Recent project: Leman Russ "Annihilator"

I've spent the last few days building a predator for my Deathwing. I didn't really want to buy one or use one of my unbuilt Ba'als... So I came up with this.

I think it came out well enough. Look forward to using it this weekend.

Aeronautica Imperialis Fleet - Beginning

There was some recent activity with some people looking to start playing AI and I've always been somewhat interested in aerial combat so I was naturally drawn to it. When BFG placed the large forge world order I decided to get myself a fleet. I thought about what I wanted, and decided I didn't really want any imperial craft. It was really between Eldar and Tau, in the end Tau won out as I figured there would be a greater number of people playing the Eldar.

I wanted to get a fairly diverse group of aircraft so I went with:

1 Manta (I had to have one)
6 Barracuda
4 Tigershark AX-1-0
1 Tigershark AX-2-2

I started assembly this week.


I had to do some intricate repair work on the manta as it arrived damaged, but in the end I think it's not looking too bad.

BFG 'Eavy Tournament: 5/10/2008

This was the first time I've played in a BFG 'Eavy tournament seriously and I had fairly good results. I had seen the field from the first tournament and I knew basically what to expect. There was a good turn out and I think somewhere between 16 and 20 players. I've wanted to give the three monolith 'crons list a try for a while now and this was a perfect time.
Lord w/ Res. Orb
14 Warriors
14 Warriors
12 Warriors
10 Immortals
4 Destroyers
4 Destroyers
Monolith
Monolith
Monolith

ROUND 1: Witch Hunters/Guard
Primary Objective: Victory points
Secondary Objective: Destroy an enemy vehicle or monstrous creature
Tertiary Objective: Kill an enemy independent character
Bonus Point: Have a friendly unit in your deployment zone
Mike and I were paired up in round 1. I know he wasn't looking forward to having to face the three monolith's as he'd mentioned before, but I think I was the one who was more scared. I've always hated exorcists since the first time I played against one, whenever that was. They seem to have my number. This game was no different. A couple monoliths were destroyed as well as a bunch of destroyers and all the immortals. In the end it wasn't enough and the Necrons won 19-6.

ROUND 2: Space Marines
I forgot to take pictures of the second game after packing my camera for lunch...
Primary Mission: Table quarters
Secondary Mission: Victory Points
Tertiary Mission: Have fewer scoring units than your opponent at the end of the game
Bonus Points: Have a unit in the enemy deployment zone

Josiah had completely crushed me during the last 'Eavy tournament, though I didn't think it would be so easy this time. He had a large number of razorbacks each full of space marines with heavy weapons. He had a couple speeders, an anihilator, a godhammer, and an inquisitor. Though the Monoliths were surprisingly easy to take down, turn 1, turn 2, and immobilized turn 4 (the turn it came in), the rest of the necrons seemed to be impervious. In the end, only 2 destroyers and a single warrior were taken down. He did take down 2 of a 3 man squad on the bottom of turn 6 to deny my the crushing victory. In the end, a small victory, 12-8 for the necrons.

ROUND 3: Mechanized Eldar
Primary Mission: Victory points
Secondary Mission: Table quarters
Tertiary Mission: Get a selected friendly unit into the enemy deployment zone
Bonus Point: None

I had never played Aventine any of the times I've seen him at tournaments and I was really looking forward to finally getting to play him. His army consisted of 3 falcons, 2x6 fire dragons, 2x avengers in serpents, 6 pathfinders, farseer on jetbike, autarch on jetbike, 6 banshees. I think that's everything.

I controlled the game most of the way through, with a little help from the farseer who perils of the warp-ed himself 3 times in a row(6-6, 6-6, 1-1), the last finally killing him. In the end only 4 Pathfinders, 6 avengers, and the three falcons survived (even after what was probably 70 glancing hits). Aventine said from about turn 2.5, he was just trying to deny me the primary objective and due to the goddamn falcons, he did so. A Necron win, 8-0. Aventine was already 10 points ahead of me going into round 3 so he kept first place. However, his position would only be temporary as a couple people shanked their last games giving some 20+ point victories to table 3 and 4 catapulting them ahead of both of us and me down to 4th place. It is a little frustrating when even being the only one with 3 wins doesn't get you first, but c'est la vie.


Next on the tournament list is the first league day at Ninja Pirate. I still have not absolutely decided what I'm going to play after the recent revelation that vehicle unit's were allowed and not models as had been discussed. I'm relatively certain that it will be the blood angels though.

Battle Report: Blood Angels vs. Chaos 2000 pts

Was glad to get another game at Mike's house. They are always fun.

We decided not to do a practice session for the 'Eavy tournament at BFG this weekend and just wanted to do something fun. I've been wanting to try my new Blood Angels League list for a while now and this was a good opportunity.

Chaplain Lamartes
10x Death Company w/ Jump Packs
8x Veteran Assault w/ 3x Power Fist, 2x Meltagun, Jump Packs
5x Assault Marines w/ 2x Plasma Pistol, Sergeant w/ Powerfist
5x Assault Marines w/ 2x Plasma Pistol, Sergeant w/ Powerfist
5x Assault Marines w/ 2x Plasma Pistol, Sergeant w/ Powerfist
Venerable Death Company Furioso w/ Heavy Flamer in Drop Pod
Venerable Death Company Furioso w/ Heavy Flamer in Drop Pod
Ba'al Predator w/ Heavy Bolter Sponsoons
Predator Annihilator w/ Heavy Bolter Sponsoons

Ba'al Predator and Assault Squad

I really like the flavor and "theme"-ness of this list and I enjoy playing it. We were going to do normal missions, but after rolling Take and Hold, we decided that didn't sound so fun so we switched over to Rules of Engagement. We decided to use the original/real rule set for this game. We rolled the long edges deployment and set up our markers. Mike rolled Firebase for his objective and I of course rolled Bombardment. I've played this version of Bombardment before and it is really really tough. So I knew I had a hell of a challenge ahead of me. I was pretty happy Mike was playing Christina's Chaos army instead of one of his own or I wouldn't even stand a chance.

Death Company and Assault Squad

Veteran Assault SquadMike won turn turn roll, but chose to give first turn to me. Bombardment was actually more useful (slightly) than usual and 2 terminators were killed before the start of the game. I moved everything up and took some shots around the board. I did a wound to an obliterator with the annihilator and I might have done a little more damage, but I can't remember. I think I might have rended a terminator, but he saved... Anyway, my turn was over pretty quickly. Mike deployed mostly to a single corner of the board to negate my mobility advantage as would be expected. I had spread my forces out a little more than I should have I think. The sorcerer lashed the death company forward into the middle of a few squads that were looking forward to unloading on the poor insane marines. Six or seven death company marines were killed in the volley and one of the obliterators blow the las cannon off the annihilator.

My turn was a bit more eventful as everything was getting out from behind cover and shooting. One dreadnought came in and heavy flamed his berserkers that had just jumped out of their transport killing a few. In hind sight, I might have been better off to follow Mike's advice from before and gotten a little further away from the demon prince and popped smoke. I'm rather afraid of that since it has no affect in CC. An assault squad took some shots at the demon prince and wounded him. The remaining death company took some shots at the thousand sons and killed a couple. Another assault squad killed an obliterator. The death company charged the thousand sons and also engaged the raptor squad. The Assault squad charged the demon prince, but I messed up and shouldn't have been able to do it as the prince was in cover and I'd failed to take a DT test. Oh well, the prince was nasty enough that we just let it go. Hacking and slashing felled 2 marines and the powerfist retaliated for 2 more wounds. The death company did their thing and took the thousand sons below scoring and killed a couple raptors for good measure.

In the end, I killed just about everything Mike had on the board, but failed to kill just enough for him to have more models on a couple objectives giving him a 2-1 win.

Battle Report: Saim Hann vs. Witch Hunters 2000 pts.

Always a good time playing Mike, this was no different.

We set up a last minute game at his house and I had everything set. I'd just play the army I was planning to bring this weekend to DL and throw in an WH inquisitor w/ some friends and an eversor. It was all good until I realized that I already had 2 HQ choices in the basic 1750 point list... D'OH!

So scrambling, I decided to just bring the Saim Hann and give it another try outside of a tournament setting.

Autarch on Jetbike, PW, fusion gun
3x jetbike guardians w/ warlock on jetbike, shuriken cannon, destructor (x3)
4x jetbike guardians w/ shuriken cannon
2x vyper w/ starcannon, scatter laser, holofield, spirit stones (x3)
falcon w/ scatter laser, shuriken cannon, holofield, spirit stones, vectored engine (x2)
3x war walkers w/ scatter laser, starcannon

Mike had 2 exorcist, HB retributers, 2 sister squads, a large platoon w. 4 or 5 las cannons and a ton of plasma, an inquisitor w/ 3 HBs/chururgeon/acolyte/liber, 2x3 death cult, seraphim. We decided to play some RoE since NP hadn't had a tournament in a while.

We rolled the diagonal deployment zones and played our objectives. He used Liber to choose his side so he deployed first.
The terrain was a bit light, which I think is a big weakness for Saim Hann. I think it has a better chance on a well covered table with plenty of stuff to hide behind until they can get within range. Mike won first turn and his shooting performed well. Though he had no shot to a falcon, he took down 3 vypers before they'd even gotten a chance to fire. A couple of jetbikes bit it too, one squad falling back almost off the board edge. I immobilized and shook one of the exorcists, just shook the other. I took down some guardsman, and parts of the inquisitor squad, but everyone stood fast.
Turn two saw the end of a couple more vypers and most of the remaining jetbikes. At the end of turn two I had the falcons, a single vyper, the autarch, 1 walker, a warlock and a small squad of bikes. A fragile army (except for the falcons) like this doesn't really stand a chance against mikes WH, they would probably do well at an 'eavy tournament. The games got interesting after this though.

Turn three shook a vyper and a falcon and killed just about everything else. All I had left was the 2 falcons and a vyper. So I decided to have some fun. I rammed the vyper into the guardsman in cover and the falcon slammed ass first into the squads in front of it sending a guard squad right off the table edge. I'm having more and more fun with tank shocking lately. All the shots he could musted only shook it further, though the vyper bit the dust.

Next turn I tank shocked a bunch more squads, again sending a guard squad running off the table edge. None of my shooting was overly effective for this game. I killed more with the tank shocking I think, I should have done that from the beginning.

Anyway, in the end it was at least a solid victory for the inquisition as it should have been and the weaknesses of Saim Hann further reared their ugly heads. Though it's a fun army, the parts of it that seem to do well are the parts that are not very Saim Hann'y. I will say that I do like the vypers with holofields. Makes them just hard enough to kill.

Hopefully I'll be able to get another game next week. I should have the blood angels ready by then for another test run.

BFG Hobby Tournament: 4/12/08

This was my first hobby tournament at Battleforge. The turn out was very good, 20 players in all. The variety of armies was quite good as well, every race save Dark Eldar was represented. I was playing Necrons as I was not able to get my Deathwing finished in time as I mentioned before.
Nightbringer
Necron Lord w/ Destroyer Body, Res. Orb
10x Warriors
10x Warriors
12x Warriors
10x Immortals
5x Destroyers
3x Wraiths
Monolith

I thought this a rather "hobby" list with only the single Monolith and the Nightbringer, who though he is nasty, is not any more than hobby nasty I don't think. In retrospect, I think I was still too worried about the hobby aspect of the tournament and I would probably be better served using an average list. I would probably only change a few things and the list would be quite a bit nastier.
ROUND 1: Tau
Round 1 was against Daniel and his blue Tau. I've played against them a few times before. His list was very well balanced, though I still maintain that kroot are useless. He had a large squad of kroot, 2 fiirewarrior squads on foot, 2 firewarriors squads in devilfish, a large sniper drone squadron, 2 railheads, 2 three man crisis squads, a crisis commander, and a scout squad.
The rules for each round got progressively weirder, though the story line seemed good. I think it might have been stranger than it really needed to be. The first round was 15" deployment zones with the primary objective being victory points with added points for scoring units within 12" of the center, the secondary being to have more scoring units than your opponent in your opponents deployment, and tertiary being to have more scoring units in your own deployment zone than your opponent. There were bonus points for having your unsung heroes surviving as well as destroying enemy HQ.

I nominated one of my smaller units of warriors my unsung heroes as they would be the most likely choice to survive the game if they kept back. I won the turn roll and passed to Daniel. He moved some things around and took what shots he could, though there was not much in the open and combined with the dawn rule, he was mostly out of range. My turn did not go much better, though I felled a few things. The next turn saw 4 destroyers fall as well as 8 warriors. All but 2 warriors stood back up. The game didn't go much better for him the later it went on. Crushing victory for the necrons.

ROUND 2 - Eldar
Round 2 was against Shaun and his not so mechy eldar list. I believe it went something like... 3x 6 harlequins w/ shadowseer and kisses, 3x wraithlord w/ missile launcher and something, 2 or 3x guardian jetbikes w/ warlock, shining spears, autarch on jetbike, 2x 9 or 10 warp spiders. The mission was I have no idea what, but it used escalation. Ick.
Escalation being a disaster usually for the necrons I wasn't looking forward to it. A warrior squad in the front was dead on turn 2. Other things started arriving in piece meal and I kept it somewhat even, but I could not halt the wave until turn 4 when the monolith finally arrived and could save some squads, occasionally. Wraithlords are extremely hard to kill for the crons, but I did manage to take one down with a mass of gaussy firepower. In the end, I could just not compete with the super-mobility of the eldar when the mission was to hold terrain pieces and table quarters. He ended up contesting terrain with a single war spider, a single shining spear and a grievously wounded wraithlord where I needed to use scoring units to claim it. In the end a minor victory for the eldar.
ROUND 3 - Tyranid
I won't get into the short start of the game against Dillon and his swarmzilla army as due to some... unpleasantness... I ended up leaving early from the tournament. I didn't get a chance to get any pictures of that game.

Congrats to the winners! Hopefully next time I will be able to stay for the tournament in it's entirety.

Battle Report: 4/9/08

Finally got to play Mike C. again. We decided to get a game at his house and to test our armies for the Hobby tournament at BFG this weekend. I've been oscillating between my Necrons, which would be the choice with greater killing power or my Deathwing, which is the more fluffy army.

I've wanted to bring out the deathwing again for a while now so I decided to take this opportunity.
Belial w/ Twin Lightning Claws
Interrogator-Chaplain in terminator armor
Belial's Terminator squad w/ Twin Claws, Apothecary, Deathwing Banner, missile launcher
Terminator squad w/ Assault cannon, chainfist
Terminator squad w/ Assault cannon, chainfist
Terminator squad w/ Assaut cannon, chainfist, 3x Twin Claws
Land Raider "Godhammer"
Land Raider "Crusader"
Dreadnought w/ Plasma Cannon, Drop Pod

Mike was playing his Space Puppies as I expected. His army was a definite bane for mine and I will try to get it as close to the real thing as I can remember.

Venerable Dreadnought HQ in Drop Pod
Character w/ PS w/ 9x marines, 2 plasma(gun/pistol), meltagun, 3x PF in rhino
10x marines, 1 plasma(gun/pistol), meltagun, flamer, 3x PF in rhino
Rune Priest w/ 9 or so Bloodclaws, meltagun, some other stuff in rhino
Scouts that walk on from my edge w/ meltagun, 2x plasma pistol, PF, 3x PW
3x attack bikes w/ heavy bolter
2x predator "annihilator"
2 or 3x land speeder w/ multimelta, heavy flamer

We rolled annihilation and even with his re-roll, I won the first turn.
As normal, I moved the land raiders full of terminators up a full 12" and popped smoke. The one squad held in reserve teleported in but could not get close to any of his squads due to the EXTREMELY high number of plasma/meltas. In all actuallity, I've only deathwing assaulted once that I can remember where I did not regret not setting them up. Even in talking with Mike, we cant think of a really solid reason for deathwing assaulting... especially as they can not use drop pods. They ended up teleporting 11 inches straight back, almost sending them off the table. Though being so close to the edge was not much better knowing what would be walking in from it reletively soon. There was really no way I could get away from the edge fast enough unless I had a few turns to move with.My shooting was generally ineffective and Mike took his turn. His moved away from my oncoming nasties in their rather large transports taking a central position. He blocked my command squads assault moving his rhinos to block the way through the center of the board. His command squad and tactical squad took positions behind the rhinos. The bikes moved back to take a firing position on my on-foot squad. The speeders moved around as a flank, though this is a mostly unflankable army as its very small size and design configuration really has no flanks. His rune priest and squad moved around a nice solid piece of terrain and cowered behind their transport. The heavy bolters from the bikes managed to fell a terminator from the foot slogger squad in the first of my far too large number of failed armor saves.
The dreadnought dropped in from space by the rune priest and flamed/plasma'd the hell out of them killing 4 or 5. I had little hope he would survive to fire again however with as much anti armor weapons as he was fielding. The godhammer moved forward and the squad hopped out to take shots. Everything else moved up, but his sound tactical move in the center of the board prevented the turn 2 annihilation from Belial and his buddies. Normally, they would have stayed in the safety of their tank, but as this was a fun game, I just opened the doors and ran out and hoped for some luck. The godhammer destroyed a predator and the slogging termies killed a biker. Belials squad failed in every way possible. My attempt at destroying one of the rhinos blocking me with the missile launcher turned out to be futile as the missile bounced of the 11 armor with a 2. I still had a chance, if I could roll a 6 for difficult terrain, I could make it around the side of the rhino and still assault. It was not meant to be as the whole squad tripped over each other with snake eyes. This was really my last chance for salvation and the wave was just not effective. With the shear amount of firepower that I know I'd be taking this next turn, I knew it would not be pretty.
I was right of course and the next turn saw the end of the dreadnought and the far terminators as the scouts walked in and expectedly wiped them out. The rhinos in the center moved out of the way and surrounded Belial and his terminators. In a hail of gunfire Belial was mortally wounded, teleporting out of the battle to be mended for another battle. In assault, the terminators took one squad to below scoring and the other close to it. before most of them fell to powerfists. In the end, only the chaplain and the apothecary still stood.

The rest of the game was rather uneventful. The crusader ended up taking far too many melta shots and was destroyed. The chaplain killed the commander before falling himself to a well placed powerfist. The apothecary killed enough of the other squad to take them below scoring and we called it not long after that. There was not much I'd be able to do with so many low ap shots coming at me, I just dont have the fire power.

After discussing the lists, I decided that my list was a bit too hobby and did not have enough power to support itself. Just being deathwing, it was hobby enough. I'm going to be taking out the dreadnought and the chaplain, replacing them with Sammael on his land speeder and a tornado. I think this will give me a mobility element that I'm really needing and remove some of the lesser elements in the very overcosted dreadnought and spread the love a little taking the chaplain out of belial's squad. I dont think this is going to be doable for the tournament this weekend however as my sammael is unpainted.

NOTE: I'll have pictures up later once I can get them transfered from my camera.