'nids part 171 - Tyranid Objective Markers TO DONE!

While I try and write up the remainign two Blog Wars battle reports I just thought I'd drop this in as the pics are doen and there's not a lot to say about my Maelstrom Mission Objective Markers.

I'm really pleased, although it would have been nice [but less practical] to add a bit more variety, like the way Otty added Venom Cannon barrells and Rippers to the nodes for extra interest.

Ultimately I have my 6+2 so I can deal with Maelstrom and the Scourin [? I forget if that's the right mission with 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4 VP objectives].

Although we have had a lot fo cun playing that mission not knowing the value until the end of the game and you still need to blind draw the objectives, so my card markers are still of use.

I obviously added some Tamiya Clear Red X-27 to the mouths, liek they've just been fed :)

Some 3D texture paint managed to join the different pieces and hide my kitbash butchery.

Once again, not on the list but I'm really pleased I threw it into the mix. These markers are essential for the way we play now and it didn;t require too much effort to get them done, so it all adds to the hobby bank. Hopefully I'll get the next Battle Report done for Wednesday.

Blog Wars 9 1850pt battle report - nids vs Imperial Knights/Dark Angels

Wouldn't you know it, I've actually evaded quite a lot of Imperial Knights since their introduction over a year ago. Really I've only faced PeteB's Space Wolf ally and for my first BW9 game I only go and get three of the blighters! I'd actually seen Lord Halfpenny's blogpost [or Dave as I called him ;) ] about the army list only the other day but I never expected to face it so lets see what happened.

Psychic Powers Winged Tyrant W Tervigon Plain Tr Zoanthrope Dominion Dominion Dominion Catalyst Catalyst Paroxysm Warp Blast Paroxysm Onslaught

The low down:

• Purge the alien but based on the Blog Wars 9 rules - Unit Points for killed units, half points for half killed units which then translates to VPs - Hammer and Anvil
• Warlord Trait - Night Fighting turn 1
• Night fighting first turn, lost deployment, went second and failed to steal the initiative. 

This is one of the first times I've ever deployed so far back in my own deployment zone but I figured the Knights are pretty fast anyway so I shouldn't make it any eaiser for them to get to grips with me. I actually looked over at Liam who was next to me and saw he'd set up his Tau Skyshield in the same fashion so I was actually relieved I'd made the decision.

I filled the ruins behind the Knights with Genestealers. I had no idea whether this was a mistake as essentially I'd put them all within easy range of the knights but I figured it was better to have them all there so I could overwhelm at least one of them.

If their presence forced him to split his force I might have a chance and it might help that only two would be headed for the rest of my army.

With nightfighting and going to ground I could get a 2+ save which might keep them alive and if they weren't targetted I could try and see if they could chase down the knights. It was a gamble but the alternative was to do nothing and deploy in my own area.

However my DZ was already quite full and 25 Genestealer would be tough to keep protected so forward deployment was the plan. Oh and the Tyrannocyte had the Rippers in, just because.

Turn 1 and the Deathwing Knights turn up amd are keen to target the Tyrannofex, but I think his 2+ save was too handy.

On my other flank the remaining Deathwing teleported. I don't think anyone was wounded thanks to cover saves from nightfighting and Shrouding from the Venomthrope tucked behind one of the Capillary Tower supports of the Skyshield.

My Genestealer bait was ignored and all three Knights marched up the battlefield, they did shoot back at the Genestealers casuing a unnit to go to ground but with the ability to target differnt units the Special Character Knight reducde the dilapidated Bastion to rubble, it's original intention was to fling it at the Tyranids but unfortuanetly you can't do that with building.

I was lucky enough to cast Catalyst and passed on the FnP to tht T-fex, unfortunately his Fleshborer Hives, and 15 Termagants Fleshborers that were spawned out by the Tervigon, were not sufficient to damage the Deathwing, thanks to their increased shield wall toughness

However, on the other flank my shooting was far more productive on the plain Deathwing and allowing me to Assault leaving just one terminator left, but not enough for First Strike.

I hadn't assaulted with the T-fex as I was reluctant to sacrifice the 20 snapshots I'd get on overwatch. Of course that meant he would be charging with +1 attacks but it was justified as one of the knights died in the charge.

The Imperial K nights continued to advance, with just two broods of Stealers leaving the safety of the ruins to chase them down.

One of the knights charged my Hormagaunts who were kept in check by the Flyrant who'd taken a wound from a Knights anit-aircraft autocannons [or a perils of the warp, I forget which]

The Knight wiped out all but three of the Hormagaunts so remained locked in combat.

I managed to kill off the last

I managed to kill the last Deathwing but it was still a long way to the knights could I make it?

The Tyrannocyte turned up and I decided to try and use it and the Rippers as a speed bump, see if I could delay the knights a little. So far my combined Shrouding and Skyshield were keeping most of my army whole so the longer I could delay the inevitable the better.

The Flyrant swooped off behind the Knights to get some rear or side shots, taking a hull point or two. Meanwhile one of the Carnifex managed to make it's charge, ironically the one further way and Deathleaper also got in to assault the Knight sadly he didn't get any Rends in despite doing quite well in his attack. I'm not sure if the Carnifex faired any better, I like to think it may have got a Hull Point in. However, the only damage in return was Deathleaper got smeared across the battlefield [another 230pts lost].

With the T-fex still an issue the Deathwing Knights powered up their Maces to Smite the offending beast

The T-fex couldn't get past the Terminators shields and even with the spawned Termagants piling in their claws and teeth couldn't penettrate the Knights armour.

The Smite dealt four wounds to the enraged beast but the was still an opportunity to visit some damage to the Dark Angels.

 

This is either some saving throws [not good] or more likely my to Wound rolls from the Carnifex on the Knight :( not even a single glance, let alone a pen. Meanwhile the Rippers tried to stop the other Knight!

The Carnifex paid the price for it's ineptitude in combat.

And unsurprisingly so did the Rippers allowing the Knight to consolidate towards my Tyrannocyte.

With the character Knight sweeping the top front layer of gaunts things were not looking good on the Skyshield.

The Deathwing Knights continued to hammer on the Tyrannofex, without losing a model, they were just too tough for the gaunts to help out. He was on already 4 wounds

and took another 6 that I had to save against and the law of probability was borne out with me failing one of them to leave him on his last wound.

For the purpose of spectacle I allowed the Knight to climb atop the Skyshield, so long as the Tervigon would be allowed to get in on the action, which is actually what Dave was after so my cunning ruse worked, no wait...

Unfortunately I was unable to add to the two Hull Points it had already taken but luckily I only took 2 wounds in return.

The other Carnifex sought revenge for the death of it's sibling but clearly wasn't up to the challenge. I'm not sure if it did any damage in the process but I know he'd taken two Hull Points damage by the end of the game so was 1pt off scoring half his blood points.

I managed to get the Genestealers into combat with the other knight with one of the broods just short of reaching the assault. He was already on 3 wounds so all I needed was 3 rending hits off 11 Genestealers [mathhammer - 33 attacks, 22 hits - 3.something rends] and I managed to beat the odds with 5!

Ah, erm yeah! The Knight blew up big time wiping out the three broods totalling 14 models that had been assaulting it.

So it was a good job the other brood had failed their charge as nothing survived the Knight explosion and as I only secured the second half of the Knights points [the first half already in the bag] I probably came off worse as I lost 210pts of Genestealer to do it!

This was clearly the Tervigon, I'm assuming saving throws as 2s would be bad but I'm not sure how these two dice rolls would have affected his current wound status

But it clearly was fatal, and the Knight picked it's ruined corpse up and hurled it at the Venomthrope causing a wound to add insult to injury.

And then all the Termagants popped!

The Deathwing Knights [Paroxysmed by -1] continued the fight, once again completely unharmed by my Termagants.

They managed to put four wounds on the Tfex and it could no longer sustain the impacts from their maces.

The Tfex died and the game came to an end.

I've never won a kill points battle at Blog Wars, I've never faced more than 1 Knight and I don't think I've ever killed one so although the final score was 600pts to 1335, with both of usgetting Linebreaker I honestly fel quite pleased with the result. Clearly I do have options against Knights and I think I was unlucky in places not to have done more damage to them so safe in the knowledge my gaming buddies are never likely to field more than two I'm hopeful for the future. I'm also once again impressed by the Dark Angel Knights, it took them far too long to kill the Tfex but that was because of Paroxysm keeping their hits low, but they're certainly durable in combat and can do damage when needed.

So a great game despite the loss, now on to game 2

Goggle Adsense @ 60 - FREE Money!

One of the really interesting things that happened last week [don't worry I'll get to those Blog Wars battle reports I know you're all dying to read] was I finally reached the magic £60 mark in my Google Adsense total. Google only allows you to cash in your earnings at this amount [although as of yet I'm not 100% sure how] so I can finally capitalise on all the clicks you've kindly made. As I discussed in this post about monetising your blog this is really the only thing I’ll… ‘stoop to’ seems so negative, ‘entertain’ is perhaps more appropriate. It may have taken around four years to do it but I’m extremely grateful to everyone who has clicked on an advert, it doesn’t cost you anything to do so [and I regularly click on my fellow bloggers ads for that very reason] but although the initial plan was for it to keep me in paint I’ll be looking to get an Imperial Knight with the proceeds - watch this space.

The breakdown of those that have clicked and viewed is quite interesting, at one point I’d had 2 visits from someone [or someones] in Syria and 50% of those visits had resulted in a click. I’ve since had a couple more visits from there but you’d imagine playing toy soldiers would be low on their list of activities. Similarly quite a few visitors from Afghanistan [I’m guessing troops stationed there?] have been interested in the blog but unsurprisingly the biggest earnings are from:

1.    United States
2.    United Kingdom
3.    Australia
4.    Canada
5.    Denmark

So once again I thank you all for your contribution, and if you're from Syria or Afghanistan, a big shout out to your 40k community! But moving forward I will put my money [technically your money] where my mouth is. The next £60 in adsense revenue I will put towards another Imperial Knight [alongside my own money to make up the difference] but this will be up for grabs in a little competition [of sorts] that I will be holding. I will even offer to paint the Knight at no extra cost. Of course whoever wins the competition can choose an alternative model of equivalent value or for me not to paint it should they wish, it will be up to the winner.

The initial plan of how to win the prize will be based on a picture competition with the only criteria being that it must feature an item freely available from this very blog – STC templates, Print & Play buildings, even just the wound counters [although the picture will have to be pretty darn good to secure a prize using just the wound markers]. The choice will be yours.

There are still details to be ironed out just yet, hopefully we’ll find a way that folk can help make the choosing the eventual winner fair, not just me choosing one. But we’ll have plenty of time to work the details and for you to decide if it’s worth taking part. As I say it took 4 years to get to this first £60 but it all depends on the click rate on the ads how soon I will run the competition.

Let me know what you think about this, as I sit atop this mountain of advertising revenue ;) I felt it only fair to give something back and as it's you folk that are making it all happen in the first place it should be you that benefit going forwards. Also if you're from Syria or Afghanistan let me know!

Blog Wars 9 - King in the North - The Aftermath

Obviously I’m back from Blog Wars 9, it’s only down the road afterall but I’ve only just had chance now to round up what went down and it was this:

So I came away with Best Painted Army, as I did in BW6, but I also secured Best Painted Character for Deathleaper. As I accepted the award my old Squat opponent Graham Sanders joked I should bring a new army next time but it did allow Alex to address the issue of previous winners winning again. I get why some people would think that it’s unfair if it keeps on winning but by that argument you would have to stop people bringing a tournament winning army list repeatedly or in the wider world tell Lewis Hamilton he couldn’t use the same car each race. That just doesn’t happen so why would the painting competition be any different?

But if the consensus changes then I’ll live with it, fingers crossed though I can actually get the Dark Angels done for November! I honestly understand the view not to have previous winners allowed [although I don’t share it] and I do want to run with something different, it’s just the lure of the Hive Mind is very strong, despite my initial aversion to them!

To be honest I actually thought Liam would win and apparently there was only one vote in it, I think if he’d have brought his Armies on Parade winning themed board to go with the Tau he might have snatched it. He did however win the best conversion category so it was still a successful day for him, especially as it’s a new category that he’d not won previously.

Back to my future Dark Angel army and I finally used my Birthday voucher that my gaming crew kindly got me and picked up the Dark Angel Expansion box.

I was so excited I even opened it in the car and got even more giddy when it seemed they’d given me 10 Deathwing Knights instead of the 5, I couldn’t believe my luck until I realised there was no Ravenwing Knight sprue! Clearly I’d got two lots of terminators instead of one each of bikes and Terminators. So I’ve contacted Customer Services and the email so far will need following up. I of course got it from Element Games so the first advice is to return it to the store, but I'm not sure when I'll have time to get out to Stockport again. I know it's only a quick trip on the train but it's my lunch hour I'll have to give up.

Also this was the last box they had in stock so I'll have to wait a while for a replacement. More worrying is the request for proof of purchase in that stupidly I was juggling my lunch, while talking to people in the store so never actually got a receipt! I'll try ringing GW and Element tomorrow see what they say but given how long I've waited for these I'm just a little bit disappointed about the whole affair.

Anyway, Battler reports will follow shortly, i'm really struggling to fit blogging into everything and I've actually got lots of news to share, darn it!