Tuesday 12 February 2013

1500pt battle report - nids Vs Necrons in the 'Dividing Line'

I've had the Dividing Line Mission for quite a while now and thought it was finally an opportunity for Ben and I to see what it was like. essentially it's a Dawn of War set-up with two objectives, one in each half of the board and the board is split by a force-field of some type. The force-field has five emitters running up the board [the Necron devices as used here] Av13 3 Hull Points. Nothing can shoot or pass between the emitters if they are intact. Should an emitter be destroyed models can cross the line following a difficult and dangerous terrain test. Units can shoot across the line, but use the night fighting rules and those being hit receive a 5+ invulnerable save.

Psychic Powers
Tervigon HQ CCTervigon T TalBroodlord [Adrenal]Broodlord [Toxin]
EnduranceEnfeebleIron ArmIron Arm
HaemorrhageLife LeechNA HaemorrhageNA Haemorrhage

OK, the setup picture below is NOT what I expected/wanted to happen. Ben won the right to setup first and decided to camp everything behind his Defence Line except his Night Scythe and a unit of Immortals - presumably going to come in on my half eventually for my Tyranid objective. So given the difficult ground on the left and the rather large killing field I was forced into setting up on the other side of the 'Jurrassic Park' fence.


Pretty much everything sat there on the wrong side of the fence, but at least safe from harm, for now. The Stealers infiltrated in a hope to reach the 2nd from top emitter and trash it so we could sally forth across the breach. 


Ben was quite happy to sit back and wait so at least the first few turns would be quick.


I won the initiative and barrelled forward, the Troop Tervigon spawning 10 [with doubles] to secure the objective.


In Ben's turn he repositioned some of his force, but not by much.


Turn two and everything continued to move forwards.


Annihilation barges at the ready for any Xenos incursions through the force field.


The Tervigon and Hive Guard pushed on through. Ben had the Stormlord and had been hitting me with lightning each turn and would continue to do so for the entire game. I believe there was no outright massacre of a squad or unit but with 5+ turns of night fighting and lightning there was a persistent small loss of figures/wounds each turn.


My Trygon turned up for deep strike but I was forced into putting him on my side of the fence for fear that putting him on the other side would have seen 1500pts of Necrons shooting at just one target...


Necrons shuffled about a bit again. Ben was showing no signs of cracking the force-field emitter and for fear of spending the entire game on one side of the fence [that I actually 'brought to the table'] it was going to be down to me to rip it down...


The stealers charged in and managed to trash the emitter, now the game was on! They'd also been endured and the Broodlord was Iron Armed up, but not by much.


The HQ Tervigon suffered three wounds despite the 5+ invulnerable save.


A warrior also suffered a wound probably thanks to lightning.


The Doom arrived pretty much spot on and thanks to the new FAQ allowing it to disembark 6" from the spore pod as opposed to the original Codex 2" suddenly he was in cover and within 6" of two units. Unfortunately he wasn't able to leech more than a couple of wounds.


Even worse the Quad gun used it's interceptor fire to shoot the Spore Pod before it could lash the back of the nearest Annihilation Barge :(


The Trygon, Tervigon and Toxin Stealers crossed the Force Field line with the Broodlord taking a wound from dangerous terrain. Everything else moved up on the nid side of the fence to still get an invulnerable save and be out of range before breaching the field line.


Ben's Immortals suddenly arrived in a flash, his Cryptek holding some arcane device allowing them to deep strike, oops. Usually I leave slightly more in reserve backfield but given the need to get upfield I was suddenly completely out of position and the ten Termagants holding my objective looked doomed.


One of the Hive Guard was shot down, they'd been practically non-existent up till now. They did eventually Immobilise and Annihilation Barge but of course that still allowed it to fire...


The Toxin Stealers were reduced to one but the Adrenals managed to arrive in support meanwhile the Trygon had taken 4 wounds and wouldn't make it across the Necron Defence Line.


With only two Broodlords and a Stealer remaining, not to mention the destruction of the HQ Tervigon my 'BIG push' was well and truly stamped on at this stage. One last gasp was to get the Broodlords into combat with something over the wall.


The Toxin stealer managed it but I also forgot that as the Stalker is a Walker and not a 'vehicle' as such he would still get his snapfire option


The Doom managed to float out of cover and I had a really fun moment where I was looking forward to using his Quad Gun on his own troops only to be reminded of my most bemoaned fact ever - nids can't use the Quad Gun! How did I forget that? Anyway, he still had Cataclysm to cast but the Immortals denied me. I'm assuming I still had remove D3 wounds for using it, hence why I was left with just one wound left :( It doesn't seem to be getting any better.


Meanwhile I tried desperately to shoot or delay the Immortals near my own objective.


But clearly to no avail as all my gaunts were slaughtered and my Devgaunts were reduced to 3.


I'm sure the game went on a but more but the result was inevitable, with First Blood, Linebreaker, Slay the Warlord and both objectives I had no chance. I'm not entirely sure what I killed, a handful of Immortals but not much else. If I'm brutally honest this wasn't a good game and I'm pretty sure Ben was of the same opinion. What I hoped would be an interesting tactical challenge of running two smaller forces ended up with us on completely different sides of the board. Nothing happened for two turns except getting struck by lightning. In some respects this makes the game even more dismal as even covering that ground in safety was not sufficient to prevent my near extermination.

Of course I could have started split up but I'm pretty sure that having half my force on one side against all his Necrons would have been suicide. Equally I could have not knocked down the force emitter, then we would have both been waiting for the other to do it and it would have been a pretty dull affair. The big question was what factor was causing this mission to not function in 6th Edition, it being afterall a 5th Edition scenario. I asked Ben if:
  • the Defence Line that gave him no incentive to sally forth
  • there were D3+2 objectives would that encourage more open play
His suggestion, and probably the best option, is that in the setup rules perhaps a stipulation that whatever forces are deployed in your initial setup the units must be split evenly either side of the Dividing Line. Hopefully this will then force people into making those crucial decisions about putting units where they are most needed.

I really hoped this was going to be an interesting and different battle report and the sad reality was I doubt we're likely to play this again, even with the 'fixes' to the mission, which is a shame. Hopefully someone out there will give it a go and prove it's worthwhile. I believe in it, I've just came away with a real downer, hence the poor report and in fact it's brought a real slump in blog posts too. I've run out so now it's time to look at what I've got and  rediscover my mojo, fingers crossed.

Sunday 10 February 2013

'nids part 69 - Tyranid Quad Gun and Aegis Defence Line

Continuing my collection of lost and forgotten images. I once promised a set of completed pictures of my Tyranid Aegis Defence Line and pointless Quad Gun. And here they are:




I've since discovered that they're actually larger than they should be in length. I think I measured the Aegis wrong somewhere and once you add the sloping growth of the Chitin it gets worse. In future I will probably be dropping one of the short pieces for tournament use. I could argue this thing is a natural growth so it might be a little larger but if I'm 'arguing' at a tournament then I need a kick up the pants, 'cos I really don't care that much to spoil what should be fun.


And the quad gun with it's stealth Adrenal Glands scuttling on the base.


Such a shame, nevermind.


The warriors have a nice little 'hive' to defend.




OOH, and what's this?


2 long pieces and 2 short pieces and some new epoxy putty? Whatever could that be for...?



Friday 8 February 2013

'nids part 68 - Some stealers

When I took some picturesof the Warriors a while back I was also in a position to take some pics of the then recently completed toxin Broodlord. I wondered when I got him whether this was a pointless purchase and how often I'd actually run 2 Broodlords. We now know that's every game!


Of course he's still in the 'why me' pose regarding the inability to re-roll witchfire spells but what can you do? I doubt a common sense approach will redress the FAQ nonsense.



They make a nice group with the warriors and there's not much more to say so just enjoy the pics.






Wednesday 6 February 2013

'nids part 67 - revamped Warriors

DimmyK asked back in August if there were some whole army pics. Although this isn't the entire force I had planned to take pictures of each unit type as a whole. Given I went back to my Warriors before Throne of Skulls in October to revamp their guns I thought it was appropriate to start with them.



All I've really done is add a bit of Mechrite Red to the Deathspitters. The original Liver mix and washes had begun to look a bit shabby and since I've introduced more of this red I thought I could tidy them up and enhance their appearance in one go.


The faces also got a lick of red.


And when they're coming at you over the shattered Aquila from the Honoured Imperium set they look mighty impressive.


Really glad I put guns on them now, can't imagine assault warriors being as effective in 6th Edition. It's bad enough having Hormagaunts and Stealers who can't get into assault and are overwatched but slogging Warriors across the board too?!


My extra Deathspitter Warrior with added arm length and my 2nd Prime from the original Space Crusade Warriors.


"What's that coming over the hill? Is it a Xenos?"


Not sure if you can make it out in the horde and lighting but here are the Warriors as they were, pasty guns and everything.



Monday 4 February 2013

Beach BloodBowl!


Another one of my oft-delayed posts, not least because there may not be a lot fo love for BloodBowl in my followers, a gross assupmtion I'm happy to take back if I'm wrong. Anyway a (long) while back I happened across Beach BloodBowl, you can get it here:


On the basis that it's 7 players and a small pitch it seems a nifty little way to get into BloodBowl with the pitch relatively easy to print out and take with you. I can't say i've actually played a game [or it's bigger brother, yet] but it looks like something you could do in an hour given the 2 minute turn time. Have a go, my SkavenBlight Scramblers like it.





Saturday 2 February 2013

Imaginary world inspiration - Pascal Blanche


Mainly pictures this one, cos that's what we like - pictures. Anyway, Pascal Blanche is a '3D illustrator', I'm guessing this is someone who makes something in a 3D application then fettles about with it afterwards in Photoshop and the like until it looks more like a painting and such. But when I saw the picture above and the truly awesome nod to the Grimdark universe I had to share. The rest of the images are slightly more 'high sci-fi' but may still offer some ideas. In particular the way the pictures are coloured could offer some brave soul the inspiration to paint their army in one of these unusually lit environments...

Oh, just in case some of the pics in the links below are probably NSfW [NOT SAFE for WORK] you have been warned.

His website: www.3dluvr.com
His blog: www.derelictplanet.blogspot.co.uk
Where I first found his work www.cruzine.com/2012/12/17/amazing-3d-illustrations-pascal-blanch/

Here's some of my faves: