Triad Cluster Campaign: Space Wolf saga continues, more Legendary Units

Some more players added, running of all things 30K lists.  We'll see how that goes!  Iron Hands and Sons of Horus join the fray.

New Legendary Units:

 

The Tears of Cretacia (Flesh Tearers) 15 Death Company with Jump packs

Forever Blazing Dragons - 10 Fire Dragons including Exarch with Firepike

 

The Fists of Ferrus (Iron Hands) 3x thud gun weapons platforms, 6x crew men

Triad Cluster Campaign: Completed Shokktroopahs, legendary bikers, and Adeptus Sororitas prepare to purge!

Shokktroopahs from the Steel Leejun ready for battle!

We can survive bolters and flamers half the time!

But just to be sure, push the weedier gits up front.

The Way we Were - Sons of Taurus 2014 in review!

Yep, time for another of those posts.  

Looking back over the year so far, looks like:

Posts: 75

Leagues/campaigns: 4

Tournaments: 1

New player events: 2

Battles: 33 reported (16 win, 13 loss, 4 ties) plus probably another 10-12 unreported.

Miniatures completed: 114

Vehicles/larger models completed: 11

Terrain pieces completed: 5

The bulk of the models came from completing the Void Phantoms Eldar/Dark Eldar Corsairs army.  

In the various leagues/campaigns I played the Void Phantoms, Space Sharks, Scythiak and Endless Ones.  For 2015 the Orks are next up in the rotation, and we'll probably see more Chaos Marines and the Merkan 76th showing up later in the year.  

For projects I have a bunch of CSM and related models to paint, a bunch of terrain pieces to put together and perhaps some additions to various armies.  I don't think we'll see a brand new army unless I get some amazing deal or decide to knock out a bunch of the fantasy Chaos guys I have partway done.

 

Thanks for reading in 2014, hope to see you in 2015!

WIP Shokktroopahs

Some WIP "Shokktroopahs", aka Ard Boyz.  These are made from regular plastic boy and nob parts.  Still need basing, and I am debating whether or not they are done enough or if I should add the stain mix I used on my other orks for extra shading.

 

Gellar Field Charlie: Games

(Part one can be found HERE)

Round one I was on the snow table with the Grey Knights/Space Wolves/Space Marine/Inquisition army, bunch of purifiers, squad of TH terminators, squad of centurions, bunch of psykers with various gimmicks, some mandatory chaff squads of blood claws and scouts.  Space Wolf pods turned over to the Grey Knights and the marine centurions.  I set up with the terminators delayed until turn two, hoping to have his guys committed then deploy termies away from the big threats and clear up his chaff, or be able to use the teleport homers on the bikes to all come in and deal with the threats one at a time.  They took out the attack bike and shot up the other on-field guys a bit.

Gellar Field Charlie: Setup

They have so much terrain they have a special shelf for Evil Shrines.  I approve!

Saturday some fellow locals and I trekked out to Atomic Empire in Durham for a 40K tournament.  I'm not a big tourney player, but several others were planning to go and we are in a lull between local leagues/campaigns so I decided to go along.  Three rounds, 2000pts, anything short of unbound goes.  I decided to bring the "Shark Angels", Space Sharks count-as Dark Angels, with a bunch of terminators and some other support.

We had:

1. Astra Militarum
2. Chaos Space Marines / Necrons
3. Space Marines / Astra Militarum / Space Wolves
4. Adepta Sororitas / Inquisition
5. Grey Knights / Inquisition / Space Marines
6. Necrons
7. Orks
8. Chaos Daemons
9. Eldar
10. Dark Angels (me)
11. Eldar
12. Chaos Daemons / Heretics and Traitors
13. Chaos Daemons / Chaos Space Marines
14. GreyKnights / Space Marines / Space wolves / Inquisition
15. Eldar: Iyanden / Dark Eldar
16. Chaos Daemons / Space Wolves

Triad Cluster Campaign: Buildup

Some tidbits as we get closer to starting the Triad Cluster campaign:

 

Triad Cluster campaign

++ LORD COMMANDERS MILITANT ++

AS YOU ARE DOUBTLESS AWARE, THE TRIAD CLUSTER HAS LONG BEEN A SCENE OF CONFLICT WITH VARIOUS XENO RACES, NOTABLY ORKS AND ELDAR.  FOR SOME TIME THE CONFLICTS HAD REACHED A ROUGH EQUILIBRIUM.

RECENTLY HOWEVER A SERIES OF EVENTS HAVE DISRUPTED THAT EQUILIBRIUM.

HERETICAL INFLUENCE AND WARP INSTABILITY HAVE BOTH BEEN ON THE RISE.  IT IS UNCLEAR IF THERE IS A DIRECT CONNECTION AND IF SO WHICH GAVE RISE TO THE OTHER.  THIS INSTABILITY IN THE WARP HAS APPARENTLY ALSO SERVED AS A BEACON TO OTHER MALIGNANT FORCES – AN INFLUX OF ORKS IS GIVING RISE TO A NEW “WAAGH”, A TYRANID HIVE FLEET IS ENCROACHING ON THE CLUSTER FROM THE GALACTIC EAST, AND MONITORING STATIONS NEAR LONG-DORMANT NECRON TOMB WORLDS ARE REPORTING INCREASED ACTIVITY.  ALSO OF NOTE IS A TAU EXPLORATOR FORCE THAT HAS BEEN OBSERVED MAKING COMMON CAUSE WITH THE ELDAR ON SEVERAL OCCAISIONS.

ALL IS NOT DARK HOWEVER MY LORDS.  WE HAVE MANY ENEMIES BUT THEY ARE DIVIDED WHILE WE STAND UNITED WITH THE FULL IMPERIUM BEHIND US.  EVEN NOW, FORCES FROM SEVERAL SPACE MARINE CHAPTERS HAVE ANSWERED OUR CALLS AND HAVE BEGUN TO DEPLOY – THE DARK ANGELS, SPACE WOLVES, AND FLESH TEARERS WILL SOON BE ENGAGING OUR FOES.  WE HAVE ALSO BEEN RECEIVING ASSISTANCE FROM THE ADEPTUS SORORITAS IN DEFENSE OF THREATENED SHRINE WORLDS AND IN PURGING HERETICAL AND GENESTEALER CULTS.

GOOD LUCK COMMANDERS.

INQUISITOR DARIUS HELGRAVE

++ FAITH IS MY SHIELD ++

In a few weeks we'll be starting up a semi-narrative 40K campaign.  At the moment we have sixteen players (currently grouped into teams as follows): 

Endless Ones Havocs - twin-linked!

By request, here are some close-ups of the Endless Ones autocannon squad.  As I've said before, the Havoc champion gets the short end of the Chaos stick.  While other squad leaders are charging into the enemy and stacking up Chaos Boons, the poor Havoc Champion's fate is to stand slightly closer to the enemy and hope he keeps making saves.  We salute you!

Can just one model in a unit go to ground?  No?  Oh well.

The Champion is dead!  The enemy must be in range!  Open fire!

I think the skull on the spike is from the former squad champion.  Or in the Endless Ones, perhaps one of the champion's former bodies.

Endless Ones Havoc Squad

Finished up my autocannon havoc squad for the Endless Ones.  

For my next trick, undecided as to whether I will work on painting my plastic replacement warboss and a 20-strong ardboys squad to go in my recently finished battlewagon

or more Chaos - cultists, big mixed renegade squad or possessed.

I'm currently leaning towards the orks or the mixed renegades, but we will see in the days ahead...

Free Shipping!

"Only" 525 pounds!  Includes *two* brass etch sheets!

 

(actually it's not that bad considering what you get...)

League Report: Scythiak Usurpation vs. Orks

League game against Leonard's orks, my 1400pts against his 1100.  While I had been getting pummeled by various marine armies Leonard has been on a good run, hence our point disparity (for those just joining us, for this league we started at 1000pts and when you lose a game you get +100pts).  We used missions James M had written up, and our combination led us to a very heavy board control mission, with objectives in each quadrant and quadrants as objectives themselves, plus the normal first blood, etc.

Legendary

Our current league is going to run through the end of the year and we have been thinking about what might come next.  Here are some WIP ideas I have been mulling over for our 40K group's next organized play event.  Thought I'd share for input and in case anyone else might find it a useful starting point for their own groups.

Lost and the Damned: Modern Edition

If you want a good picture of a Chaos uprising in 40K, ISIS/ISIL/Islamic State seems like a pretty good model. 

• Take advantage of existing unrest, turning it to own ends.
• Absorb turncoats into your ranks and make use of captured equipment.
• Destroy rival religious sites and iconography.
• Atrocity as a goal itself as much as a tool or byproduct.

A lot is similar to other revolutionary movements of course.  You could easily put a Chaotic spin on numerous past events and movements - the French Revolution, the Khmer Rouge, various religious conflicts, etc. and use them as an inspiration for a Lost and the Damned force.  If you're looking for inspiration from GW sources, check out my Lost and the Damned Bibliography. 

 

“Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.” - George Orwell (1984)

40K League: Scythiak vs. Dark Angels, Look up in the Sky! and Silver Skulls vs. Endless Ones!

While the Arch-heretic Astrakenor has been taken by the Dark Angels, the Scythiak don't let that interrupt their plans for conquest!  

Another league game with Mike S and his Dark Angels, with me at 1400pts, him at 1200.  With my point totals having crept upwards I figured it was time to break out the Ogryn.  So backed up by a psyker and two priests the big fellas took the field.  Mike brought along a dreadnought, the perfect tool for crunching Ogryn if it could get into combat, and a whirlwind, terror to hordes of light troops everywhere.  Could be rough!  We rolled up a game of Scouring with Vanguard Strike deployment.

Terrainamania

Terrain has been the name of the game here lately.  Our league group has been talking about more terrain, and we had a hobby day to work on some today.  The day before, sonofsonsoftaurus and I worked on a few pieces to bring along as well.  Above is the volcano I built and we both worked on painting, along with ork for scale.  

40K League Reports: Scythiak vs. CSM and Dark Angels

Two league games completed last weekend, one against James' CSM and the second against Ben's Dark Angels, part 2 of the Hunt for Astrakenor!

Battlewagon 2: Basically finished

Made some time for painting the battlewagon I made some weeks ago.  Ended up a little sloppier than I originally intended, but I'm OK with that for orks.

40K League report: Scythiak vs. Dark Angels

Thankfully 40K has no rules for crossfire.

League game with Mike S and his Dark Angels.  For the DA I brought a tempting target, the Arch-Heretic Astrakenor, traitor marine cult instigator who was rumored to have once met a guy who may have seen a vid of someone in old black armor with a Calibani accent.  How armor has an accent, I don't know, but the interrogator-chaplains would like to find out!  Astrakenor runs with the rules for Col. Iron Hand Straken, who has great stats for a CSM champion.  We had 1100pts each and played the Scouring.

 

7th Edition Turn Sequence - Part Two

2.01 Shut up  2.02 Dance 2.99 The Police Come

Following up from the basic version yesterday, here's a more complicated version which includes Dark Angels, Space Marines, Imperial Guard, Orks, Chaos Space Marines, Chaos Daemons and Eldar.  Input welcome.  If folks want to go through some other books, please email me (profile on the side) with things that go special places in the turn sequence - tell me what the rule is called and when it happens (ex: "Nids do Weird Thing" at end of Assault Phase) and I'll see about making an even more complete list.  Enjoy!

7th edition 40K Turn Sequence - Basics

I've long complained about the lack of a real, comprehensive turn sequence for 40K.  Each new book comes out with various things that happen at the start of this phase or the end of that, and the company doesn't seem to care about helping to keep track.  Here's a start.  

This is just based on the basic rules.  I tried to put things that happen at the same time with the same number, and things that happen at the end of a particular phase will have an x.99 designation.  Later I'll post the list including the books I have/went through, and will welcome emails with more info from other books/dataslates/etc.

40K League Report: Scythiak vs. Eldar

I managed to get a league game in, this time against Josh's Eldar, my 1100pts vs. his undefeated 1000pts in a Relic match.  I reordered things a bit, changing my vets to stormtroopers/scions, dropping rough riders and a sentinel to pick up two priests and a Leman Russ Exterminator, and using my extra 100pts for an Aegis line with quad gun for more anti-skimmer shots.  

Scythiak vs. Space Wolves - Tooth and Nail

For our league day I...played something else.  Gotta get back in and catch up on league games next week!  Instead I played an 1850pt game against Scott's Space Wolves to help him prep for an event he plans to attend.  We ended up with a game of Relic.  I loaded up on Scythiak, breaking out the Ogryn with attached psyker and priests plus some daemon-summoning Wyrdvane squads.

40K League: Cult, meet Genestealer

Whew!  Tiring week.  Just got around to loading up pictures from last Sunday.  I had a game against a player returning to the game (Mike S) and his Dark Angels, and then a league game against Josh M and his Tyranids.

It's been a while so I won't get into a blow by blow, but here's some pictures:

40K League: Day One

We got our newest league started today, got a few games in and met some more prospective players.  All in all a productive gaming day!  Above Leonard's orks battle Joshua's Tyranids.

 

 

 Scott and I set up to play our first game of the league, his Space Wolves against the Scythiak Usurpation.  1000pts a side.  The Scythiak set up ready to move forward in the teeth of enemy fire.

 

40K army checklist

We had a question for our upcoming 40K league that I thought wouldn't be well-answered by a Facebook reply, so I brought it over here:

It appears that this 40K league will have several new or returning players including myself. One of the things I did was a small checklist for army building when involved with the Fantasy league. This question goes out to the more experienced players:  When creating an army list what items or capabilities do you make sure that it has?

There have been some good replies already, and some of this will overlap.  Keep in mind this is for a pretty casual league.  I don't think we'll see super-tough top meta builds or anything like that; the advice is more geared to being sure you have options and aren't blindsided.

So, what should I keep in mind while building a 40K army?  The more you can answer with a yes the better, but you don't necessarily need all of them.  There are multiple ways to do most things, and a single unit can do multiple things, but be careful of relying too much on any one unit.  A lot of things also come down to how you use something, not just the army build itself.  Caveats aside:

• Can I secure objectives on my side of the table? (Can I have units be there at the end of the game? Can they survive?)
• Can I secure objectives on the other side of the table/get Linebreaker?
• Can I get First Blood and protect myself against it?
• Can I get Slay the Warlord and protect myself against it? (Do you have ways to protect your own Warlord?  Do you have ways to pick out the enemy Warlord?)
• Can I handle hordes?
• Can I handle elite infantry (2+ saves)? (either weapons that can bypass the saves or ability to kick out enough wounds they are bound to fail saves)
• Can I handle high AV vehicles and high Toughness targets? (some things work against both, some only vs one - poison is great against T8 but lousy against AV for example)
• Do I have a way to ignore cover?
• Do I have a way to get at somebody hiding? (Fast units, indirect fire)
• Can I handle flyers? (Skyfire, buckets of dice or ability to weather them?)
• Is my army fun to play against? (Great point by one of our players, Will!)
• Is my army fun to play?

A word on flexibility - be sure to take a second look at things that inherently offer extra flexibility.  Things like missile launchers, with different fire modes or psykers that can look at the mission and the opposition before deciding what disciplines to go for.

Other things?  Things you think are more important than others?

And They Shall Know No Rules - aftermath

A smaller turnout than hoped for, but we still ended up with four new or returning players in the end.  First off we had an old grudge match, Dark Angels vs. Space Wolves (Ben and Scott, respectively), and I broke out the Orks to battle Josh M's Tyranids. Swarmlord is a beast!  He would have been even nastier if Josh's dice had given him more respect.

7th Ed 40K quick table of contents

Just a quick post, if you find it useful great, if not no worries.  For your convenience a reference sheet showing where in the book different things are found in case you don't want to use the index or table of contents.  I put it together for some new and returning players I will be having another "And They Shall Know No Rules" event for.  Enjoy!

Warhammer 40K 7^th edition reference sheet

Movement Phase p18

               Difficult/dangerous terrain p108

               Movement table p199

Psychic Phase p22

               Powers – see codex or p192

Shooting Phase p30 (Ranged Weapons p176)

               To hit – p32 (p200)

               Snap shots – p32

               To-wound table p34 (p200)

               Move & shoot? (p201)

               Saves/AP pp36-7

               Run/Turboboost/Flat Out p38, p63, p75 (p199)

(Weapons p40)

Assault Phase p44 (Melee Weapons p178)

               Overwatch p45

               To hit p49 (p202)

Morale p56

               Regrouping p59

Unit Types p62

Vehicles p72 (plus pp201-2)

               Shooting at vehicles p75

               Vehicles in assault p78

               Transports p80

               Flyers p84

               Chariots p86

               Open Topped/Heavy/Fast Vehicles p88

               Skimmers p89

               Walkers p90

               Tanks (and Tank Shock/Ramming) p92

               Super-Heavy Vehicles p94

               Vehicle Upgrades p98 and codex

              

Characters p100

               Challenges p101

              

Terrain p108

Choosing your Army p116 and codex

Warlord/Warlord Traits p124 and codex

Allies p126 (Allied detachment p122)

Missions p128

Special Rules p156 (including Blast, Independent Character, Template)

Ranged Weapons p176 and codex

Melee Weapons p178 and codex

Grenades p180 and codex

Psychic Powers p192 and codex

Reference tables p199

40K Demo - Void Phantoms vs. Space Wolves

Learning game with a returning player Scott and his Space Wolves.  We were playing 1500pts, Emperor's Will (one objective each).  I clustered up and dared the wolves to come get me.  Here they are!

40K Campaign - Void Phantoms vs. Eldar

With no easier targets available, I arranged a campaign fight with the boogeyman - Josh's Wave Serpent/Wraithknight Eldar.

With the cover-ignoring Wave Serpents I wasn't expecting to last long, but wanted to get a few licks in before I went down, hopefully poisoning/bladestorming the Wraithknights to death quickly.  I set my larger squads up in the open ready to advance and shoot quickly before being erased themselves.

Go hard or go home

Some more work on the battlewagon and the guys who will ride in it, a 20-strong Ard Boyz mob!

Since last time I added a few gubbins to the wagon, notably a smokestack and an interior floor and some ladders for helping go over the top.

Some fantasy black orcs, a nob, some regular boyz with extra armor and some old metal tankbustas I got planning to make some back in 3rd ed IIRC, finally took them out of the blisters.  They have some decent armor and I like the skull masks half of them have.

View into the passenger zone, some Cyberclicks pieces helping out.

Thanks for looking!

Pic dump: Campaign games

Thanks to my friend Joel and his phone, I have a few pics of today's events, my own camera having been left behind.  Above, my army at 1500pts (plus warlord) waiting to hit the table.

Orks: WIP Battlewagon

I plan on making a second, larger mob of Ard Boyz for my orks and wanted an Ard ride for them, so I looked at some of my spare kits and decided on the amphibious transport above as the base.  Partly because it's a good size, works well as a transport, and it's kind of funny for my desert-themed orks to be tooling around in an amphibious vehicle.  But hey, if the Steel Legion can tool around the Ash Wastes in all those Chimeras, why not?

Void Phantoms and Orks vs. more Orks!

In an attempt to further help my Ork opponent from the last game get a little more experience, I brought him along as my ally against Leonard's Orks.  

Campaign Report: Void Phantoms vs. Space Wolves, Ork interlude, Tyranids

Campaign day down at Gaming Underground.  I was able to stay longer today than normal, and got involved in a variety of games.

First up, campaign game that counts towards last round, 750pts vs. Space Wolves so Eric can get a game in as he was out of town last weekend.

Campaign report: Void Phantoms vs. Slaaneshi Marines

Campaign game against McCoy's Chaos Marines.  SuperHQ plus 750pts.  Missions were primary random objective cards, secondary relic, "secondary" objectives like First Blood as tertiary.

One of his warlord traits was to allow multiple infiltrators, which I forgot included the bikes.  I set up my D-cannons forward but neglected to have other things close enough to push him further back.  I decided to make deployment really crazy and infiltrated the rangers and scorpions too, and we placed different places denying infiltration zones to each other.  

Rangers set up to cover one objective and sacrifice themselves to the three squads of noise marines.