1500pt battle report - nids vs Eldar

Been a while since I've played against PeteB and his Eldar so we had a little 1000pt battle on a 4'x4'. He'd painted and flocked both MDF boards but the further one was warped so he ended up turning it upside down. Having planned to go MDF in the future and my mate Ben looking me in the eye and honestly asking me 'will it warp?' I think I'm having second thoughts about my answer. Still at 10% of the cost of a Realm of Battle board its still an attractive option, anyway, moving on

Psychic Powers Tervigon CC HQ Tervigon Plain Troop  Enfeeble Life Leech Warp Speed Smite

The low down:

• Emperor's Will
• Dawn of War
• Pete won deployment, and went first
• Warlord Trait - +1 VP for each Character my Warlord kills in combat.

I had a stripped down list, no Doom, a Spore Pod with Devgaunts, 2 Tervigons, 2 Hive Guard, 2 Biovore and a Trygon for a change. PeteB had a Couple of Vypers, 3 Jetbikes, 5 Wraith Guard, and Avatar, a Wraith Lord, bunch of Guardians and their Weapons platform and some Warp Spiders and an Exarch.

PeteB got to go first, my objective is in the ruin and PeteB's is inbetween the three outpost platforms at the back.

The Vypers headed forwards.

My Hive Guard were stupidly positioned in sight of the Vypers

and despite the cover were gunned down turn 1 - First Blood to PeteB!

Whilst the Trygon was also exposed

And paid the price with 3 wounds, it's amazing how lethal shuriken weapons and other Eldar weaponry can be. I was suddenly fearful like their Dark siblings make me and I hadn't even faced the Wraith Guards weaponry yet and that made me even more scared!

My turn and I spawned out on 10 for the plain Tervigon, typical as that's the side I had my objective, while the CC Tervigon spawned 8. My gaunts and assorted shooters felled two Wraith Guard before 9 of their number made it into combat after overwatch. 8 got to assault and I killed another for one loss. They remained locked in combat!

The Avatar was tar-pitted also and he'd taken a couple of wounds, which would have been better if the gaunts had just been in range by 1 more inch and benefitted from my Tervigon's Toxin Sacs - see that's why I don't take them if they can't keep that 6" range what's the point? 5 of their number remained at the end of my combat.

Bzzzp, the Warp Spiders appeared, nearly off the board, despite the deviation they wiped the Biovores out of existence with some carefully placed shots. You can just make out the Trygon behind the tower, his move through cover was like 2-3" and his run move equally pathetic and fleet got me the same pitiful inch or two. Fat and lazy - as always playing against PeteB.

Even with Warp Speed the Tervigon was getting very far fast. It took 3 wounds from the Guardian who I'd hoped to barrage with the Biovores next turn given their optimum bunching but that plan was obviously scuppered byt the Warp Spiders.

The Wraith Guard managed to kill off some of the Termagants who were then out of Synapse, failed morale and were over run. Jet bikes moved up to be a pain in the behind.

My turn 2 and things were dire, however th vanilla Tervigon managed Life Leech on a Vyper and got a 6 to pen and a 6 on the damage chart blowing it up. We debated whether that was possible on a vehicle but it doesn't stipulate it's not, its a weapon profile afterall but common sense would suggest no wounds could be replaced from such an attack as vehicles don't have wounds, not that it mattered my Tervigon was untouched at this point. Sadly the Stinger Salvo couldn't remove the other Vyper.

Some more gaunts were spawned into the melee with the Avatar, he took another wound thanks to being in range of Toxin on the Tervigon

But in the following turn it was shredded by monafilament, Wratihlord weapons and shurikens!

The Wraith constructs advanced up the centre of the boardkilling the Trygon and then with no synapse to bolster the gaunts theyr were slaughtered and over run by the Avatar

In my turn I'm still trying to work out if I can win, I still have the Spore Pod to come but it fails to arrive so I try and take out the Vyper, but think I fail.

Warp Spiders put the hurt on the Tervigon.

And the remaining Eldar take 4 wounds off, good rolling there.

The pod arrives, finally, in the only place I can make a difference. If I can shoot the guardians and they flee I can capture the objective, hopefully hold off the Avatar somehow and also get Line Breaker.

However the weapons platform is the nearest model and manages to soak up all my heavy hitting firepower from the Spore Pod and there are still 5 'fearless' Guardians left in control of the objective.

Only 1 Wrait Guard remains, having killed the other with Life Leech gaining a wound back on the Tervigon. I think I must have killed the last one with a Stinger Salvo, given it's lack of presence when the Warp Spiders repositioned alongside the Jet Bikes. I seemed to think I could contain this situation, how wrong I was.

The Avatar steps in to meet the Devgaunts who lose 5 to Shuriken fire.

The Spore Pod is mushed by the Avatar's ranged attack.

And the Tervigon is killed allowing the bikes to happily secure the objective.

The Avatar is down to one wound, so close and then everything opens up wiping out the Devgaunts. The only thing left on the table is a missed spore mine which was removed also - tabled.

This was utterly brutal, everything I had was in the wrong place or the dice roll had put them in the wrong place. I have to say without Endurance or Iron Arm everything is so fragile, I think I'd been blessed previously with an abundance of those powers, making me more durable  - without them and especially against weaponry that cuts through my armour save then you're resorting to moving from cover to cover and that slowed everything down. Even when most of the Eldar were on foot they seem to move, shoot and move so they end up being far more mobile than the so-called quick Tyranids. 

It was a bit of a wake up call, I really thought 3MCs would be tough for PeteB but clearly not. Going to have to think tougher next time, not that I'd choose wildly different for a 1000pt battle. Still, he joust got a mint copy of Epic Space Marine for a bargain so we may have a different game to play next time :)

What's on my palette?

So where the hell am I at the moment. My head is in total disarray with my hobby mojo barely idling at the moment. I have done some bits and bobs:

• cut mounting discs for my capillary towers
• prepared the capillary towers - foamboard and pop bottle chitin plates
• done a few bits of weathering on my chaos cultists
• mounted my 5 devastator marines on slate bases
• some highlights on  my Dark Vengeance Librarian

But almost all of these have been so minor as to not even warrant photographs, which gives me no content for the blog! And each one of these steps forward has led me to a point that requires a decision, and as we all know making decisions is usually thing that prevents progress. There's so much decision making going on in my head on 'how to do such and such' or 'which colour should this be painted' or 'which rust colour goes on first and last' that it's become a big ball of non-activity. Hence why I'm progressing so slowly as I try and push on regardless. Even 20 minutes of painting is 20 minutes less when I finally, hopefully, get my hobby on.

The sad thing is there is so much I WANT to actually do, I just can't get for going. With the blog coming off the back of a few months of record hits and followers I'm desperate not to go on hiatus but I really need content and not worry about the blog, even though the blog helps keep the mojo flame burning, like a pilot light. Maybe what i need is a little more direction of what you guys like the most. Is it the battle reports, painting tutorials, freebies or scratchbuilds? Perhaps if I'm doing something I know people are desperate for it will help to motivate.

Saying all that I have been inspired to do some more terrain pieces. Despite promising Mitchell Hargreaves that I would scale the Targus Assault Blockade to the 'official' dimensions what I went and did is look at my 40k Ruins and consider adding a texture to the background so you could just 'print and play' [thanks Evan and fritz40k for that term]. But instead of just going with it standard I went and combined it with some of the architectural elements of my Inquisitorial Vault. What I've got is a textured building with some crude shadows and elements in place to make it stand out. I could have gone to town and made them more realistic but the simplicity of Illustrator means I can just swap the pattern out and it's a different coloured building. I could still probably do it all in Photoshop but thanks to the process I've actually got one building done in a brown/sandstone colour. When I say one building I mean:

• A 150mm wide x 200mm tall 2 storey building
• A 150mm wide x  280mm tall 3 storey building
• A 220mm wide x  200mm tall 2 storey building
• 2 sets of floor tiles for each storey

And having done that I was then able to swap the sandstone pattern for a black marble, with the same design [more or less] now I'm looking to do a black/green marble but I may tweak the design. So, how soon do you want them?

 

Meanwhile, if anyone has the original epic Space Marine buildings - the smaller ones that had different coloured buildings - yellow/gold, green as well as your standard greys, blacks and steel. I'd love to have scans of them so I could recreate them.

And the next big thing to think about milestone-wise is what will I hit first - 200 followers, or 300,000 views? Only you can determine that one :)

suport your local blogger - decay-miniature-model-arts

I stumbled across this blog the other and I think I found something truly special with how decay has painted their Tyranids. They've managed to create something truly alien, there are a whole slew of colours going on here but they all seem to manage to hang together. Not only that they look like a semi-irridescent sheen that you would get on some insects so I really dig how that's been done. I was captivated by this picture first:

The metallic reds and blues with their satin/gloss finish makes it look like really hard chitin armour and then all the 'soft tissue' comes in bright pink and turquoise and then you have the bone talons. Awesome vibrancy, variety of finishes and techniques too.

Even the little gribblies get über detailed too. Check out the little yellow and orange markings, an extra colour that's added to the scheme and yet it still manages to work as a whole still.

And the variety continues with the genestealers

And these crazy different Mieotic Spores with their bleached colour scheme completely draining all the colour around it and yet still managing to fit within the colour scheme when you see them in the group shots.

One last pair of picture to tempt you over to the website is the crazy conversions, taking a Tyrannofex/Tervigon and Trygon kit and making two mad beasts out of instead of the perfectly serviceable but pedestrian original models:

 

All of the Tyranids are here: http://decay-miniature-model-arts.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/live-to-serve-hive.html

And more step by steps under the Tyranid tag
http://decay-miniature-model-arts.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Tyranids

http://decay-miniature-model-arts.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/tyranids-wip.html#more

And check out the white on this TAU:

Go check it out! http://decay-miniature-model-arts.blogspot.co.uk

Apocalypse WOW! 12,500pts of Armageddon - Turns 4, 5 and 6

Our turn 4 and Nancy was suitably miffed at the loss of the Swarmlord and trained her guns on the Warhound which had just suffered a glancing hit from one of my Hive Guard!

This is 're-creation' of the dice roll Otty quickly whipped off the table in excitement. It surely looks like the Warhound was wounded badly but is still in later pics so I guess she didn't die, just yet! 

The Hormagaunts are routing all the way back now with little hope of me regrouping. Otty's mishapped Devgaunts are nearly out of the deployment zone - sodding Synapse and run moves. My Tervigon is starting the dash across the frozen wastes...

Only to get splatted, probably by the Shadowsword given how smug it looks immediately opposite.

The Vulture culls even more of the fleeing Hormagaunts.

And with targets running out everywhere why not drop an Apocalypse blasts on those devgaunts who've done nothing all game? Yep, thats around 8 dead.

I think this is now our Turn 5 as Nancy takes another crack at the Warhound.

And she finally bites the dust getting us a VP!

The remaining Hormagaunts head for the hills and I move what's left of the Devgaunts forward.

Meanwhile my Tervigon is still holding the Chapel, with her 5 spawnedTermagants waiting in cover to steal the objective should she fall.

The Warriors finally make it to the objective but there's a busload of Ogryns the other side of that wall and I just don't think the Prime and a Warrior with only one wound is going to survive their ripper guns let alone an assault.

Nancy slams into the Shadowsword and I think she ultimately smashes it to pieces like tin foil!

The vanilla Tervigon gets prioritzed for termination by whatever Imperial weaponry is available.

And ultimately her fate is sealed...

and the Chapel is sullied no more by the stink of Xenos filth

The Ogryns dutifully wipe out the Warriors and Prime, although I think the Prime might have offed Commissar Yarrick in a challenge as he doesn't seem to be with his crew.

The Stormlord swivels to bring down Nancy

But somehow she smashes that to pieces gaining us our 3rd VP

With only Otty's Devgaunts for me to move there was one last hope for redemption when an over eager Vendetta pilot closed in for the kill on the already fleeing Hormagaunts, thus allowing the Devgaunts to reposition for a rear-armour shot. Here's my first 11/21 snap fire shots. Sadly I only got one more 6 to hit and needed three 6s to glance it out of the sky. Sadly the bitter irony did not go my way and I could only manage 1 glance and the flyer escaped.

The Termagants managed to pass their Instinctive behaviour and capture the Chapel once more.

Only to have it snatched away by the contesting Vulture, he probably shot them all too, to capture it back for the Imperium

And that was the end of the game, with I think the final score being something like 19 to 3. So it was an absolute whitewash, although in that last turn Nancy was an absolute beast ripping through the three Super Heavies like they were never going to be a problem. This was a fun game though, it was more like a big 40k game for me as I didn't have any Apocalypse beasts under my control but pretty much everything I wanted to do with my deep strikes delivered. I think I should have committed the CC Tervigon sooner, it did nothing all game and neither did the Swarmlord. But we were terrified he was going to be killed first turn.

The BIG problem with Apocalypse is the scale of it, with so much to move and the amount of time it's such a shame that you have an hour+ of killing where you just totally hammer your opponents only to then be on the receiving end yourself for an hour+ too. It can be too much of a up, down, up, down scenario. Also you really need the Apocalypse creatures/tanks to stand a chance. I'm not sure what my 4000pts could have done to those Super Heavies, maybe they should have been a priority instead of the Manticores but I think Smash attacks would have been needed by MCs and I'm not sure any got chance to do that with easier targets in the way anyway. Then again Otty was stuffed by a drop pod capturing an objective and he didn't have anything nearby strong enough to even glance the thing let alone penetrate it.

And once you start getting the extra VPs for controlling objectives in turn 4 there was just no coming back for us. Luckily 3 of the VPs spent by Ben and Liam were pretty ineffective otherwise we'd be looking at an even worse score line.

We'll definitely do this again, although we may have to tinker again with the rules to see how the playing field can be levelled. Clearly letting us go first helped a bit but then again Nancy was brutal when she finally got her a$$ in gear. A great game all round.

Lastly here's a shot of Liam's scratchbuilt Contemptor Dreadnought, not bad for a Bucks Fizz plastic cork, plastic lids, caps and other bitz!

His awesome Forgeworld Dread.

And the four of us, Otty, me, Liam and Ben...

...yes I was dead by the end of the day!