/Heavens combo with knight/Demi's it's great!)..

Also in this kinda list Steamtanks are great... still one of the hardest things to kill in the game..

Also why not try out the hellblaster/engineer combo with all that monsterous stuff out there Str 5 AP is nothing to be sniffed at!

All mounted?

I'm not sure that is definately the way to go as whilst knights hit hard if they get charged or don't break a unit in one turn they don''t do the damage to get rid of blocks. Personally, I see the knights as a counter punch option although I use them too aggressively. So soften up the meat blocks on the way in, use infantry to engage the front (hopefully with buffs to do some damage) and then use the cav for the break through.

Of course some armies are more defensive (dwarfs and skaven come to mind) so the knights give an offensive option to rush the toys.

Anyone else got any thoughts? Plus, are greatswords any use?

A Questing we shall go

So. Warhammer Quest. A game I played once or twice about 6 years ago. What can possibly go wrong? Plenty.

A brave party of intrepid adventurers (well me, Pete, Gary and Pip) headed into a dungeon to recover some lost dwarf treasure at the weekend and much fun was had by all. Apart from the chaos warrior. Despite being told on countless occasions to take a wizard with us as we will need the healing we actually went with an elf ranger, dwarf warrior, imperial noble and I was the chaos warrior.

In short we cleared a room of orcs, got jumped by a wandering rat ogre and a few more orcs and decided we really did need the wizard so fled. The chaos warrior didn't make and was cut down as he waded into the last band of orcs. Which makes me the wizard huzzah.

Having rested in a nearby village we tried again. Now it turns out at the start of each turn the wizard rolls a d6 to determine how strongly the winds of magic blow and how well he can use its power. A 1 is bad, a 6 is good. If a 1 is rolled the party get jumped by wandering monsters. This leads to another roll of the dice to determine how nasty the monster is with 1, again, being the worst result. Again, I was the wizard.

So after multiple 1's being rolled (including three double 1's) we had used up all our stuff and were pretty battered but we had made a ton of cash killing what seemed to be every beastie this side of Brettonia. we had to decided then whether to return to town to re-equip or press on. Like the mighty warriors we thought we were we decided to push on and walk through a magic door that led into the lair of a guard troll. Turns out we were not the warriors of renown we like to pretty we were when chatting up farmers daughters (yes the noble played by pete nearly got married to one when her brothers cam knocking). So we fled. Barely escaping before the wizard died.

With a record of one dungeon attempted, 1 character lost and a second nearly following I can't say I've made the best starts to the game. Still all good fun and I look forward to when we try again. 

I think that Chaos Warrior may have trained in my Warriors army by the sounds of his ability!

Nah he was home grown Matt - double ones all the time (except for break tests)

At least it's not just me!

A questing we shall go

Helmut 'Yo-Yo' Goldstriver and friends returned to the dungeon today. With only one fighter n the party (Pip's dwarf) and two support characters (me and Gary's elf ranger) it was always going to be tough, particularly when the minos started to appear.

Helmut managed to roll fewer ones in general play this week for the winds of magic test, keeping the bad results for when it really mattered. In the final room we entered we got jumped by two minotaurs and an orc shaman. Helmut levitated high above the combatants and threw a magic spear at the orc, causing massive damage and forcing it to flee. But it wasn't enough as the minos went to work.

In the end only the dwarf remained on his feet. Luckily (from a selection of about a dozen options) Pip found a resurrection scroll and was able to restore the Helmut who in turn saved the Elf. It came at a price - Helmut lost all his cash and treasures.

Battered, bruised and barely alive the brave heroes fled to a nearby time. They will return again ready to delve into the second level  of the dungeon but it is proving a tricky first assignment.

If Helmut 'Yo Yo' Goldstriver was in 8th, what magic college would he belong to?

This though crossed my mind when I should have been doing work. He has a spell which boosts strength, one which heals and one which lets him levitate. He also has a magic item that slows time for other people meaning he (and friends can have a second turn before monsters in Warhammer Quest get to go)

He's definitely Gold College material, what with his fascination with metal doors...

A questing we shall go

"So you want to know about the Tabac Goldstrivers? They sell jewellery, expensive stuff at that; are you thinking of getting something nice?...No...the family? Well they own a couple of shops catering for the well heeled, rumour has it they sell to the Imperial family and...their son? Ah you mean Wolfgang. Runs the operation in Middenheim and doing very well for himself I hea...the other son? Are you sure? That loser? Well, if you insist."

"They say there was a second son - somewhat accident prone. Anyway, he starts seeing things that aren't there, colours in the sky and other nonsense. Everyone just thinks he's daft in the head but then he starts doing weird stuff. A mate of a mate says he was told the kid turned some wine into liquid gold, not for long just an hour or so, but that's pretty odd. So he gets shipped off to the magic school before the witch hunters turn up  and disappears for a few years."

"Now my old man knows a bloke who worked as a cleaner in the old College. He reckons this Helmut kid, thats his name by the way, was a bit accident prone. Particularly when under pressure. On the day to day stuff he was pretty good and handling his spells but put him under pressure and he will find the worst possible time to make a massive boo boo. Long story short, he's doing some experiment or other to show he is good enough to be a proper wizard and the pressure is too much for him. something went wrong and there was this explosion, killed another apprentice I think."

"Then he disappeared. Ran off into the woods and couldn't be found so he's probably dead now. So I don't think its really that interesting a story. Having said that, there was some adventures passing through a week or so ago. I heard them mocking this wizard they had with them, something about how they found him sleeping in a ditch and his clothes getting detroyed by lightning. Sounds like these wizard types don't get much luck..."

You know when you've been Nagashed

It was my first game of End Times today. I was teamed up with Gareth and Sam with a mix of chaotic stuff against Pip and Giles using the undead legion. It was 8k a side.

Sadly the game took longer to set up than play with team Chaos conceding defeat mid way through turn 2. Nagash was consistently raising close to his points cost in new stuff each turn and we really struggled to deal with it. We managed to take most of Nagash's wounds off him but in the bottom of the second turn the chaos assault had faltered and it was only a matter of time before the undead army crushed the life out of the chaotic legion.

Now my total experience of End Times consists of less than 2 turns but it does seem that magic is even more important than usual (which is going some). Any army must have a way of dealing with the powerful characters. If Nagash is one the other side of the table then he has to die in the first two turns or its curtains. The Empire might be the way to go, possibly with some dwarfs in support. It may be dull but a battery of great cannon should get past the ward save and get the job done. Maybe next time (or maybe not)

Shame the game didn't last as long as you hoped! Sounds like fun though - bring on the Elves of Khaine!

Of course The Empire do now have more or less the only character who can take out Nagash 1v1 - you just need to get him close enough to smack him with his hammer (and avoiding all his spawning chaff...).

In fairness to Nagash and his big hat, I don't think he was designed with 3d6 magic phases in mind!

But yeah, in both turns he summoned a solid 900pts onto the board behind the Chaos lines, in addition to bubble-casting the Incantation of Righteous Smiting on 90 skeleton archers (one unit of 30 + one unit of 60 containing Khalida). Our arrows will blot out the sun, we will fight in the shade, etc. The last thing to happen before the game ended was a unit of 9 Sepulchral Stalkers popping up next to Mike's Chaos Dragon and turning it into sand.

A questing we shall go

Yo-Yo the consistently unlucky wizard has emerged from our first adventure. It may have taken weeks and claimed the lives of three characters but he has done it. Yippee.

The huge sums of money he made were ploughed into a rigorous training regime of Sigmarmas as he has found new spells popping into his tiny, overworked mind.

Yo-Yo and friends will doubtlessly be back in the new year. There are rumours of an orc warlord's lair in the vicintiy of Barak  Varr and where there are orcs to slay there is normally money.

Until next time

Its been a whole since I posted any of my random, pointless mutterings on here so now is a good opportunity to waste everyone's time with an update. So what is going on?

With the questing on hold for now I'm using the time to paint up a figure to represent my mighty mage Helmut Goldstriver or, as he is better known, Yo-Yo. I was going to buy the Empire Wizard kit and dream up a suitable conversion until I saw its cost; which is nothing short of silly. So the Heroquest Wizard with a new paint job will have to do. He is going ok so far but it is early days.

Christmas has come and gone. I was lucky enough to get a Dacian Warhost and some Mongol horse archers which i intend to use for my 'counts as' high elves. So its a bit of a shame that the rumours for the forthcoming 9th ed indicate it might change quite radically. Well at least I still have my WotR Empire to finish off having failed to finish them in time for the tale of OG Gamers.

I was thinking about going to the tournie in Croydon in April to make my début at a big event and see what all the fuss is about. But it clashes with Salute so I'll be going to that instead. So this year will probably be much like the last one. I'll try out some board games, get smashed at warhammer whilst flitting between various projects and trying to learn a new system nobody else plays - SAGA anyone? Anyone? Alright then, just me.

Good stuff Dan

I see your show made the papers

A questing we shall go

It had taken far longer than he had expected but Helmut and his colleagues had finally recuperated from their subterranean adventures. Helmut had spent as much time as he could studying ancient tomes to expand his knowledge; cutting a strange, somewhat dejected figure sat in the library swathed in bandages.

The gods alone knew what the others had been up to. Weapons training hopefully, but more likely drinking and getting hit by carts. Still the time would soon be nigh and the brave band would be able to set out once more in pursuit of gold and glory.

A questing we shall go

It was a funny old session really. It all started with Yo-yo living up to his name and getting battered to the floor; getting up; rinse; repeat.

And then it changed. From being a human punch bag Helmut started to fight back. Cutting down black orcs and goblins galore Pip's dwarf - who is normally an absolute beast in combat - stood in shock as he watched colleague lead the charge. Finally, covered in gore, Helmut found the group politics had changed. Was that fear lurking in the dwarf's eyes? What was that funny smell coming from the wardancer? Whatever the answers might have been the group had a new leader and he had lightning bolts firing from his fingertips

A questing we shall go

It must be tough for Thangrim. The only survivor of the original party he was a combat beast, the one everyone looked to to keep us alive. And then it changed.

Helmut learnt how to fight and cast some useful spells that did more than heal people. Andy the Wardancer worked out that funky breakdance thing where he spins on his head, and kills things. So the role of the dwarf is changing. No longer the leader, but still a tank Thangrim is clearly getting frustrated by the rise of those around him. Frustration that led to him attacking the wardancer only for Helmut to put him on the naughty step by making him levitate until he promised to behave.

These are dark times; not made easier by Helmut's desire to start imprisoning souls in random gems to try and sell for a whopping profit. Will the party push on to glory and riches? Will they kill each other? Only time will tell.

I got a game of warhammer in yesterday, my first for ages. With the club practice event just around the corner it was nice to knock off some of the rust and blimey was there a lot. I knew I was playing Dan so most likely I'd be facing a sub-optimal O&G list which meant I could also take some fun stuff.

I made far too many mistakes to recount here but I really messed up when it came to manoeuvring. This was probably the main factor in my crushing defeat but seeing my cannon and Inner circle knights fail spectacularly didn't help.

When it comes to using the battle to work out how to use my army realistic learning points are few and far between - I doubt I'll ever take a unit of 30 archers again for example. And yes I did know that was a rubbish choice when I did it. Overall it was a game to get a feel for the mechanics of the game again and, hopefully, get the really bad mistakes out of my system; something I know is a forlorn hope.

It will soon be time to turn to choosing my army for the end of the month and try, in the words of my old fencing team captain, not to suck.

Take Chaos Mike, and shove it in face  :analprobe:

Quote from: Idiotproof Dalek on March 09, 2015, 08:36:55 pm
Just call me Sub Optimal Dan. Feels a tad insulting lol...

Obviously I didn't intend it that way - do you prefer Fluffy Dan?

But if you go with Sub Optimal Dan you get SOD which is pretty great.

I saw that too - just didn't fancy pointing it out

To Waagh or not to Waaagh that is the question

I've just got back for the practice event for London's Burning, where I tried out a different style of warriors list.

I was rocking a jugger lord, nurgle bsb (on foot), 4 x 5 Khorne marauder horse, 4 khorne chariots, 16 nurgle warriors, 10 trolls, 3 juggers and 2 khorne spawn,

I narrowly lost to Rob and Edd in my first two games and should have won at least one of them. But after two rounds I'd already scored more points than I do in three games. In the third game I played Thomas (using woodies). I got smashed and the world was back to its rightful place.

Now I've never used a jugger lord before but I like it. Plenty of smash but needs an extra friend in his retinue an one to be promoted to champion to keep the lord out of challenges. I also need magic. I sort of got away with it for the first two games but the third showed that I need better magic defences if nothing else.

I liked the feel and the pace of my list but the warriors did very little and were a waste of points. In this comp no special characters could be taken and only two chariots count for core. I'd like to try this list a bit more so tweaking will be necessary,

Sinking a lot of points into a Warrior block and BSB who presumably wasn't that near a lot of your army seems odd - I was toying with the idea of Wulfrik in a block of Marauders as (with the Seafang rule) you get to pop up on a random board edge, good for clearing out an opposing wizard's bunker or warmachines).

Anti magic wise - Daemon Prince with Brass Collar killing the opponent's caster?  You're mostly Khorne anyway so why not go the whole hog.  Magic's for wusses.

One of the problems I had Tom was that the 50% lords thing means its not just about jumping the level 4. Elves can have several very effective high level casters or even fighty high level casters.

The warriors and BSB were pretty rubbish, the bsb  as there to try and keep the trolls moving. With no special characters (no throg) allowed it would have been better to stick him on a mount of some ilk, slot him in the troll unit and risk him being sniped out.

I've been thinking about this a bit more but I keep running into the same wall I have done since the new year - with 9th around the corner I'm really reluctant to pick anything up which could be unusable in a couple of months.

Dropping the warriors would free up the points for some knights (and I'm about to paint up some old school knights you'd be welcome to borrow) - stick the BSB in there and you have another really good hammer unit. Also, I have a giant which again you're welcome to use, again similar points trade.

Alternatively, a BSB/Exalted on disc and a flying Daemon Prince plus all those marauder horse should mean you're aggresively in the opponent's face Turn 2 and then there's only one Magic phase to endure.  I'm pretty sure there'll be spares of those at the club you can borrow?

I know what you mean Dan, I always put warriors in a warriors list because, well, its in the name isn't it?

The problem is for a competitive environment they simply don't get the job done. An effective unit is a big points investment and when if breaks its a huge points swing I could do without. Not that this ill stop me taking them completely.

Tom - Knights suffer the same issues as warriors for me. I have a bunch in my collection but don't really get to use them much as there are simply better options. They get the odd run out but don't do enough for the cost.

One thing I learnt at the weekend is everyone has a deathstar of some ilk and I need a unit that can reliably take most deathstars down. Trolls are great with additional hand weapons but the low leadership/stupidity caused me problems, although they were mainly issues of my own making

Random nonsense

Making full use of having some time off over Easter I turned my thoughts to wargaming in general; and why I play fantasy systems in particular.

There are many excellent (and not so excellent) rule sets covering every historical era in a myriad of scales, covering everything from skirmishes to mass battles. I started off playing Napoleonic and ancients and I do occasionally buy bits and pieces for historical gaming. But I keep being drawn back to less 'grown up' games. Why?

One thing that came to me on my trudge back from the office today was that the late, great Donald Featherstone set the ancients campaign he wrote about in a land he invented; rather than having a war between vikings, romans et al raging across Europe. Now as poor old Don is currently suffering from a nasty bout of being dead we can't what his inspiration was (he may have written about it but I don't recall). However, I have a theory and its one which gets me back to my starting point.

History has happened. Whilst fictional campaigns, 'what if' battles and the imagi-nation movement allow us more leeway (so romans can fight templars for example) it doesn't really allow to explore or develop 'the story'. The development of the story, even if outside of mainstream fluff, is probably what draws me to fantasy gaming the most. I'm less constrained and I can build an army to explore an aspect of the story; developing it as I go. Even if this doesn't move anything forward for other people I still find it fun.

Now I still enjoy historical stuff and I'm constantly tempted to start a Napoleonic imagi-nation. I'll also be playing as the French in a what if re-fight of Waterloo in June so will probably post some stuff about that later in the year. Most of the wargamers at the club mainly play fantasy, so why do you do it? What's wrong with Vietnam or the Hundred Years war? Answers on a post card or below.

So I'm painting up some ogre stuff I had lying around the place because.. well because its there mainly.

I'm pretty happy with where I've got my flesh tone to but I'm not certain how to approach painting the wood for the weapons and war machines. Anyone got a  good (simple) recipe?

Cheers folks

Thanks Dan

Any idea who makes XV88? Is it Vallejio?

Quote from: roland murat on April 20, 2015, 10:40:20 am
Thanks Dan

Any idea who makes XV88? Is it Vallejio?

its GW I think... That weird yellow-brown tau colour!

Cheers Steve