1500pts battle report - Dark Angels & Necrons v Oks & Custodes! - game 1

Double Trouble 2 and Alex From the Fang's doubles tournament replacing Blog Wars. 750pts with random pairings but all match-ups are Battle Brothers. Now in a weird twist of fate Ben and I get paired up. Once again my recollection is pretty hazy so for the most part enjoy the pictures, the commentary will be secondary ;)

I'm running a Techmarine, 5 Sniper Scouts with camo cloaks, a 5 man Tactical squad with flamer and Deathwind Drop Pod, 6 Ravenwing bikes with 2 Plasma Guns, 2 Typhoon Land Speeders and my Dark Talon

We were up  against Owen Brignall with his Custodes and Ian Connolly and his Orks. Owen's army amounted 11 models I think, here's 6 of them.

Ian's Orks were part of a Top Gun conversion, this was their Trukk

and this was their Battle Wagon containing Badruk's Flash Gitz Formation.

My Warlord Trait gave us 3 units to Infiltrate, Ben's was 3 enemy units pinning [but we forgot]. My Ravenwing held the left flank.

Snipers and Speeder in our centre-left ruins, Necron Warriors hold the centre-right.

Ben was our sweeping right flank, infiltrating with my Trait - C'tan and Warriors in the bolstered ruins

Owen and Ian went first, advancing.

Badruk gets out to start shooting by the end of their turn they've scored 1VP.

My Drop Pod lands in Badruk's face but the C'Tan does some pretty brutal attack that takes a fair few Orks out of the equation.

My Bikes skirt round the hill, they're going to get punished by the Custode's Grav Tank but at least it'll be kept occupied.

Speeders reposition to get good firing arcs on the Trukk.

It goes down in flames, taking a few Orks with it.

Th Flashgitz suffer under the wight of fire.

We finish the turn with 4 VPs having 2 of our units from each force in our deployment zone and controlling three objectives. Ian and Owen's turn leaves my Ravenwing reduced to two bikes who break and run and my Land Speeder with 1 hull damage, but they score no VPs this turn.

Our turn 2 and the Dark Talon arrives to punish the Custodes and Flashgitz in the centre.

Necron Warriors throw a load of firepower at the Custodes, whittling away a wound here and there.

My 2 bikes recover and I turbo-boost them into the ruins next to the Grav Tank. Actually it might have been three bikes and one dies as it goes into 'dangerous terrain'. We score another 2 VPs for holding objective 1 and another force hold another objective.

The Grav Tank flanks my bikes to get a bead on them behind the wall. 

And takes them down. Although a little disappointed the tank had got the angle on them I'd purposely put them in position to draw fire, or cause the tank to respond to them somehow, so it wouldn't focus on anything else, it worked just a little too well. They score 3VPs this turn.

I may have elected to hover the Dark Talon so I could get some shooting on the Custodes. I think it was pretty ineffective and so didn't justify the target now firmly on his hovering back. But one Custode was killed, possibly from Heavy Bolters on my Typhoons.

A further Custode was felled by the Necrons. Meanwhile over on Baruk's side the Flayed Ones rampaged through his Flashgitz and Scarabs destroyed the Battle Wagon with ease [or the other way round, either way it was pretty painless, for us]. We came away with 5 VPs this turn [2 for holding 2 objectives and twice as many as our opponent, 2 for objective 4 and the other force hold an objective and 1 for one of our units in their deployment zone]/

The Grav Tank re-positioned and looks to have taken out the Dark Talon.

So much for hovering. They rack up another 3 VPs, but what's that just on the right of the picture - Scarabs

Who manage to eat the Grav Tank to pieces, perhaps with a little help from my Land Speeders? We score a VP for holding objective 2.

Warriors and Canoptek Spyder get into melee with the last of the Custodes.

But it does not end well as he cuts threw them all with ease. The C'tan advances to finish him the Flayed Ones secure the enemy DZ. Unfortunately for the guys they score no points in turn 5

My Speeder's re-deploy to add support.

The C'tan makes it into combat.

And we could not have planned it better as the two Warlord's square up.

Chipping away at each other of the next three round of combat we score 6 VPs for holding two objective for two consecutive turns. The other guys score nothing as we go into turn 6 and then we score a final VP for controlling obj 5. The Custodes Champion finally succumbs to the C'tan's scythe, victory is ours.

Here's our scores - 19-7 and with the loss of the Custodes we unfortunately tabled Owen and Ian but I think they had a good time regardless.

At least it looks like they had a good time. Ben and I agreed that Custodes were pretty tough nuts to crack with their high save and 2 wounds. They took so much fire and yet still kept strong. However, with only 10 of them every loss was painful for Owen and poor Ian's Flashgitz just couldn't hold back the Flayed Ones who are so brutal.

Ben, myself, Ian, Owen

On to game 2...

Whats on my palette?

Bless me readers for I have sinned, it's been nearly 4 months so it's long overdue, although I have posted a number of 'where's my head @' which does fulfill a similar role.

 

Obviously I recently managed to complete my Ravenwing which is a huge milestone achievement but what now? Naturally I had a plan on what was my focus next and now that the reality of my next project has arrived I've abandoned/postponed [?] it. But alongside that I imagined these guys would be emminently achievable between now and the end of the season.

Obviously I shared this progress [and the Razorback] and who knows if I will move them on further now they're primed

However, it's the Genestealer Cult that I suddenly got a sweat on to paint. I mean it's been tempered pretty quickly as once again it's monotonous and fiddly. It's almost as if I don't like painting!

But the reasoning is that with these complete I'll have considerable quantity ticked off on my list but a reasonably sized GSC force [together with my Brood Coven and kitbashed cultists and Stealers] that could form the makings of my Armies on Parade display. That shouldn't be until October/November so there's no rush but better to get a crack on now and if I get sidetracked by the afore-mentioned projects I can revisit early in the 2017/18 Hobby Season to crack on and meet that AoP deadline

I've some other Great Build items I have that I might throw in the mix too, not to mention perhaps move the Deathwatch on as then I'd have completed all the Deathwatch Overkill models and additionally they could be part of my AoP display...

Oh, and there's this too, which I'm relieved I'd not got round to abandoning the idea of magentising it and just making a Dark Shroud as the Land Speeder Vengeance looks pretty tasty now. But it will require that magnetising which I foresee as a hurdle already...

Anyway, lots on my palette, a lot of it that was on my palette last time which strangely enough did not feature the Ravenwing at all! So much for these overviews ;)

Dark Angels - Tanks - The Great Build part 6 - TO DONE!

A month or so ago I had opportunity to rummage around in what was once my bedroom at my parents house and was overjoyed to rediscover this lost relic - my original Predator turret.

The fact it has been missing has been one reason I've never bothered to move the Predator along, obviously other priorities and no love of painting tanks [do I actually like painting anything?]. However, it is recovered and tanks in 8th are cool, so this will get a makeover. I must point out though that the painting of the original orange turret shows little difference to how I paint now. These last seven years of painting have not improved my ability one jot! Who said practice makes perfect?

Moving on I drilled out the Las-cannon barrels and then stipple-textured the entire tank. No doubt I'll get all sorts of funny looks on this but I'm sure it'll come out alright in the end.

A while back I also managed to install a Razorback mount onto one of my Rogue Trader Rhinos and get a Heavy Bolter Turret to go in it [I've a Las-plas too if that's still a thing in 8th].

So whilst I was priming the Predator it made sense to get the Razorback undercoated at the same time.

And then stipple-textured also.

Which was followed up with an Army Painter zenithal base coat of Angel Green. Another point of note is the larger calibre Auto-cannon. I replaced the original barrel with a larger diameter piece of sprue years ago and really think it benefits because of it.

The Razorback also got green.

So these are now a 'thing'. Not on my list but definitely added to the Great Build and so get a couple of Big* Purple and White Stamps of Approval for their completion. I may well add some more basecoats and washes, perhaps even attempt to complete them for the end of the season but more than that it's just nice to have the turret back and moved them both on to a new stage for when they're ready for my full attention - which was the point of the Great Build afterall [proves it's working].