1750pts battle report - Imperial Knights & Astra Militarum v Astra Militarum & Khorne Daemonkin - game 1

Double Trouble 4 and Alex From the Fang's doubles tournament replacing Blog Wars. 875pts with random pairings but all match-ups are Battle Brothers. Once again my recollection is pretty hazy so for the most part enjoy the pictures, the commentary will be secondary ;) 

Here we go with the last Double Trouble ever. I'll cover my feelings in the wrap up but suffice to say the event was it's usual fun, tinged with a hint of sadness as it has come to a fitting end. First game and I'm partnered with Matt Greenwood [Alex's regular opponent] and his Astra Militarum [3 Leman Russ with Pask, a Psyker, some Ratling Snipers and Vets but with no Command Point farm!].

Facing us was Greg Barber, again with Astra Militarum [Baneblade, Command Point Farm, Psykers and a Bullgryn squad]. He was partnered with Duncan Gray and Khorne Daemonkin [Soul Grinder, Blood Letters, Flesh Hounds, Skull Cannon and some Forgeworld Greater Daemon].

Setup was table ends but with the pointed ends 18" apart. That would have been beneficial for my Knights if only the apex wasn't right in those ruins. Regardless we paid 3 points straight off to put one of my Warglaives in reserve and outflank. We finished deploying first, won first turn and then Greg stole the Initiative. Greg and Duncan move up to secure objectives [which were scored each turn]. With my Cerastus in full view he took a pounding from the Baneblade, despite rotating the Ion Shields he took 7 wounds, down to 20. Greg and Duncan scored 4VPs this turn.

The Cerastus Advanced but was nowhere near the Baneblade. The Warglaive followed along in support. Matt managed to takemost of the wounds off the Soul Grinder [down to 3 or 1?] he also dinged a Flesh Hound with Heavy Bolter fire.

The Skull Cannon fell victim to concentrated fire from the Leman Russ and my Cerastus Shock Blast. With the Lancer exposed I decided to assual the Flesh Hounds [costing 2CPs to assault after advance] then used the Shock Lance.

Only killing two but 'safely' remaining in combat, while the Warglaive attacked the Bullgryns killing one. We scored 2VPs of objectives and then the Daemon Prince and Bloodletters appeared in our midst!

You see the thing with being locked in combat so you then Fall Back and charge again is that your opponent can also Fall Back leaving you exposed and vulnerable! I'd somehow forgotten that and suddenly all the Baneblade's weaponry was traind on my Knight but was killed with just the main cannon! Another ignominious performance from the Lancer.

While the Bullgryns set to work on the Warglaive, clubbing it to bits until it blew up in their midst putting mortal wound on all those around it. The chaos Forces pushed forward, the Bloodletters making a huge charge to tie up Pask and another [or both the other] Leman Russ, luckily the Daemon Prince failed his charge and they scored another 4VPs.

Things were starting to fall apart, but I had my last Warglaive arrive from reserve. I think our plan here was for it to try and help kill the Prince and Bloodletters, with the Veterans who appeared int he back field. This would free up the tanks to focus on the Baneblade. Unfortunately the the Veterans whiffed and he couldn't manage but take some wounds off the Prince. We scored another 2 VPs

The Bloodletters took some heavy losses but were still positioned to keep the tanks locked and score our objectives. 

Meanwhile the Baneblade set to ram the Warglaive.

The Baneblade crushed the Warglaive under it's tracks, the Blood letters continued to distract the tanks in combat.

While their Prince assaulted the Veterans, killing them with ease.

More Bloodletters died, but so did Pask as it was shot by the Baneblade having moved out of combat.

The Chaos forces added another 5 VPs to their tally.

The Daemon Prince set his sights on the remaining Leman Russ and smashed it to pieces.

All that was left at this stage was Matt's psyker...

oh and an infantry squad in the ruins scoring us 1VP. I think they must have finally taken donw the Soul Grinder but the Psyker was not about to be bludgeoned by the Bullgryns.

"Death or glory!"

And there endeth the game. We'd lost 23 VPs to 8 and scored 923 Blood Points

Another great game, the loss of the initiative had been unfortunate but the deployment  map didn't help. However, with fewer units deploying the Lancer out of sight of the Baneblade was never an option.

Greg, myself, Matt and Duncan

Everyone was super-cool to game with, so the result was once again broadly irrelevant, on to game 2.

If you're interested in any more of my Battle Reports, point your cogitators here: www.40kaddict.uk/p/battle-reports.html

Dark Angels - Tanks - Razorback Moar Pics

The usual filtered phone pics, which I prefer to the digital shots.

That said they don't add any extra insight into this except for taking a moment to remember I've had this Rhino for 25 years or so!

I mean that conversion with the lighting rig, I've no idea what prompted that but decades later this model is complete and it fits in my army.

And again the defunct Las-Plas turret is symptomatic of the entire model as most lists I make nowadays would not have room for transports.

Sure the Razorback Spam Guilliman list was [is?] a thing so it does have a use, I'm just not sure how much I'll get out of it.

That's nto really the point though as hobby is my driving force at the moment so painting part of my beige tide [this pre-dates the grey plastic] is a huge achievement.

And a reminder that is a goal in itself. Obviously my two Knights are part of that tide and of potential use in future games but painting things not for gaming is OK too.

I just need to capitalise on that feelign so I don't feel the need to go out and buy more stuff.

I mean inevitably that's going to happen - I fancy Kill Team, Shadespire [although I may wait for the new version] and I'm actually looking at subscribing to Warhammer Conquest for the random extra minis you get for weird things to paint.

Fitting in some Primaris Marines or even Death Guard feels like madness but the urge is there - again the perfect example of being an addict!

The amazing thing is that my spends so far this year is £460 [last years total was £490] and with only two thirds of the year gone that will most likely go up.

BUT, nearly £430 has come from 'income' - Christmas and Birthday money, Amazon Vouchers, Google AdSense, and I sold various items on ebay specifically to add to my hobby found.

The way I look at it that means only £30 has come out of my own pocket, money that could have been spent on putting food on the table, etc.

I mean that's covered in other ways but I'm keeping my own money out of the equation and as I'm spending mostly extra income I feel better about the fact it's not a year-on-year reduction.

Anyway, enough wafflingI'll leave you with close-ups of the turrets.

875pts battle report - Imperial Knights v Tyranids

I managed to arrange a little game with Otty in preparation for Double Trouble 4. Never having solely used my Knights and with their new rules it was a perfect opportunity to familiarise myself with my 3 guys. The main issue with taking the Lancer is you automatically lose half your Stratagems as they invariably work with Questoris Knights, or those with specific weapons. Take away any other Knightly houses and I was left with just on page of Stratagems to choose from! I gave the Lancer Land Strider to add 2" to his move and the Warglaives too. He also had the Sainted Ion Armour for a 2+ save!

Otty brought 2 Broods of Genestealers [one maxxed out], a Broodlord, a Neurothrope and 6 Hive Guard. Otty got first turn, moved the Neurothrope into the crater and the Hive Guard into range of the nearest Warglaive. The fired off two salvoes, taking it down to just 2 wounds

Big Brood advanced, little brood conga'd to secure objectives. No combat this turn but the next turn?

The Lancer advanced, [14" move +2" Land Strider + 2D6" Advance!] so he was really up in their grill first turn. The shock lance put a couple of wounds on the Neurothrope and the charge managed to catch both it and the Hive Guard. I did a lance strike and Titanic Foot Stomp each on both units. I think I killed two Hive Guard but the Neuro remained intact.

The wounded Warglaive held an objective, it's twin managed to kill 1 Genestealer with its Thermal Lance and hold the other.

Genestealers sought revenge for the loss of their pal.

Neurothrope smoted the other Warglaive killing it [he had an auspicious first game].

The Neurothrope was very pleased with itself! He even healed his 2 wounds back with a stratagem.

Stealers surrounded the other Warglaive

And ripped it to pieces with 80 attacks, hitting on 2s, wounding 5/6s re-rolling 1s [Gorgon]. Neither blew up either, just collapsing in on themselves.

In retaliation the Lancer fell back, shot the Neurothope 2 wounds again then stomped all over the Hive Guard! S8 on Titanic feet is awesome!

Can't recall how the Neurothrope died, maybe the shock lance did more than the 2 damage? The Broodlord did 6 Smite wounds on the Lancer though as the small Stealer brood closed in.

I couldn't kill the squad though, one survived to secure the objective while the Lancer was on 19 wounds.

Remaining Stealers and Broodlord arrived.

The Broodlord itself very brave to get within range of my lance, but after the massive Smite last turn took psychic feedback with double 1 perils for two wounds on itself. They could only put 4 wounds on me, keeping me within the top tier [House Hawkshroud looking pretty awesome right now]

In return I kebabed the Broodlord and stomped the lone Stealer [for Blood Points] and then stomped a couple from the big brood.

The end game, for honour and curiosity. Otty had won with objectives it was just a matter of seeing who would kill who first. With Fall Back, shooting and attack the Genestealer still managed to knock me down to the bottom tier. This made it increasingly difficult to land stomps.

But I thinned the brood, reducing their claw attacks.

But not enough as they sliced through my armour and the Lancer too fell without fanfare or explosion.

The conclusion - Land Strider is probably unnecessary in this force - they're pretty fast anyway. +1 attacks is more useful as an extra stomp would have made all the difference against the Stealers/Hive Guard. Not much I can say about the Warglaives, perhaps learn not to 'sell them cheaply'. Hopefully at DT my pairings will provide numbers to hold objectives instead of half my army standing around doing nothing until they were swamped!

It does show how effective a large blob of Stealers can be - they killed a Warglaive without loss and took the Lancer down nearly 600pts and they were still alive! Anyway, bring on Saturday!

If you're interested in any more of my Battle Reports, point your cogitators here: www.40kaddict.uk/p/battle-reports.html

To Do List 2018/19

Having covered my achievements over the past season it's now that I look forward to the new one.

Apologies but my list is pretty much everything I still haven't completed from previous seasons. But I am working through these each year so the system does work. I've added a few new things though so there are some surprises to look forward to. Obviously my recent purchase of Imperial Knights Renegade changed my plans, casting doubt on my ability to tackle some of my original projects, but we shall see. Anything in bold is a priority, everything else is nice to have.

1. Develop a more healthy hobby/life balance - go to bed at a decent hour[ish], keeping a record might help [although tried it already for 2 months and it didn't]... 
2. Find time to play some games, not just tournament play...
3. At least one new Imperial Knight [I might need this for GT4 in Feb] I'm working on two at once I think that's achievable by Feb as I did the Cerastus in 3 months and I think I've got most of the production issues down now. They should be straightforward after the metallics!
   
4. Dark Angel - Ravenwing Dark Shroud
5. Dreadtober - I don't know what, a Hive Tyrant or Imperial Knight [unlikely in a month] but I want to try and take part in this again I might not complete my goal but the participation might help.
6. Dark Angel - Ravenwing Bikes [I might convert these to Black Knights]
7. Dark Angel - Ravenwing Attack Bikes [I might need one of these for GT4 in Feb]
8. Dark Angel - Deathwing Knights
9. Dark Angel - Macragge Tactical Squad

The remaining nid and terrain based items are these:

1. Some bits of Imperial terrain I have knocking about [Sanctum Imperialis, etc.] I could do with these for Armies on Parade but not holding my breath...
2. Genestealer Cult Abberants [they're all the rage now and I don't even have to arm them all with Power Hammers!]
3. 2 sets of Ferron Fire Firs - paint.
4. Tyranid Void Shield Generator [it had some progress last season, I just need to do more, even if it's just as a terrain piece, although unrealistic in the face of other projects]
5. Some Shadespire warbands
6. Blood Bowl Humans
7. Blood Bowl Orks [? yeah not likely but if I can get the hoomies done maybe...]

Pipe dream items - these are things that have been on my list and in all honesty I'm not likely to tackle this year but I do not want them forgotten so I'll just note them as things I'll eventually do, one day:

1. Tyranid Promethium Relay Pipes
2. Dark Angel - Aegis Defence Line [totally low down as most of the Fortifications suck game wise but it'd be nice to have some extra terrain pieces and I think it's actually the best value out of the pieces I have]
3. Tyranid Bastion Crater [I have zero intent to do this this season, if ever, just want to remind myself it exists]

The Big Build will continue this season. Still a lot of what was not complete from previous lists but  the principle is sound and pays dividends with those items that tend to be off-list that get built through to painting and completion.

• Ravenwing bikes
• Ravenwing attack bikes
• Ravenwing Talonmaster?
• Imperial Knight [x2?]
• More Ripper Swarms - 3 bases
• 2 Tyranid Hive Guard kitbashes...
• Space Hulk Genestealers - get them based!
• 3 Tyranid Lictors
• 3 Tyranid Warriors
• 3 Tyranid Shrikes
• 5 Dark Angel Veterans/Command Squad
• Remaining Deathwing Terminators
• Build some new terrain?

So that's me for 2018/19 I think I have quite a lot on my plate, especially when you take into account I need to balance things a little more. All the best for your own efforts this season.