Back from the dead (well not quite)

Very little gaming this year unfortunately, been busy with exams and such. Did manage to attend chiswick gaming club properly again as can be seen below and also performed woefully in a doubles tournament with my bro where we just took whatever we had painted. Before 6th came to an end I also managed to make a start on building some artillery that I won from IDIC's laser cut card giveaway as well as some pain tokens/objective markers.

Was going to try to attend an 1650 pt tournament in London called clash of the titans towards the end of 6th but in the end did not have time to spend two days of study leave to play 40k. I even managed to start painting/quick shading my tau contingent but sadly that is now useless as a result of the change to the allies system... Classic...

Honestly I don't think the posting is going to become any less sporadic any time soon due to a combination of 7th edition coming out and me not having a viable army as well as more exams and uni applications coming in September. 

Hopefully dark eldar will come out at about Christmas and I'll be able to get back into this hobby properly again.

Digital Weapons Game 1 - on video

Courtesy of Spaceman/The False Emperor Youtube channel, you now have the chance to view game 1 as seen here on video! It's all in russian but nonetheless. In other words, I guess I can now say I'm internet famous...

Digital weapons v1: Game 1

Just a quick intro to start off with. This was an 1500 pt tournament with all of the new dataslates, etc allowed. IA on the otherhand was not. Proxies and unpainted models were also not placed under any restrictions which meant it was the perfect place to test the list I came up with following the 1850 doubles tournament. In effect I took that but obviously trimmed down. Also there was a funky rule where something special happened on each table.

Primary - Tau:

Commander, CnC node, MSSS, PEN-chip, Iridium armour
Riptide, ion accelerator, fusion blaster, EWO, Velocity tracker
10 kroot, hound
10 kroot, hound
5 pathfinders
5 pathfinders
3 broadsides, 2x EWO
Skyray, twin-linked SMS
Skyray twin-linked SMS

Secondary - Iron Hands:

Chapter Master, bike, artificer armour, shield eternal, power fist
5 bikes, 2x grav-gun

Skyshield Landing pad

Game 1 vs CSM + Necrons:

Sorceror, couple of mastery levels, force axe (?)
Cultists
Cultists
Heldrake
Heldrake
2x Oblits
2x Oblits
Havocs with Lascannons

Necron Lord, 2+ armour, res orb, scythe
Cryptek, (orb?), special flamer and/or haywire staff thing (voltaic staff?)
5 warriors
5 warriors
Night Scythe
Night Scythe

Bastion with Comms-relay

The table we got was wintery and so no weapons would overheat... Decent for my opponent kinda meh for me with my one twin-linked riptide... Mission was Big Guns Never Tire 2 objectives and Hammer and Anvil deployment - heavy support doesn't give up any points... I manage to win the roll off for first turn I think actually my opponent went first and to pick sides. I try to give my opponent the side with relatively little terrain to hide behind. Chapter Master, Commander and Riptide join up to deliver a turn 1 alpha strike that will definitely get first blood, broadsides sit nearby so the commander can flit between them. The rest of the army is as far away from the heldrakes as possible or behind/in between the legs of the skyshield which were ruled as giving 3+ cover, as opposed to the top of the landing pad which only gave a 4+ invuln...

Double blow - Game 2

Army list can be found in previous post.

Game 2 vs chaos allied with black legion.

Abaddon - got shrouded on boon of mutation

2 oblits mon

2 oblits mon

2 oblits mon

10 cultists

10 cultists

5 spawn mon

Helldrake 

Helldrake

Sorcerer ml 3, bike, boon of mutation (?)

10 cultists

10 cultists

Helldrake

2 oblits mon

His sorcerer got puppet master, fearless and some other thing. Yes I say his because I've played this guy before, he's a very good player, all the models were his own and he told me that his friend was there only because he needed a team-mate for the purposes of doubles.

Mission - big guns never tire, deployment - hammer and anvil.

We win the roll of to choose sides and straight away make a mistake as Paul persuades me that there's a nice ruin where we can place everyone. Unfortunately this turns out not to be the case as it means for the most part no one would get cover. We get to go and deploy first. They plonk their aegis right in the middle of the board. We fortify the far left ruin and put broadsides in it. Riptide, pathfinders and bikes in the middle and thunderfire and two rhinos with tacticals behind the building as well. Everything else in reserve, kroot outflank.

Kill team tournament report

From ages (aka 2-3 weeks) ago... My list:

1000 pt tournament dark eldar

Trying to catch up with posts as I've had very little Internet access recently. I'm now 5 games in with dark eldar and I really like them. For my first three I went to a tournament which was meant to be a beginner's tournament with no paint requirements hence the rapid scramble to get everything ready. In the end though they did score painting, but oh well. I didn't want to take tau anyway and I couldn't come up with anything scary with marines or guard.

My list (made of the mish-mash of stuff that I managed to assemble the night before the event):

Baron

4 trueborn with blasters, venom

5 wyches, haywire, venom

5 wyches, haywire, venom

5 kabalites, blaster, venom

5 hellions

6 reavers, 2x blaster

Ravager 

The tournament started on a downer as we arrived well on time but were told that somehow we were late, so I had to play against Paul's daemons. Then it turned out that for some reason they hadn't registered Ilya who had payed for entry and been there from the start and almost kicked him out of the event. It later also turned out that they let people who hadn't pre-registered play but turned away those who had who managed to arrive slightly later than us. Just really badly organised overall.

So Paul's list looked something like:

Fatey

2x 10 plagues

Soul grinder mon

Daemon prince mark of tzeentch

Apologies, no pictures because I only took 2 off my iPad and they are terrible.

I got first turn and perhaps too conservatively behind a wall and then spent turn 1 moving into range. Mission was kps and hammer and anvil. I managed to won his daemon prince early which took away his grimoire and a lot of his psychic powers. However he managed to snag an early lead in kill points and despite killing the soul grinder and leaving fatey on wound, on the penultimate turn fate just hid off the table so I couldn't target him and since I didn't really want to charge his plaguebearers I only managed to kill 4 of them over the course of the game. Ended up 5-4 mission-wise to Paul with vps more or less tied so 11-9 to Paul.

Game two was against Tau. Vanguard strike, big guns never tire

Farsight

Riptide with skyfire, stims, ion and fusion blaster 

10 firewarriors

20 kroot

8 pathfinders

Hammerhead with long strike

Aegis with quad-gun

I've played with this opponent before and so I anticipated a lot of rules arguments, and there were rules arguments galore. From the order of deployment/objective placing, to him doubting my reserves coming in from my long table edge, to him saying some random crap about heavy support only counting as points if you kill them while they're holding objectives... The list goes on. Whatever. So I manage to get first turn and get to place 2/3 objectives. I put one behind a Los blocker in my zone and  one on my left flank near his deployment zone so I can come in with baron and hellions to get it late game. I'm not sure if I went first or second but I think first. Basically everything went forwards and reavers bladevane his pathfinders killing most of them with the help of some venoms even though they eventually go to ground but do not flee.

He kills the reavers and manages to mop up the hellions and baron with a combination of shooting and over watch. I end up rolling over his army killing everything except 3 firewarriors who are stuck in combat with two wyches and some 10 kroot who outflanked onto an objective. Game ends turn 5 though unfortunately so we're holding one each, both have warlord, I have linebreaker he has first blood, and I have a heavy support point. Also I have a lot more vps score than him but due to the bad scoring system it's only 12-8 to me. 

Game 3 against chaos marines. It actually turned out that by this point there had been a lot of close games and if I had won this I would have come 2/3rd place.

Apostle with a mace

2x 10 cultists

2x helldrake

2x 5 obliterators with autocannons

Predator wit triple lascannons

Aegis with comms-link

So a really mean list. Mission was emperors will and vanguard strike. I had first turn and it was night so I deployed most of my stuff out in the open as far forward as possible with the plan being to kill his army before the helldrakes come in. Unfortunately he deployed in such a way that I couldn't reach most of his units and also seized the initiative with autocannons tearing into a venom and the reavers for first blood. When the helldrakes both came in turn 2 it was really game over for me. I had one shot at killing a helldrake but despite a lance penning it I only managed to stun it on the damage result. From then I focused on killing cultists but it wasn't enough and in the end I was left with the baron and hellions trying to survive in the corner out of range of everything but the helldrakes and planning to make a last turn objective grab to turn the game into a draw. Alas two turns of two helldrakes flaming away only left the baron alive, however I avoided a wipeout and lost 15-5 despite having only one model remaining.

Afterthoughts:

Really like dark eldar, they are probably the most fun I've had playing 40k in a while, tau are just plain boring. Need more venoms though. That's all for now

Oh and Ilya is now playing eldar again but became a bit discouraged after two losses and a draw at this event lol. He did beat Paul's daemons at home though

3000pt Doubles Tournament Report: Call to Arms

On Sunday, Paul, Ilya and I all went to a 3000 point doubles tournament. You were allowed to go on your own and Paul and I went as a team with Blood Angels and Imperial Guard and Ilya was on his own with Orks. It wasn't going to be a big tournament with 11 players signed up originally but there were 8 of us altogether on the day.

1750 Orks vs Chaos Space Marines Proxy Madness

Mission: Emperor's will, Deployment: Diagonal 

Paul can't be bothered to do this batrep so from now on it'll be from me as far as I remember (Dimitry): 

Coach-wars continue as not all the orks fit onto the table so the reserve pile mounts up.

Ilya's list is several 30 man squads of orks each with a power klaw nob and three rokkit launchers. The terminators are nobs I think.

On Paul's side there's:

Typhus

2x Hellbrute with multi-melta and powerfist

2x 5 man plague marine squad with 2x meltagun
2x 5 man plague marine squad with 2x plasmagun
Plague Zombies x16 (proxied as guardsmen)

2x Maulerfiend (flying stands)
Defiler (drop pod)

n.b. for this battle each paint counted as an ork.

Paul's recently renovated dreadnought strides into battle (as a hellbrute)

Tournament Report: Offence 6th

Warning: Long post lol despite saying it's not too detailed... :)

So I've finally decided to share the tournament results with you guys... Won't be too detailed but will cover all 3 of us to an extent hopefully. It was to be 3 rounds 1500 pts... Round 1 missions 1/2 from the rulebook (on a d3), round 2 missions 3/4 and round 3 missions 5/6. Mysterious objectives and terrain were meant to be in play but we generally forgot/ignored that ...

My army for the tournament had to be changed a bit as counting up my army just in case before it, I realised that the excel spreadsheet which I use, I had been using had a slight mistake (!!!) and I was 10 points over, hence the slight change in my list:

Company Command Squad with 2x plasmagun, medic

Veteran Squad with 3x plasmagun, grenadiers, power sword, chimera with multi-laser and heavy flamer
Veteran Squad with 3x meltagun, demolitions, chimera with multi-laser and heavy flamer

Platoon Command Squad with 3x flamer, power sword and plasma pistol
Infantry Squad Squad with grenade launcher and autocannon and commissar with power swrod and plasma pistol
Infantry Squad Squad with grenade launcher and autocannon
Infantry Squad Squad with grenade launcher and autocannon

Vendetta (had a hard choice between this or a hellhound or an aegis defence line)

Leman Russ Vanquisher with heavy flamer
Leman Russ Executioner with heavy bolter and plasma cannon sponsons
Leman Russ Eradicator with heavy flamer

Looking around before the match after I had set up my army on a tray (2 actually) that was (were?) given to me, I found that there were some interesting armies in sight. 3/4 grey knights, 4/5 space marines (various), no imperial guard apart from me, no dark eldar, 2 tyranids, 2 orks (1 Ilya), 2 Sisters of battle (1 with gk allies, one with guard), 2 chaos space marines (1 with daemon allies), a chaos daemons player, a tau player (with some forgeworld) and an eldar player (with just grav-tanks - forgeworld I think). Not sure if that was everyone but that was roughly it, there were roughly 14 tables so you can do the maths...

Round 1 I was paired up against grey knights, so I was a little scared, but I thought what the heck at least I get to see what they're all about. He had a stormraven, a dreadknight, 15 purifiers/interceptors (? troops anyway), a dreadnought with multi-melta, 5 grey knight terminators, a terminator librarian with some powers and a sprinkling of psycannons and maybe a flamer thing.

Mission we rolled for was objectives and we got 3 of them... deployment was pitched battle. Having determined the sides we placed objectives (He got first turn and decided to go first or maybe i was first but in any case he had first turn). One objective ended up in the open and 2 in opposite corners. Night fight didn't happen. His librarian + 10 troops + dreadnought went in the stormraven which he started on the table as he said he was scout moving + starting in skimmer mode (which you're not allowed but he was so confident about it I let it go at the time). His termies went central for the objective and a small purifier squad sat in a building on his side with their objective.

I deploy my blob in my building with the objective, the static ccs behind it to give orders and the executioner to the side to help out. The rest of my force (all meched up) presents a wall of A14 or gets cover saves on the other side of my deployment zone. Vendetta and pcs with flamers went in reserve. Plan: Get first blood, hope to hold home obj., drive up to middle obj and then contest/capture his objective if necessary.

Basically turn one he flew up and deposited his guys and shot me up a little, mainly knocking off the turret of the executioner. I responded driving up on the right and using first rank fire second rank fire on the blob to get first blood, take out his poorly placed librarian and kill about half the purifiers that were with him. (Btw when he saw how many dice I had to roll he suggested using an app he had on his ipad to roll all 60 or of them and it was actually quite useful allowing us to resolve the number of dead without any dice rolling at all) Also my executioner, unable to shoot next turn and with it's turret blown off decided to ram the dreadnought without much success, however in the centre I killed a terminator or two from long range shooting and did a little damage to the razorback.

It boiled down to me managing to kill his dreadknight and termies in the centre (but not before damage had been done) and taking out his remaining purifiers on the left while when the dread charged the blob in combat I just kept using my commissar's leadership and taking off 1-3 guys a turn. I got so engrossed with doing so well that I even forgot to bring on my reserves until turn 5... (facepalm) In the end my veterans in the middle managed to get to the objective on turn 6 after some back and forth running and I secured victory. I had first blood, slay the warlord and 2 objectives worth 3 points, while he had one objective slay the warlord and linebreaker, giving me and 8-5 win, however the difference in the score on vps wasnt enough to give me extra points in additional points to my 15.

Oh and btw in this tourny you could give your opponent a sportsmanship score of 1-3 (with 3 being best) but you could only give each number once (a bit of a silly system). In any case I gave my first opponent 3 and he gave me 3 too.

Round 2

Going into round 2 I was quite happy but I knew it was going to get tougher now that I was going to go up against someone who had also won their first game. At this point Ilya had beaten another ork player and Paul had lost to a chaos + daemons army.

At first I was matched up against Paul, but then they reset the system and changed some stuff around...

So I was matched up against sisters of battle and was a little worried. He had 2 exorcists, 3 squads of sisters with meltas in rhinos, a squad of dominions (?) in rhino, Coteaz, Celestine, 3 squads of acolytes with some sword thing and storm shield (perhaps some with rhinos), a storm raven, and some squads with loads of heavy bolters.

Greater Daemon of Khorne

Hi again people, here is a pretty nice daemon as you can see. One of my friends called Boris painted this. What I really like about this guy is the contrast between the wings and the main body. You still get the khorne feeling, but have different colours, which is nice. I also like the stone mace thing. The model was painted red, given a wash of gryphon sepia and then highlighted. Pretty sweet I think.

You can really see the contrast I'm talking about on the photo below for which I used flash.