Thursday 16 June 2016

Double Trouble 1500pt battle report - Dark Angels & Adeptus Mechanicus v Imperial Fists & Nurgle Daemons - Game 2

Game 2 and I'm on the same table, for a minute I get confused and think I;ve been paired with Dan Johnson's Nurgle Daemons [was this some cruel trick of the Chaos G.O.D.s trying to tell me something?] and then it transpires I'm partnered with Rob Hill and his insanely awesome Mechanicum which was great considering the support he's shown to this blog and how much of a fan I am of his own - mutual back slapping and modest compliments ensued! But we were also facing Chris Buckle and his Imperial Fists.

The low down:
  • "Cleanse and Control" deployment but with a bigger centre circle
  • Double Trouble Maelstrom missions - 3 cards per turn. No secondaries.
  • Warlord Trait - Move through Cover and Stealth in Ruins
  • Not night fighting first turn, we won deployment, lost first turn but stole the initiative!
Again not sure how to report this as not only did I not take too much notice of what missions were drawn but Dan kept track of the scoring on a dry wip board, which looked handy.


Having won deployment I selfishly shifted everyone round so I could take full benefit of the ruin in the right corner for my Devastators and bolster it thanks to the Techmarine, who subsequently hung around the back of Venator becuase I figured it'd draw a lot fire and he could try and fix it.


Chris had a pretty static gunline with Thudd Guns and Vindicators!


Having stolen the initiative I think we had to secure objective 6, or get double objectives than our opponents and onjective 6 was the key. To do that my bikes scouted forward and that Vindicator had to go!


The Venator did the business, alongside an orbital bombardment by the crazy looking guy leading the automatons. The Vindicator exploded and with a 5" blast took out one of my bikers who'd closed on the objective [actually it might have been the plasma gun biker that made the killing blow] Either way I think we had a good turn, although my Rhino did immobilise itself in the trees, at which point I was wishing the Techmarine was't so far away [and that I didn't forget every turn to try to fix the 'immobilised' with the Rhino's special rules!]


In response the Thudd Guns tried to do some serious damage on the Devastators, they weathered the fire, taking only one casualty but they were pinned in the process. The Daemon Prince jumped down to assault my Assault Marines who stood fast, which was either brave or foolhardy. Interestingly Dan  suffered a Dangerous Terrain test wound for the Prince which confused me as for a few years now I've been of the understanding that they don't take them. Monstrous Creatures have the 'move through cover' special rule that means they automatically pass Dangerous Terrain test, so even though he would jump into difficult terrain he would automatically pass the test. I tried to raise this in our game but everyone was of the opinion he was playing it right which makes me question my interpretation. I've been playing it this way for years now, ever since I saw PeteB's Wraithknight was jumping in and out of cover, without dispute. When you consider multiple Flyrants dropping into cover you'd imagine folk wanting those Dangerous Terrain tests to be made if wounds could be taken. So have I got it wrong? Because I can only see the Move through Cover Rule over-riding the Dangerous Terrain Test, not the other way around and Jump rules trumping the MC rules.


Turn 2, my other unit of bikers go for the Nurglings, although I can't kill them I remove enough to get them out of range of the objective so I can score it!


The last Vindicator gets wrecked, sweet revenge for my bikers which were destroyed by the Great Unclean One.


The Thudd Guns continued to plug away with mixed fortune.


The Daemon Prince entered it;s third round of combat with the Assault Marines and the Great Unclean One advanced from the ruins.


He wanted to kill Rob's Warlord, but it's invulnerable saves held.


Chris managed ot dislodge my bikers from the objective with his Fists, clearly the Inquisition need to have a word helping out the almost but still alive Nurglings!


In some deft positioning the Vneator had moved to hold the objective in those ruins while I was holding the objective in the woods. Both of these missions required our partner to be controlling and objective and this doubled our score for that turn from just two for each to four for both. The Techmarine had dawdled repeatedly to keep up with the Venator, too enamored by it's majesty no doubt, but eventually he was right behind it when it was hit with so much firepower he didn't even have achanc eto effect any repairs!


So the smoke settled and we were pretty despondent only for Dan to reveal we'd manage to snatch the win, thanks to a poor final turn by our opponents. The final tally was 15:12 however we lost on Blood Points 563 to 1305. Now I'm sur eI missed a lot out but Rob will be writing a Battle Report too so check out his blog for a different perspective.

It was an awesome game though and although the Dark Angels suffered a lot I feel we clearly sacrificed all we need to, to guarantee we completed the mission. We did not sell our lives cheap and I think we worked as a good team in the end. The Daemons were nigh unstoppable, with Iron Arm and FnP making it pointless for the Daemon Prince ot actually swoop, he was more effective on the ground, even if it took him 3 rounds of combat to kill five assault marines! That's Rogue Trader era models for you...

Wednesday 15 June 2016

I'm famous, or infamous, which I'm not sure but ask Luke Fogg, he'll tell you.

More fallout from Double Trouble, this time blogger buddy, X-Wing fan and alround decent chap Luke Fogg did one of his vlog's about what went down and somehow I got 'chosed' as the poster boy for the vlog! Do not worry though, unlike my own attempts at vlogs this is not coma inducing. I may well look pretty gormless below but I did not have the sensation to claw my own face off after watching myself, even if I did feel pretty goofy during the interview.



On the plus side you also get to see Chris, who I played against during my second game, Matt who was my partner in the first, good old Henrick from Germany and Mike Corr. In reality with so many of us attending these events who do blog it's becoming more like the original Blog Wars than Blog Wars was thanks to this network of online contributors.

Anyway, if I can put up with myself I think you can too, it's well worth 3 minutes of your time.

Tuesday 14 June 2016

Double Trouble 1500pt battle report - Dark Angels & Tzeentch Daemons v Ravenguard & Space Marines - Game 1

First up I was partnered with Matthew Grimes, he'd brought Tzeentch Daemons. Now I'm not saying my Dark Angels had been visited by some Tzeentchian door-to-door missionaries but they may just have 'fallen' a little bit for this game. We were up against Steve Horne's Ravenguard and Kai-Uwe Müller-Joswig [Hendrik's brother] who'd flown over from Germany just for this tournament! Kai-Uwe had the Space Marines, I think they were Dusk Wolves but using Space Wolf rule. For all games the two partners would be Battle Brothers and the missions were based on this rule pack

The low down:
  • Dawn of War"
  • Double Trouble Maelstrom missions - 3 cards per turn. No secondaries.
  • Warlord Trait - 3 enemy units must make pinning test first turn [which I forgot about]
  • Night fighting first turn, Steve and Kai-Uwe won first turn.
Not sure how to report this as I didn't take too much notice of what missions were drawn and what was scored. For our set up Matthew held the right flank, with my Devastators in the Techmarine reinforced ruins.


The Pink Horrors filled the middle with my Scouts hiding in the forest, to hold that objective, should we draw the card.


Long Fangs and Scouts were opposite, almost a carbon copy of my own force.


A Lone Wolf was on the left flank, opposite the bulk of my force but close to that objective.


Some more Marines held this back field objective. By the end of their turn Steve and Kai-Uwe had scored 2 VPs. Their main focus had been my Tactical Squad with the Missile Launcher on the left flank and wiped them out.


In response we advance. Matthew was full of energy and totally knew how his army worked so I was a bit of a passenger at this point, which was cool with me as it meant the burden of keeping track of all the rules was lifted and I could just spend time having fun [the thing I'd felt hadn't been happening in previous tournaments].


The Tzeentchian magic phase was brutal.


A new chariot was spawned and wreaked havoc on our opponents, the Scouts and most of the Long Fangs were all but wiped out. The Storm of Chaos also blew but failed to hurt anyone.


I was able to contribute with shooting some of the Wolves off their objective.


With Terminators on my doorstep I was trying to whittle them down with whatever firepower I had, hoping to assault with my bikes to a smaller force.


Unfortunately I couldn't find a chink in their armour.


And lost a Ravenwing biker [either to plasma overheat or Dangerous Terrain, both equally embarrassing]. I'm sure one Terminator did eventually fall but have no record of it. We also scored 2 VPs to draw level.


Turn two and the Marines had tried to attack our right flank with their Land Speeder storm. They scored 4 VPs that turn, I think with the Scouts scoring and also destroying my bikes on the left flank. In return we destroyed the Land Speeder and assaulted the scouts.


When the dust had settled we'd won back 5 VPs, I think we got 3 for holding the same objective for 2 turns. We were a point a head.


Turn 3 and I've no more pictures, all I know is we both scored 3 VPs each. With the final score being 10:9 we scored 1073 Blood Points and I only suffered 223 Blood Points, with just the Ravenwing, Tactical Squad and 1 wound on the Techmarine for half his points. Not sure how bad Matthew was hit but I can attest his army was insane. He had all sorts of spells and every time a chariots was destroyed he could spawn it back again in the psychic phase. They're fragile but pack a punch and I think 3 went down and 3 came back. He eventually won the tournament, saying he would use his winnings to buy a fourth chariot! G.O.D. help us all! A great start to the day and although I was the least effective part of the force Matthew and I worked well together and had a great laugh with our opponents.

Monday 13 June 2016

Double Trouble

I had an absolute blast at Double Trouble on Saturday. First up I won the raffle, I'm only starting with that as it means it's my blog roll picture. Look what I won! There was a moment where I was actually embarrassed but it was such a cool prize I had to accept. What I do with it will depend on whether Genecult comes out as a Codex or not.


Moving on to the actual event I got paired with some really great people including Rob Hill from 30kplus40kequalsinfinity and From the Fang event organiser Alex for the last game. But I also got to play against Luke Fogg from Darksun Life and meet a couple of other bloggers including Mike from St Andrews Wargaming and folk I've met before, like Ian and my own Battle Brother Dan, who went on to win the award for most Blood Points!

Dan and I from Battle Brothers 2013
The German guys were back again too and I got to play against Hendrik's brother Kai-Uwe. But all the partners and opponents were total gents and hopefully I'll be seeing them again in future. The games were good, but actually the interaction between all four players was the highlight and I think I'll really struggle to do the battle reports, partly because half the time I might not know what my partner was doing but because the people were more entertaining than the little guys we were pushing around.


All that said the venue screwed up, they'd double booked us with a Warmachine weekend 24 hour tournament. So we were in a downstairs room usually used for drama classes. It was dark and the terrain was even more sparse than in the past. The food was delayed too, but the Panini was really good when I got one. Personally those two issues were easily overlooked for me, but Alex was not impressed which may just jeopardise coming back again to the NWGC, which is sad considering it's just had a refit. I'd hoped to be able to report back to my mates how much it had been improved but sadly just the Warmachine players got to benefit, although a weekend of 24 hour tournament, no wonder they got preferrential treatment!

So Alex is potentially looking at another store in Sheffield, which will be where the November event will be held. Which is fair enough, it's more local for him but I'm sure he'll fill us all in as plans get made. The only real disappointment for me was I didn't take any pictures, alright 'selfies' with my partners/opponents. It's the one thing I wanted to do to capture the spirit of the event but just couldn't bring myself to do it, maybe next time. If I was scoring this it'd definitely be a 9 out of 10!



Saturday 11 June 2016

Dark Angels - Land Speeders [yet another distraction]

What do you do when You've got a load of 'big-ticket' projects on the go, that's right resurrect a small-ticket project that's been mothballed since August 2014 as a distraction. To be fair though these are on my To Do List, however the plan was just to tackle the part painted one and leave the other but then the List states paint them both... so I undercoated it as a test of one of those £1 matt black sprays from Pound World/Empire/Land.


The result was pretty damn good, although the finish is a little 'tacky' feeling but coverage was great. You'll also notice the 'progressed' speeder has had a 'book of vengeance' added to the front. The underneath had been a bit dodgy after I removed an honour badge so I decided to cover it up. I've also added some more Warplock Bronze in places where more metallics need to be added, as I had to metalise the new one. However, as much as my metals go a long way to creating the unique look of my Dark Angels I do find the process quite demoralising. The textures and effect created is always rewarding but its another one of those tasks that I have zero desire to do and tends to kill my momentum dead! But that's a separate issue, moving on...


Bottom line, with my new found confidence in my Ravenwing I wanted to try and get a quick win with at least one of these Speeders, either way I can move them on a little bit, hopefully build up my skills even more, so tackling the Dark Talon's black elements will be easier because currently I'm a little daunted by the scale of the task ahead. This may just be all I do, although I hope to at least bring them both up to the same level, even if they're not completed.

Thursday 9 June 2016

Dark Angels - Old Skool Assault Squad Red Planet BASE!

By popular demand I'm repainting the bases on my Rogur Trader era Assault marines. I contemplated going yellow, as the Milliput sculpting is supposed to be vegetation but red was really the only sensible option. Of course this does with the fluff of the Liquid Stone Lava Fields of Ferron Proxima's Vulcan Tundra*. So, Vermilion base, Strong Tone wash, Vermilion dry/wet brush.


First highlight.

Second highlight, with a final highlight of pure pumpkin. I've since added some small amount of Bonewhite chips, there aren't many opportunities for them within the Milliput sculpting but I picked out a few, just enough to tie them to the other Red Planet bases.


While I was at it I did these five bike bases which I've had since May 2011, now you might think from recent posts these are the hurdle I'm overcoming to get the 'in stasis' Ravenwing Knights quickly out of stasis. But you'd be wrong, these are for the six other Ravenwing bikes I have, half basecoated and half not even undercoated, that I reference in the linked post. They're still destined for that role [plus another base that I'll have tomake up when I do the Knights] because they're a fraction smaller than standard bases and I can live with that on a Ravenwing squad but want consistency on the 'elite' knights.



* honest, it's real fluff, I certainly didn't just make it up to justify what I was doing, I never do that! Much...

Tuesday 7 June 2016

Dark Angels - Ravenwing Knights all built

The motorbike madness continues as I manage to complete building my group of seven Ravenwing Knights. Seven is a good a number as I can run a Comand Squad with three or four and another unit of Knights with four or three in number or go for a large six man Command unit or a slightly bigger seven man Knight unit. Options are there, is what I'm saying.


I carried on with my Dark Vengeance bike conversions, the plasma pistols really do blend in nicely. I've been using a proper Stanley Knife, instad of my scalpel, to do some of the cuts on the bike and pistols. So far it's been less dangerous I think as I can just force the blade through the plastic, the heavy duty handle allowing me to exert pressure with less risk. I must admit though I cocked up with the choice of weapon, I didn't realise that pose would mean he's now physically incapable of swinging the weapon down!


Anyway, not to worry, I've since swapped the pick with one from the other 'left handed' bike and although it's still not truly dynamic at least they're realistic. This one below was the Plasma Gun armed guy. Again the Stanley knife cut through the plastic with ease and I now have a spare plasma gun arm! I also added in a Dark Angel upgrade back pack for a bit of variety.


Definitely excited about these guys, such a simple conversion to take realtively cheap and accessible and make them high value assets to my force. That said I need to do the bases which I think will delay any progress on these for a while, which is no bad theing really as I have other projects to get back to. So lets call these guys currently on hiatus, or alternatively 'in stasis' ;)