Plug the Gap! War of Attrition mission report

Finished basing the Merkans last night.  Too wet and cool to seal, but packed them up anyways and took them out to the local store to get a re-inaugural game in with the Imperial Guard.  Managed to get a game with Chris, who I've talked with a number of times but have never played.  He was up for something outside the standard missions and wanted to give the "War of Attrition" mission from Battle Missions a try.  We broke out 1500pt lists and crammed them into a 4x4 table.

War of Attrition uses Victory Points to determine the, well, victor.  The big feature of the mission is "Unlimited Reserves", which recycles all troops choices (but not transports). 

The Merkan 76th brought:

Company Command Squad (PW, Regimental Standard, HB team)
Platoon Command Squad (PW, 2 GL)
      3xsquads with Plasmagun
      Mortar HW squad
      Lascannon HW squad
      Heavy Bolter HW squad
      2xML HW squads

Platoon Command Squad (PW, 2 GL)
      2xsquads with Plasmagun

Leman Russ Eradicator - hull lascannon

Leman Russ - hull lascannon, HB sponsons

Leman Russ - hull lascannon, HB sponsons

Chris brought his World Eaters:

3xBerzerker squads, two in Rhinos
Lord with Bloodfeeder
Chosen with Icon of Khorne, 3 flamers, plasmagun, heavy bolter
10 Terminators with a variety of death-dealing devices
Defiler

The IG went first, and furious shooting managed to immobilize the Defiler and shake one Rhino.  The World Eaters advanced through the hail of shells and energy blasts, and the Defiler blasts some Missile Launcher teams to oblivion.

The Guard reposition slightly to try to open up the Rhinos, but smoke > battlecannons, lascannons, and plasma.  The devotees of Khorne pile out and prepare to collect skulls.

Predictably the guardsmen are no match for the blood-crazed berzerkers.  The Lord gets an extra 11 attacks from his daemon weapon and his kills alone take out an entire squad. 

Guard shooting takes down a few 'zerkers on the right, and a battle cannon with some supplemental fire wipes the squad in the open.  The Chaos reserves arrive, with Chosen coming in on the guard right flank and wiping out the mortar squad, and the mass of terminators plops down facing the battle tanks.

The lord rolls a one and struggles with his own cleaver, but his associates collect more skulls for him.  The destroyed IG squads come back on, and help rain fire down on the World Eaters.  The terminators fare well, but the Chosen are wiped out except for the icon bearer.

Chaos destroys more IG squads.  They recycle, and it's hard finding enough room to bring them all in!

The remaining Chosen and the Lord with his squad are wiped out.  The terminators have their chainfists and powerfists in the back, so the IG attempt a couple of tank shocks, but the World Eaters hold firm.  Firing takes down two terminators.  They retaliate by charging both tanks, disabling the main gun on one and wrecking the other.

Some more squads get chopped to ribbons, and the terminators suck tons of fire, but three manage to survive. 

Eventually the game ends, and we total up points.  Some of my squads managed to die twice, but nobody died three times.  Even with such a high body count, the expense of the Chaos squads made the difference, and I ended up ahead in VP.  The line was held, the World Eaters pushed back.

It was a fun game, I had a good time.  The mission definitely favored my army build, with almost everything being Troops.  The matchup against an assault army may have helped too - anything that got close to a chainaxe died, but with the action on my side of the table I was able to get a lot of rapidfire (often FRFSRF aided) into the enemy from returning squads.

Dirty GIs - post "dip" Merkan IG

It's very wet out today, so the matte sealer will have to wait.  Here's some shots of them pre-based and pre-sealer, but post-stain.  Compare with pre-stain pics HERE.

The shading isn't quite as good as I wanted, but overall it did what I wanted - added a little definition, darkened things up a bit and gave them a grimy look.  More time and more traditional methods would yield better results, but for the time involved and a mass army I'm pretty pleased.

I didn't want to go as heavy as I did with my Orks so instead of using the wood stain straight, I made a watered-down mix.  I used equal parts wood stain, floor polish, and water.  I've heard of other folks using the polish to help washes flow, figured it would work here as well.

Once you mix it, it should look like cocoa.  Over time it will settle (second pic) and will need to be shaken up/mixed, as the stain will sink to the bottom.  Slower mixing or rolling can avoid the bubbles.

I use the water-based stain to avoid the smell and make working with it/clean up easier.  Even watered down, the stuff can be gunky so be sure to use specific brushes for it and clean them fairly often to avoid build up.  Also a good idea to refresh your rinse water cup before going back to regular paint/brushes.

I just brushed it on, though you could actually "dip" if desired.  I dipped a few of the figs to try it out, but for me the extra time from brushing was worth not having to take longer taking off excess and dealing with extra mess.

More WIP Imperial Guard shots

Some more WIP pics of the Merkan 76th.  I think the painting is done, will go on to the staining stage next, but wanted to show the "before" shots to show the differences in shading pre- and post- stain.

I added a "lucky" blue stripe on the Ork heads to break up the green on green.

Thanks folks!

Almost a year in with this blog, and I just wanted to thank some folks.  I've certainly gotten more out of this experience so far than I expected to!  At first I mostly expected it to be just a central place for me to have things, share with some locals and the like.  But now I really do feel like part of a community.

First of all, thanks to Colkillgore of My Little World of Dementia for being my inspiration - I was looking at his stuff for a while and eventually figured I could do that too.  Heck, I even liked his layout so much I used that too!

Second, the blogrolls at Bell of Lost Souls and From the Warp that you can see on the left.  They've helped expose my little corner to a lot of people, and have exposed me to many others as well.  Regardless of anything else they do, gathering so many blogs together has been a great service to the online 40K crew.

Third, you folks, the readers and especially those who comment and follow.  I especially appreciate those who leave some kind of footprint, and not only for the ego boost or conversations.  If you're interested in what I put up here, odds are I'd be interested in what you're doing, and interested in others you follow.  I've found lots of great stuff that's a step off the beaten path by seeing what else you folks follow and the links you've included in your own posts.  So when you comment or follow, you're doing me a double service, and I thank you for it!

OK, that's all for now, but hopefully I'll have completed IG pics up in the next couple of days.

From Merka with Love - IG Missile Teams WIP

I decided to do some writing on the ML team's missiles, like artillery/bomber crews sometimes do.

Skull, "Kil" like they used to have all over RT stuff, and a Kilroy.

"Pop!", "Name" - as in, yours on it, "Krak!"

"Ouch", "Hi!", "Die".

An explosion, "Deth", and a lightning bolt like their shoulder insignia.

I would have liked to do somewhat longer ones, but limited by my brush and steadiness.  Maybe more extensive ones if I ever add a Manticore or something to the army. :-)

Astrakenor the Accursed, finishing up IG

I hope to have the Merkan infantry done this week, but here's where they stand at the moment.

I also got an idea for how I wanted to make the Straken counts-as for my Traitors, so threw him together the other night.  Trying to find an EC lord backpack to finish him off.  But here he is in his partial state - Astrakenor the Accursed, Prophet of the Dark Gods!

Happy Mother's Day

Just a quick note to hope all you gaming mothers, and gamers with mothers, and mothers with gamers have a great day today!

Hooray for the Norn Queens!

Word Bearer Attack!

 The tournament I was planning on going to Saturday ended up getting canceled, but it's not a complete loss.  I decided to use one of my city terrain sections as a display/transport board and took a few pics.

Dreadie Mercury