1500pts battle report - Dark Angels v Tyranids!

I got a chance to pop round to Otty's for a game and unusually I got to face his Tyranids, but using my Dark Angels. We were Playing a Maelstrom game and struggling to come to terms with a lot of the new FAQs in a bid to getting ready for when they're official. Personally given the extent of the FAQs I actually feel we'd be better off with a new rulebook, loathe as I am to suggest 8th Edition but a lot of these things go beyond a simple clarification.

Anyway we set up opposite [as you do when you play 40k!]

I love this modular table that Otty made, it's always packed full of realistic touches and surprisingly is quite forgiving for wobbly model syndrome [I know it doesn't look it but honestly it really]

Army list wise I took the Cerastus, two Deathwing squads, Bastion and Devs, Dark Talon and 9 Tacticals with my Scouts and my Techmarine leading. Otty had two maxed out broods of Stealers, a maxed Hormagaunt brood, a couple of Venomthropes for cover, a Broodlord, a Tyranid Prime, Harpy, Tyrannofex, one Hive Guard and Mr Tickle - the Toxicrene.

Otty got first turn, and surged forwards. He only managed to kill one Devastator with Missile Launcher but I needed all my firepower to halt the surging horde. He tried to use most of his Warp Charge to cast Dominion on the Broodlord making everything under Synapse but I easily denied. Now with level 1 psykers only allowed to cast one power the rest of his warp charge was wasted [much like the vaunted Psychic phase!]

"These are Genestealers, you may be unfamiliar with them, they're the 'premier' close combat unit in 40k"

My response was to meet him head on with the Lancer leading the way. My Devastators fragged the Hormagaunts, which broke and ran for the board. The Lancer fried some also. In Otty's turn two the Harpy arrived, I managed to wound it two or three times with my Quad Gun, but he put two wounds on the Lancer. I was saving my Ion Shield for the Tfex and Hive Guard. The Hormagaunts rallied and by the end of the turn were 2 inches in front of where they'd been at the end of turn 1. The Stealers failed to negotiate the woods, clearly stalking their prey more effectively. The Tfex whiffed and the Hive Guard targeted the Devastators again!

The Stealers charged first, but it was through the difficult terrain of the trenches so would assault last. Mr Tickle and the Tfex also got in on the action.

Mr Tickle struck first, ordinarily his S5 would have meant nothing but with the Harpy having torn chunks from the lancer the Sentient Spore Cloud surrounding the beast found vulnerable spots in his armour resulting with seven Armourbane attacks!

Somehow the Lancer survived with one wound left. The Tfex failed to hit with his Smash and the Stealer couldn't do enough damage.

In return the Lancer stomped on just a few Stealers. He was then torn apart by Mr Tickle in my turn blowing up and killing all but one Genestealer and the Prime. Mr Tickle and the Tfex just stood and watched, untouched by the catastrophic explosion! Meanwhile the Harpy swooped past the bastion but was unable to fire it's Spore Cysts due to jinking in a previous turn. My Techmarine could only look on with horror as he arrived too late to try and repair the Knight

My dark Talon arrived but did very little, the Scouts could see their position was about to be over-run but perhaps it was already too late.

As my forces were being swept asunder I suddenly became captivated with this element of Otty's Tyranid Bastion, the colours and effect was really quite outstanding.

Back to the carnage and the Genestealer managed to reach the Scouts, it was a bad day to be wearing red camo cloaks on a green battlefield!

Who couldn't possible survive against such overwhelming odds [Lost Patrol anyone?]

Mr Tickle dispatched the now exposed Techmarine with ease, but in return I was able to take the Harpy down with my Dark Talon.

The Tyranid Prime and the lone Stealer assaulted the Tactical Squad defending their ammo reserves.

They lost the combat by two, failed their morale, broke and were over-run leaving the Objective in filthy Xenos hands. OK, I realised afterwards this did not happen, that 'And they shall know no fear' prevents Sweeping Advances but I'm still getting the hang of the rules, it was 1am and do you know what? They bloomin' deserved to die given their pathetic performance.

End result was an 8:4 loss but an interesting game and it certainly allowed Otty to reconfigure his list - putting the Prime with the Hormagaunts would have prevented them breaking. And Mr Tickle was awesome, I could see him scything through unit of Terminators, or even a Vehicle Squadron if they'd taken a bit of damage. As it was he did the Knight in with ease, thanks to the Harpy damage. 

Meanwhile we also traded some bits, Otty had needed a metal Broodlord  to make some Purestrain Genestealers. He's making an 'organic' genecult, making hybrids and Aberrants out of all sorts of donor models and the Broodlord is what he's using for the Prince's. He then discovered I was trading 'Broodlord in a body warmer'. I think that didn't quite sit right with him and so swamped me with bits and even gave me a metal Azrael and Watcher in the Dark, so I've got some really interesting stuff to play around with once I can get my other jobs done.

That said the next day I did a bad thing...

Dark Angels - Jefighter!!!!

Before I did the biker I actually just threw caution to the wind and painted any of the white symbols and markings on the Jetfighter. Once again I'm in two minds about why I'm doing white for these. I'm perfectly happy with the execution and it looks cool, but logically I struggle to process these white markings on vehicles that hunt in the shadows [or sort of].

To be fair 40k is riddled with these anachronisms, the Jetfighter is often shown with marble panels - hello?! It's supposed to fly and you're stone-cladding it? My own brass/bronze aesthetic is deliberately used as they're less inert, more prone to the weathering effects, and not as strong. Using these 'ancient' materials as opposed to steel, aluminium or the other futuristic materials, harkens back to the grimdark nature and that nothing makes sense.

Hopefully I'll be able to transfer my recent efforts in highlighting black onto a model of this scale, fingers crossed...

Of course that new flyer supplement probably re-renders this completely useless. I'm struggling to come to terms with the new Space Marine flyer, with greater front armour, admittedly one less hull point but more weapons but more importantly being nearly 50pts cheaper. I don't know what those stat changes equate to or hwo they compare on the battle-filed under play test simulaitons but nearly 30% is a huge difference so which is over and which is undercosted?

"What's App Doc?" 3 - Freeblade

I’d been pretty envious of those Apple fans who got Warhammer Freeblade first so I was pretty overjoyed when it got ported to Android the other day. The fact is the game itself isn’t as in depth as I imagined it to be, but then it’s a mobile game, it’s not exactly a free roaming sandbox shooter. In one review I heard it described as a ‘rail shooter’ which is pretty apt when you get down to it. Much like a roller coaster your Freeblade Imperial Knight moves from one opportunity to lay down the Emperor’s will to the next. You don’t get to move the Knight itself all you really do is point at the bad guys and obliterate them. The tactical opportunities revolve around which gun you’re going to use to do it!

But actually I really like it, sure I’d love the game I imagine it could be, and on a games console that would be awesome, but this is still pretty cool. I’ve played a number of games solidly for a few weeks and eventually lost interest – Real Racing, Tiny Troopers, Run and Gun, Carnage and Star Wars Uprising, but this is the only app I felt compelled to make an in-app purchase. For £2.99 I bought an upgrade pack with a bunch of Revives, Gold, some rare weapons and more importantly the Queen Bee livery from Tibbs Forge.

I have to say this upgrade has certainly helped progress. Having made a purchase I also get loyalty bonuses every day with more Ore or weapon cases in addition to the daily bonuses. The game itself also includes options to watch video adverts to have another crack at a daily mission or add bonuses to your next mission. I really like this, I can see how it might be annoying to some, but it is optional so you don’t have to suffer them. However, you can set an advert going go off and do something for 20 seconds come back and you’ve just got boosted experience for nowt! So I like it.

And of course in other news - Dawn of War III and everyone's talking about the money shot.

Further news reports show some potential in-game graphics. I’m particularly interested in the barricades you seem to be able to make, in particular what appears to be an Eldar Aegis Defence Line [bottom, to the right of the middle in green]… just saying.

40kaddict Terrain Competition Prizes

Just a quick one, Alun Heseltine sent me a pic of him and his daughter, who clearly deserves most of the credit for the second place ;) with their prize, a gift voucher for Element Games. Hopefully they'll be able to get something cool from them.

Meanwhile the copy of Imperial Knights Renegade arrived yesterday from Wayland Games [what can I say I'm ecumenical], so I've opened it up and separated out Liam's Paladin [who wanted to go halves on the box] snf Marc's prize which I'll ship to him in Australia, in case you're all interested this is the un-boxing:

All that's left is to see it safely to the other side of the world but rest assured the competition has made some folk very happy and I look forward to the next one :)

Dark Angels - Ravenwing bike squad

Well this is unusual - I'm not sure if a seed of advice about creating a test model has flourished but I'm beginning to focus predominantly on this one Ravenwing Sergeant. I have added extra highlights to the metallics and a subsequent additional Soft Tone [sepia] wash to warm them up. I actually managed to do this on all the bikes before I focused on him. You can see my first pass on the black highlights, this is with my own mix of Anitas Turquoise and Black. Note in particular the contrast between the highlight and black on the rear mud guard, wings and shoulder.

I actually thought this was too much contrast so I will be adding more black in to smoothly blend the colours and reduce the black/grey delineation.

This is actually two steps on but most importantly you should be able to make out the 2nd and 3rd stage highlights. The 3rd stage is the 'pin' highlight, which is a mix of white and Bahama Blue, this adds a little something to the greeny blue of the Turquoise. What is more interesting is the 2nd stage highlight is made upp of Citadel Dark Reaper. Now it's hard to pinpoint just where this begins and ends, I've added many coats of thinned black to try and smooth the transitions, although some are still visible. But the point is if my highlight mix was darker and I was shocked by the contrast then Dark Reaper is a lot lighter. Bearing in mind GW paint guides have Dark Reaper as their first highlight colour I think I'd just about keel over if I'd applied it in the first instance!

Happy with my Ravenwing Black I decided to block in my other colours. I'm a little apprehensive here as the bonewhite and Ravenwing symbols in white really stand out, which is why I don't have the white wings on front. It feel like I;m breaking my own rules.

At about 12:20am I've completed all the purity seals and then sepia washed them, added all the bonewhite and white highlights and even added some litanies!

All that's left to do on this is:

• Verdigris [nervous about this for some reason]
• Red headlamp and OSL [v.nervous about this for obvious reason, my test so far has not gone well :( ]
• Name on shoulder pad
• Company symbol on shoulder pad
• Bonewhite chips on base
• Base edge
• Varnish
• Orange weathering powder on tyres

I have to say I have conflicting emotions at the moment, mainly due to the process not the result. I'm really chuffed at my progress, this guy is almost done and this last push has really blown away my concerns with the black and the colours overall [mostly]. I think I have the process down, which I think is due to treating it as a test model. However, I'm now looking at those five remaining bikers and feel frustrated I didn't batch them alongside. Now there's no way they'd be verging on completion, batching doesn't work like that, but I'd be much further on instead of feeling like I've got to go back to the start. Mind games yet again.

So, next up after the above - 1st highlight on the black for the remaining five...

No MOAR tears! A public information message

You are welcome, should you feel the need blue tack affixed to the spill pot [or is it a moat, or a bund, or a berm?] will help guarantee you can knock neither over. Belt and braces!

Deathwatch Overkillin'

As the dust settles around the 40kaddict Terrain Competition and I try and marshall my thoughts, deal with my neck/arm pain and cope with the new IT regime I thought I'd just share the highlights of a couple of Deathwatch Overkill games PeteB and I played the other night.

It's embarassing to admit that this is our first game since we played Dark Angels Vs his Daemonkin back in December and you may not be surprised to learn [given he's had about seven or eight armies in the five years I've known him] that Pete has since offloaded much of his 40k in that time.

But he was well up for trying this game out and so I subbed in my painted Genestealer and Chaos Cultists for the Hybrids and swapped my painted Dark Angels for the Deathwatch characters.

We played the first mission which is really the Deathwatch have to kill 25 Broodkin, who in turn have to kill just two Deathwatch [those are the odds...]. I'd already seen Luke's review [sorry can't add a direct link due to the IT policy, grrr!] so I knew it heavily favoured the Deathwatch and you really needed to gang up your models

Luckily I had a couple of Ambush cards that allowed me to pick another 3 cards and deploy all ambushes so now I potentially had a lot of bodies to swamp the Marines.

Anyway you can see that didn;t work very well and as my Cultists with Autoguns have no armour save I quickly decided the 6+ save on assault cultists was better than nothing, not to mention they're more likely to hit in short range.

I managed to get another card that helped speed up my brood and managed to get close up with the Astartes.

But it didn't really do me any favours and Pete continued to rack up kill points.

I played a card that allowed me to ambush in any tile, bringing some Aberrants on to surroudn the Frag Cannon wielding Rodricus Grytt, I managed ot put a owund on Jensus Natorium, the Librarian.

Pete followed up by reaching his kill target of 25.

We then played out my last turn and I was able to bring down Jensus and Rodricus, so although I was outgunned it was only just. In a normal game of 40k where everyone gets their turn this would have been a draw. So, although the Genestealers are completely outclassed ultimately if you cna get them in close then their is a possibility to make things more equal.

We then swapped sides and it was obvious my 25mm bases did afford me an advantage compared with the 32mm bases the marines are now supplied with. It also made me start to consider options for rebasing... [incidentally the Watcher is the teleport homer for Garran Brannatar [the Terminator Salamander].

I managed to get forward quite quickly and make some quick early kills leaving the Cultists thin on the ground.

Mor earrived and I was able to continue to push forwards with Garran protecting the rear.

I was able to reach the final room and take the fight to the cultists. Thanks to the Space Marine ability to heal themselves by forgoing an attack any wound inflicted was quickly recouperated. This ended up feeling too easy so I then chose not to restore any wounds.

I went on to make the 25 kills and again we played on with Pete's turn and without restoring any wounds he was able to kill Garran and Cassius. This confirmed that although it doesn't seem balanced initially there clearly is a balance between the opposing factions. I thin k it's marginally skewed in favour of the Marines and the restoring wounds is a bit much, at the least a roll to restore a wound would add some challenge, aside from the price of failing to attack. Even a 4+ would make it less easy for the Marines. We'll definitely add a house rule in for this.

And in a flurry of effort I actually finsihed basing, rewashing the resin dust off the bases and priming all the cultists. I'm hopeful if the rest of my current projects progress as planned this hobby season I may get chance to do Red Planet BASE! on them all before the end of the season.

I'd be pretty chuffed if the Ravenwing, Imperial Knight, Genestealers and Cultists bases were my only remaining successes this year, although there's still scope for more if I get a wiggle on. Anyway, hope you liked to see something a little different, I'll probably get some more games on and I'm sure Pete will be up for more games.