So ... where have I been?

In case anyone is still looking over here - which I doubt it, I am now posting over at Sons of Sanguinius found here;

http://sanguinesons.blogspot.com/

This blog is headed by Venerable Brother, also featuring Killswitch, the UK Team's current Space Wolves player (also a damn good Guard and Blood Angel player to boot), Atreides and Stargazer (resident Malifaux guru). Plenty up there, from tactics, lists and lots of hobby stuff from Atreides (and myself and Stargazer).

Also you can find my project log over at Bolter and Chainfist

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.php?showtopic=227137&st=0

Trying to keep it relativily updated - though its not getting much attention, especially since I consider my work better than some people that do get plenty of attention. Guess its my lack of a light box and crisp pictures.

Anyway - take a peak!

WIP Update

Just a quick update on what I've done - literally a week now until tourney time. Tonight I've done 90% of what I set out to do:

- Highlighted the black armour of the bikers to where I wanted.
- Highlighted the helmets to where I wanted.

Now this just leaves details and squad markings for the bikers and to just glue them in place. I think about 2 more hours on them.

- Prepped the arms of the terminators for painting.

Some were a bit messy w/ bad spraying and the such, so I cleaned these up.

GOALS FOR SATURDAY:

- Final highlight on Command Squad (20 minutes, v.simple job)
- Details on Bikers (seals / squad markings / weapons / aquilla) (2hours)
- Details on Terminators (1 hour)
- Begin working on terminator arms (whatever I can do)
- If I can finish the bases of the objectives (20 mins)
- Rebase Attack bike 2 (20 mins)

Expected time: 4 to 5 hours min.

GOALS FOR SUNDAY:

- Finish all terminator arms (2 to 3 hours)
- Ensure all detailing is finished on terminators (0-30 mins)
- Finish Belial (2 hours)

Belial is my reward for the day - I really want to make sure I have everything done so that I can spend time on him. I also want to make his base which I am not quite sure what I want to do for him, either something rocky - I am thinking having him perched over a lava stream flowing down - can use green stuff and some extra bits I have lying around. 

So I'll do a massive picture post tomorrow - starting to organise the pictures now which will be something like:

BELIAL -

Most of his work in pictures

DEATHWING -

Workings of start to finish of the blending - maybe do some pictures of the details + arms as I do them tomorrow and Sunday as well.

RAVENWING:

Workings from the details + how I've done the "black" armour and few details.

OBJECTIVES:

A bit of a "how I made them" without pictures - then a couple of step picture guide on how I got the finish I did.

BASES:

Stage by stage on the simple way to base.

Battle Report #25 (Mini) vs Chaos Marines

 Battle Report #25 -

Only a small one this as it was a pretty dull game (I wrote to T3 and realised I was boring myself!).

The game was KP's and Pitched battle with me going first - terrain was essentially a "mirrored" board with ruins on each flank deployment (though I had 1 huge one on my side vs a smaller one for him) with little variation in board placement, a littered area terrain in the center (quite clustered).

I went first and deployed centrally making sure CML's had fire lanes. Learnt my lesson with KP's and realised I had to play conservative. Though I could have gone aggressive with a alpha from the scout bikes (I had the terrain to do so).

He set up his army like so - 8 man zerkers with PF in rhino on my left flank, 3 oblits and 2 oblits a bit more centrally - giving cover to 10 thousand sons with bolt. On his "right" was 10 possessed with rhino and 5 MG's hiding behind the central forrest, 8 more zerkers with rhino to my right, and the nurgle DP with wings on my right.

Early in the game little happened. I stunned/boxed a couple of the rhinos putting him on foot from the get go. I used positioning to try and recieve as little charging as possible and make sure that his DP charged into cover. I lost a couple of terms by T2 and a wound on belial via plasma cannon - I will actually take 1 wound from PC/PG fire just to avoid losing numbers early in the game. His DP assaulted and we tied first combat, but I kept him at I1. I then counter charged and killed it, and killed 1 zerker squad (charged by 9 terms). In retaliation he killed the rest of my command squad. The bikes did little in this game until quite late. Though they did support the charge against the second zerker squad, losing a couple of guys, but distracting his zerkers from my 3 man TH/SS guys. Belial and his new squad charged the possessed and wiped them out, and the last squad had consolidated right into the face of the oblits which charged them - and we stuck. I then counter charged with belial and his squad, losing belial, but killing the obilits (should have kept belial in cover). At this stage he only had a couple of units left - I had 3 "bruised" unit's and my bikes (the full ones charging after 1 rhino, the AB and single one after his boxed one, which died on a charge eventually). The game ended on T5 with him only having 2 oblits and a few 1k sons left, think it was 7-3 at this stage, we played another turn and I tabled him (well we only played my side of combat, if we played his T6 I'd have decked him).

Conservative played me well. Glad I got to face off against a couple of these units - oblits being another unit people told me would "ABSOLUTELY MAUL MY ARMY" yet they killed maybe 8 guys - including combat - and that was all 5 shooting quite a lot at them in the end.

In the end it was a fairly comprehensive win of something like 9-3, with me basically going to table.

Couple of things I did learn (or realise a bit better) don't move guys like Belial or my bikes into B2B with stuff that can instant kill / remove them without saves (the bikes) - so positioning etc..

Battle Report #23 and #24 - Nullzone Thunderbubble and Footdar

So in a reverse order of last weeks Friday games (last set of reports) I played the two guys again. These are much quicker reports as the games were much much quicker!

Battle Report #23 - 1500 vs Codex Marines

So facing the same Salamander (non-Vulkan) 1500 list as the previous report, no changes from the Vindy/Thunderfire Terminator army.

Mission was Kill points with spear head deployment, I win the roll to go first and reserve 3 squads and both bikes, deploying only a single squad. Basically the terrain was a big LOS piece in the middle and then plenty of tree's in the corners. I put him in the corner with the least terrain with the idea it would be nice and open for me to move into.

So having reserved 3 squads, I DS'd two down near his castle, now this was mistake 1 and cost me the entire game. They would easily be in 24" of nullzone and when they failed to do any damage except imob a rhino (which blocked his vindicator), it was going to be costly.

In his T1 I lost 4 of 5 terminators from 1 squad and 3 of 6 from belials squad, including the apoc on the first roll - NOT GOOD. At this stage I was tempted to concede as it wasn't who I was meant to be playing, but I thought screw it I'll keep playing. I was massively over extended, but I could still redeem it.

In my T2, I should have played defensive. Belial and that terminator could easily get 2 KP's from the speeders, in a trade for 3 KP's - but would require his entire army to shoot at me to do it. Instead, I sent the bikes in to get rid of the speeders and they failed, so I ended up killing them with the charge, they are now in vindicator territory with belials squad. Needless to say in his turn I lost all 4 bikes and terminators - I am now 5-2 down.

My T3 I get another bike and the remaining squad, I destroy the vindies cannon and rest of stuff is out of range. I just turbo around, and he kills a couple of terminators with that ****ing thunderfire cannon.

Just as a side note - I've had 8 full turns vs this guy now, he has fired his thunderfire all 8 turns vs me (32 shots) and his vindicators have had about 16 shots in those 2 games. And I am not lying or exaggerating - he has only scattered to the point he hit nothing - TWICE - and he hits on the majority of his shots. That is roughly 50 shots, with a possiblity of scattering is 2/3rd's - and anything above a double 4 (average) will scatter off and hit nothing, or very few. If he scattered, he generally would scatter no-inch'es due to BS, or 1 to 3 (very rare). He is by far and away the luckiest scatter roller ever. He is ballsy as hell with his DS's on things, and I've only seen him mishap twice (as in he will DS a speeder 8" from a target, 4" from the edge).

Back to the game, at this stage I have 9 terminators and 3 bikes/1attack bike - so 4 more KP's - he has quite a lot of stuff, but I'd moved out of 24" range - so basically would suffer only his rifleman dreads. I decided to call it to get a 2nd game. Tbh I am fairly confident I'd have drawn or only lost by a couple of KP's - I'd have probably gotten 1 or 2 out of the bikes before they died, and the CML's would have prob taken out his transports.

What I learnt is vital - not to be aggressive - I saw his castle, but just went gung ho anyway, I should have DS''d at 36" away from him, CML'd x4 his AV and stopped them - got the 2 easy KP's on the speeders and just had my bikes turbo until they had a good opportunity in T3 or T4 when I'd stunned enough things - I should have played for something like a 3-1 or 2-0 win rather than trying to win 10-4 or something (I wanted to rage through that car park).

Battle Report #24

So again a rematch of the Eldar game from last week. I was quite bitter about that game as I felt I completely vindicated his stupid arguments about how he was a counter for me. In reality I played it wrong and knew it. I could have been aggressive but if I was to do that, I had to be with my Belial squad. However, this game I knew I'd have to play it a bit smarter.

Mission was 3 objectives, with pitched and him going first - I was gutted as I felt if I went first I'd have been able to really cripple him.

Basically the terrain was incredibly open, but insanely good for him. It was the "figure of 5" set up with big forrests in each corner and center table - giving him cover to sit those war walkers behind. - The wave-serpents in the middle of his deployment and the avatar between them.

Objectives were 2 in my half, about 16" from each other and the edge of my board, he had 1 in his deployment right near his pathfinders in cover.

Turn 1 saw him fire a ton of EML's with frag into my terminators, and I lost 1 guy. He fired scatters and stuff into my command squad and I took 1 wound on Belial - the FNP made 2 wounds go away - thank god. All I heard was "lucky boy" a lot of times. But seriously - how many 1's can he expect me to roll vs him?

In my T1 this is where the 1's came out. Not a single CML hit or Pen, except 1 and he made his cover save. So that was 4 misses, and 3 1's (a 2 is a glance!). So I'd receive full fire in T2.

In T2 he actually does pummel the crap out of a squad and I think I lose an entire squad (the 4 man) via dire avengers as well, but now he's played into what I want - him to put stuff in mid field. I'd now be able to get on him next turn in some way.

So in my T2 I get both my reserves. They come in 1 each side - so thats perfect, 1 can charge his EML's, 1 can shoot his scatter lasers. Frags was the course of action for the direavngers and I hit with all 4 (finally, I've NEVER hit in 5th ed with a scatter!) and cause a total of about 28 hits, from that I think I killed all but 1 guy, and he Eldrad made all his saves unfortunately.  He actually didn't roll for morale, if he failed that and ran it would have been game over with out Eldrads abilities. The bikes - I manage to take out 1 WW from the scatter laser squad, and destroy 2 guns on the same model (the bolters on both squads actually managed to get a glance!) and on the EML's I shot the MM at them, killing 1, glancing another (taking out its gun) and the bikers shot at the scouts and charged them - killing 3 in the charge.

In his T3 he dooms the bikers, fortunes the avatar I think, and fortunes eldrad or something like that. The fire dragons deploy and take out the bikes on that flank. Thats fine, their job was to kill the WW's which they did - and now the fire dragons are 2 turns away from being able to deploy against me really. He moves his WS with the direavenger right up to get in my way - he says he shouldnt have done this - but tbh I didnt care as I didnt need to shoot at it next turn, but it gave me a good chance to take out a contester early. In combat I lose all the bikes - the attack bike to a bloody fearless wound - eldrad killed the other 3 due to doom.

In my T3 I obliged the charge on the WS and killed it and the DA inside in the explosion (thanks chain fist!) I actually pen'd it like 5 times. I managed to knock another EML weapon off, so basically he just had 1 scatter laser and 1 eml left.

In his T4 he moved his firedragons forward and shoots at my command squad, he turbo's his WS from the dragons over to contest my objective going for the 1-1 draw, and basically called me lucky for making 4 3++ saves and 3 2++ saves. Not really, since in the last game I rolled 16 dice at one time, and 10 were 1's (and none were above a 3)- and he had the audacity of saying I rolled average at worst. I promptly charged the WS and hit it with a lot of attacks, 1 CF got through and 3 TH's - which all pen'd thank god and exploded it.

The game ends - 2-1.

They I discover how poor a loser he is. He starts talking about how he'd play it differently if we had more time, and that my army is just a "move forward" - as if there is nothing else to it (uh yeah there is, deploy like a tard and you get blown away). He also stated that my bikes were rubbish, to which both myself and my mate turn around and said that their contribution was pretty much game winning. Between the 2 squads I took his WW's down to only being 1 per squad, and killed 3 of 5 of his remaining scoring unit.

Quite annoying and soured me to playing him again I have to say, I do want to play him soon, as I think I've unlocked what I need to do vs these armies - and his especially (kill his fragile units?)

Shame I lost the first game, but its one of those mistakes that you'll never make again.

Army in 5 Weeks: DW - Ravenwing Support WIP

Just to add to this - even with my list from below - I am now quite far ahead in this project and my WIP's are quite far behind - I literally have a single squad left to blend up and then all I am doing is details. I am extremely pleased with what I've done so far with very simple techniques + speed painting.

But anyway:

THE POST: 

As I posted a few days back, I had my first articule featured over at SoS - here's the follow up post to http://sanguinesons.blogspot.com/2011/03/deathwing-wip-army-in-5-weeks.html?showComment=1299446643308#c2834650141944289548 - which showed the first week of my under taking of this task to get to Brighton with a brand new army. I figure I might as well put it up here for my own blog, because its mine!


This work (bar a couple of the later pictures which were done a bit later) was done pretty much all in the same week as the first post - but I felt it would read better if I separated the Deathwing and Ravenwing - or at least to start with!

So the bikers, these pretty much provide the support and mobility, and another threat value to the force. 20 Terminators are scary, outflanking, scouting or turbo boosting fearless melta is quite scary in its own right. Not to mention using that T5 as combat support and so on.

Again, I wanted something slightly unique to the Ravenwing bikers, and was looking to continue the semi-Grey Knight theme to the force - and with these being the only variant in models - I felt style wise this is where I needed to try and break out something a little special. Now, I am a stratosphere apart from the level of conversion of Atriedies, he runs rings around people with his work (seriously can't wait to see his next army), but I have the experience at least to put something together. So without further ado, here's the WIP on the Ravenwing:

WIP: Painting the Bikes

So this is a bit of the work I've done recently, but I'll use it to show the paint process for pretty much the entire of the army.

First stage is incredibly simple. Base coat the entire model (in the case of the terminators) and the entire chassis for the bikers. For me this is my mix of paint (Dark Angels Green and Hawk Turquoise)


Next stage is to add the first level of blending, now due to the paint being a mix, and I mix with a brush, I judge this by eye, I really should get something to measure it, and definitely when it comes to my Grey Knights I'll actually make a pot of the paint itself. So on this we see the second stage and the darker base coat.

The 3rd or 4th layers of blending are where you start to get the contrast between the "low" and "high" on the these models, and the paint is considerably more "blued" by this stage. Despite there being an incredibly low ratio of Dark Angels Green in there, it still has a very green effect.

I continue on and now add the more "extreme" high lights - this has a fair whack of white into the mix but is still not at that full highlight level just yet.



I now add the final really extreme "light" highlight - I try to avoid going crazy at this stage and pick out the bits I want to be accentuated. I am yet to finish an entire bike - as I am yet to decide how I want to do the engine and front wheel, but the exhaust and rear wheel, plus the rest of the bike look like:

So that's the bikes as of yet - I have all 6x bike chasis's and the attack bike chasis's done up to this - so just detailing and find assembly / painting the riders to be done - which will be the Ravenwing post 2 hopefully.


On to the conversion!

So thus far nothing out of the ordinary for the modelling wise obviously, enter the Sargent's for the Ravenwing!

This, truth be told, was a some what tired and maybe slightly drunken idea I had upon returning home one night seeing a Grey Knight marine and my hobby saw laying on my desk. No regards for the rest of my house and the sawing noise I was making at 1AM, I went about creating this paraplegic marine. 

Upon returning to the desk the following day I was actually quite pleased with my work, and decided to go about making another one. Then I was obviously faced with the task of making it fit onto the bikers legs - as they have a hump at the midriff - I didnt think slicing it down was an option as it would remove some of the height of the biker in the process. Thus the electric hand drill that I'd just "borrowed" came into action - and used a large drill piece to create a hole in the GK's midriff - unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of this - but one simple thing I did was to keep checking how it sat on the bike and if I needed to take more off - if you go to far green stuff will of course take care of the rest.

You'll notice in that photo that the Storm bolter only has 1 barrel - that was me turning it into a bolt pistol for WYSIWYG - I've checked with the TO and verified with a picture - it is fine - it cant be a SB without 2 barrels! I've also drilled out the barrel for the sake of completion.

Now the next bit was to give him a suitable weapon - the nemisis force weapon is no good as I dont have power weapons on my bikers, and a normal marine chainsword wouldn't look quite right ... I needed to combine the two! A quick bit of sawing (again), pinning (very VERY important when dealing with metal models) and green stuff (and some filing) and I had this bad boy:

Nemesis Force Chain Sword! Hell YEAH! Incredibly simple, but I think oh so effective.

And together as a package:

Again the arms are pinned to the bodies, I've used green stuff to help solidify the joint as well - I really cant stress how important this is with models like these - they are quite large and do have a tendency for moving on say things like hills or terrain - you just don't want to put faith in the strength of super glue on metal.

So that's it for the Ravenwing - the next update really will be them completed as really all I have to do is detail the bikes (computer screen, wheel, engine and the riders themselves, except the sarge's, are v.easy). The next post will be a couple of Deathwing squads deep into paint mode plus my command squad pre-primer/basecoat - as of writing I am basically 4 weeks out from the Tourney and in quite a good position - I have 2 full squads to paint and then basically detailing - I am pretty confident!

Battle Report #21 and #22 - 1500 vs Footdar and Codex Marines

Managed to get a pair of games in today - vs the two lists I really wanted to face off against pre-tourney - a Eldrad Eldar List and a Null Zone Space Marine list (though I think he took Null Zone as he saw my army - I am pretty sure he doesnt normally take this lol, but I am glad he did).


GAME ONE: vs Footdar

Eldrad
Avatar

10 Dire Avengers w/ Exarch - Waveserpent chincannon/brightlance
5 Path Finders

10 dragons - WS w/ chincannon/brightlance

3 warwalkers - scatter lasers
3 warwalkers - EML's




KP / Dawn of War

So he deploys first, and puts his avatar and rangers on the mid way line, bah I have to deploy quite far back and I do so stupidly w/ belials FNP squad and 1 other 18" from him off at an angle. This was mistake one. I actually think I may have been better reserving everything and DWA 2 squads in (maybe walking in 1) and turbo'ing in the bikes - this way I could have maybe pinned him in. Being DOW the first turn is nothing. I did outflank my bikes.

In T2 he shoots at the DWA squad I bring in to the right of his castle (he castled in the center, wave serps covering his war walkers) - he gets his avengers and fire dragons out and blasts them to the lone CML guy. I respond with 1 bike squad coming on near them and I fuck up again, as I shot the wave sepernt and killed it with attack bike (good) but shot the dire avengers with the bolters - leaving the CML to charge alone into the dragons - who did 1 wound and I rolled a 1 .... so its 1-1 and I now have 2 easy KP's in his ranks.

In T3 he promptly kills those 2 biker groups and goes 3-1 up, and starts to work on the next squad which I fail 3 2 ups from the scatters on 6 dice and lose all 3 TH/SS guys leaving the CF and CML (I think), he then pot shots and kills the CML. I in turn run that CF away, and get the bikes in to try and finish off some other bits in his lines, I take out another serpent but it requires a charge from  the bikers, and the attack bike does nothing. I should have used them both to kill the avengers and fire dragons really.

In his T4 I just say if you can kill the bikes its over, he takes out the 2nd term squad and kills both bikes - he's now 6-1 up and I have only 2 CML's left and am no where near him really. I call it.



CONLUSION

I think what annoyed me is he was so sure he'd batter me, and after the game he talked so much about how bad his rolling was and how big a counter he is. In reality he was putting on 20 wounds of 2+ onto 5 men, I'd roll 3 on 1 guy and fail all 3 - that was the sort of rolling I had - his dire avengers did 15 wounds, I rolled 9 1's - and only 1 of the dice was above 3. In the entire game I also didnt get to swing a single close combat weapon ...

I played myself out of this and what were the mistakes?

Mistake 1: Isolation

This is something you cant do as DW, certainly not against a army that CAN fire that much damage. Dropping my squad on his wings as a threat mean they HAD to be dealt with, and they were. This was mistake one and a costly one - it meant I lost 4 terminators on T2 and they were my only threat really. If you keep the terminators close together in these sort of missions - then it forces him to try and decide what one is the threat - he shoots at that, and the next turn you present 2 or 3 other squads as bigger threats and now all that shooting was for nothing (really)

Mistake 2: Deployment

I honestly think I should have walked EVERYTHING on. Force him to choose where to castle. He castled right in between my eye's - making me choose which way to go - and it essentially took 2 squads out of the game. If I walked on, he'd have no idea where I was going, and I just run for the first 2 turns to where I want to be, and force him to re-deploy his entire army into the open rather than walk into his nicely made castle which was only nicely made by where I had pre-deployed. This includes the bikes, as I could turbo them 24" out of LOS and force him to either move to shoot at them and thus suffer shots without cover, or face all that melta the following turns. This goes hand in hand with DONT FEED PIECEMEAL.

Mistake 3: Target Choices

Really I didnt take what was offered to me - part was down to my deployment. My plan was to hammer those WW's with CML's for 2 or 3 turns, cover or not - I ended up shooting at them 3 times in the game, I.E they suffered me shooting a total of 6 CML's at them. Secondly, I did have a chance with the bikers to take out the fire dragons (potentially either get stuck in combat, which would be good, or get a KP and consolidate into cover). Instead I did a mixture of both and it cost me 2 KP's. Annoyingly the opponent didnt understand what I meant when I made this mistake and he was chatting about how I was just wrong to go there, but in reality, those FD's ended up killing the bikes and terminator (in combat) and killing 2 more later. I really think they were game changers, and this cost me majorly. I shoudlnt have gambled 1 TH/SS would survive 7 or 8 I5 attacks - dont take that risk - charge the bikes in, if he attacks the TH/SS so be it - but the bikes would probably have taken out a few via shooting (I killed like 3 DA's) and then their charge as well -  I might have still lost the TH but I'd have had that melta tucked up nicely for a turn not getting AP1 fired into it.

These 3 cost me majorly and I need to think about them in the future. I want a rematch vs this guy QUICK, so I am probably going to pull a sickie next week (yes karma you can bitch slap me for that) to get a game in vs him.

Though I am not 100% that I did deploy completely incorrectly. Mistake 3 really did cost me, but I think mistakes 1 and 2 would not have been nearly as bad if I dropped at the very least Belial - thats another 3 2++'s I'd have to fail - and another body to allocate to - if I had done the command squad then that's FNP - that really was mistake 4 - not being aggressive with the command squad but a standard squad - I think if I had Belial + 1 TH/SS and did what I did (shoot the avengers) I'd have been alright - those Fire dragons would have gone away v.quick.

I am re-matching him next week - and put it this way, I've learnt my lesson against this list (or types of list).

Avoid isolating, especially normal units. Keep priority right on track and don't be afraid of running if I need to get some where! This was a horrible game for me, but tbh I deserved more than 2 KP's for my efforts, and I fed him 4 very easy KP's.

GAME TWO: vs "Salamander" Codex Space Marines

Libby - Nullzone / Vortex (and TDA)

5x TH/SS Terms
Rifleman
Rifleman

10x Tactical Marines - Flamer MM - Rhino
10x Tactical marines - Flamer MM - Razorback

Speeder MM/HF
Speeder MM/HF

Vindicator
Vindicator
Thunderfire Cannon

So not a terrible list, but again not optimised, but this is the sort of list you look at and don't think push over, and potentially a lot of stuff that could hurt my list - 2 vindicators and 5 TH/SS null zone'd termies.

THE SETUP

4 Objectives
Pitched Battle

The board was much the same as the last game with plenty of buildings, one big one just off centre towards what would be his board edge, then each corner had another smaller building (ruin) and some craters in between - there was open space on "my right" flank between the corner buildings and the centre.

The objectives he places 1 in what is his zone - on the top level of the ruin (my top left) and I place one right out in the open space I described above (I dont need cover to hold objectives) - he places one on the 2nd floor of the big building, so I place one 12" from my objective near a ruin in what becomes my side.

He takes "his" side when he wins to go first, plops his combat squad from the razor in there with no special weaps, and the thunder fire cannon. Vindies hide behind the rhino and razor back behind the big building in the center of the board and the speeders and termies reserve.

I set up with belial's CML looking down at the rhino, a middle squad to take the open ground, and a right hand to take the right objective. The bikes start on the table this time and I DWA 1 squad.

THE GAME

C:SM  T1 - I failed to seize so he trundles forward - vindicators and rhinos move a bit towards the center objective and to get into range of me. He fires his thunder fire at one squad of bikes with that stupid difficult terrain thing - one thing, his TF NEVER scattered off, nor did his vindicators, in the entire game, I think out of 5 turns he had 1 TF scatter out of range (from 4 shots) so thats 19 "hits" out of 20 - basically when he did miss, he missed by no more than 6 or 7" getting reduced to "enough to still hit". Just silly really was - where are the 12" scatters man? He doesn't kill anything this turn, or may have dropped a single terminator or something. He also shot and took a wound off an attack bike w/ the riflemans

DW T1 - My squad lands in the center and I do actually run them to avoid getting vindicator'd and TF'd with mass template's, the rest of my army moves. I want to take out his troops in the tanks, so I shoot and stun both the razor and rhino, I turbo the bikes and lose the sarge to dangerous terrain from the stupid TF cannon. One MM attack bike pens the rhino and with its +1 manages to stun the rhino. The other shoots at the TF but it makes its 3++ cover save.

CSM T2: He gets both speeders, and doesnt scatter. He moves his vindicators around to hit my bikes w/ one and the terms that DS'd with the other. The TF and vindy kill a couple of the terms combined w/ some bolter fire and what not, the MM's LS's try to take out a couple of guys from my other squads but fail.

DW T2: I am now ready to pounce! The melta bikes move to hit his razor and if one gets it first turn I can shoot the other vindicator (or charge it!) the DS'd terms move to charge the rhino (or hopefully its contents) also wanted to get rid of the speeders. Bike one explodes the razor, kills 1 guy. Excellent. Bikes two explode the vindicator - excellent. I choose not to charge with the single bike as I felt it prob would have died, though I think this was a mistake. CML 1 fires and shakes the rhino. Crap. Need to fire into it again - but 2nd time lucky and I do blow it up so. I manage to kill 1 speeder I believe. In combat I absolutely deck the tactical squad to a man (killed about 7, they lost 3 in the explosion off like 7 wounds).

CSM T3: He gets his terms but they mishap back into reserves - he did DS into the crowded midfield, but tbh if he did land he'd have gotten charged by 3 squads and no way he survived. His shooting decks all my bikes that remained, and killed a couple off the squad that just wiped out his marines, infact I think he killed the remaining 3 guys - bloody thunderfire cannon - seriously.

DW T3: I want to get rid of his remaining troops but they are all out of LOS, so I dont have much choice - I try a bit of shooting and rejigging into midfield - his speeder is invulnerable it seems and I only shake it, not even stun it, I take an arm off the rifleman and thats it. Not a great turn.

CSM T4: He gets his terms and drops them in the midfield, casts nullzone. He fires at my full 5 man squad that is near his lines. I failed 1 nullzone re-roll. The rest died to 2 ups from the TH and 5 man squad of bolters. Just horrendous, I actually was worried at this stage, REALLY worried.

DW T4: I HAVE to deal with the terminators so I pull 2 squads from their objectives (belial in the middle and the ones in my rear field) and double charge. Belial kills 2 guys I think, the libby kills none, he kills 1 with TH/SS and mine kill 2 more - he runs 7" and I consolidate belial's unit 2" - just enough to keep them running next turn - my other squad consolidates 6" back - now can easily hold the 2 objectives in my rear field if I dont suffer another silly turn of TF fire.

CSM T5: He keeps trying to tell me that his libby has already rallied and he can do stuff again, so I get the rule book out and break it down for him "If in your movement phase 1 of these 3 is in place you still run" as per the BRB in the Morale section "but but, you rally dont you? automatically?" Nope, go ahead and take another run away check, 7" - oh thats 2" from your board edge, damn. His TF shoots at the command squad and I lose 1 or 2 guys - even with FNP. I shrug off the vindicator - even with nullzone.

DW T5: I really didnt know what to do - and I remembered a neat trick from one of my games with my guard mate - split Belial off - I felt he could JUST make the charge on his TF objective (the combat squad) and at the very least contest it, if not wipe them out, he needed a 3 or 4 I think to get into combat on the terrain check. The other squad moved into midfield, not quite sure why though - they were definatly in a risk of being charged by the TH's if it went T6 - I should have moved back towards the center objective and at worst been contesting it. Anyway - shooting imobalised the vindicator - which was good if it went T6 or T7, not so good with my 2 guys sat about 10" away from it. I tried to take out his invulnerable speeder of unkillingness (it actually has taken about 5 TH's pen's and survived, on top of 4 or 5 CML pen's and only been stunned once). And I of course only shake it. Big roll is the Belial charge - and he gets a 5 and a 6 - easily makes it into combat with the combat squad. He goes first, hits 4 times, wounds 3 times, they hit back and I think do a wound! He passes LD - but I am contesting!

We roll to see the end of the game - its a 1.

CONCLUSION:

It was a bit of squeeky bum time in the end - that TF cannon just wouldn't stop hitting, he refused to admit that it was well above what it should be, in T3 and T4 he was pumping out 15 wounds, not hits, wounds with it. Just silly. Nullzone was a bit scary for me, I have to say - but I forgot its a shooting attack so he cant cast it when I charge - which is massive - so I can really try and time things well with that.

We looked at what would have happened in T6 (we chatted about it) and he'd have charged the libby and last 2 TH/SS into Belial - which I wanted. Belial kills those last 2 easy - and ofcourse dies, but he only has that 4 man combat squad - and he had 2 terms near him that were no garantee of being killed (TF, 4 bolters and 1 vindicator - really wouldnt do THAT many wounds - and the TF would have had to shoot at the bigger squad tbh) - so in the end, despite the horrific T4 where losing an entire squad hurt (I still dont understand how he did it, it wasnt like he did 30 wounds, it was about 15 or 16 wounds that killed them, though I do think he rapid fired his bolters from about 15" away tbh).

I was quite pleased with some of the game, early I was excellent and late I was good, especially with the Belial move, but I think in T3 and T4 I slacked because I really was in a commanding position. I'd lost my bikes, but they'd dropped his vindicator and knocked out any chance of him taking my objectives really - but I think I should have charged with them and put him down to that 1 scoring unit and a "bunch of contesters". That TF cannon - they are not great, but FUCK it was annoying - he just didn't miss with it.

One thing I realised, while I was faffing around going for the middle objective and had 2 squads near it, I could have quite easily gone the other way and taken his objective and charged his TF cannon straight after. No cover saves from TH's playing polo with your face.

OVERALL

So 1-1 from today, but a lot of mistakes, which are good, with 3 weeks to go till the tourney I need to make the mistakes now so that I don't screw up later. These are both lists that could show up in a tourney - they are not "net lists" but they are quite well made and sort of things a good player would find and play effectively.

I am a bit bitter about the Eldar loss, but that's just because I think he is v.cocky about his list and it really is a case of once I beat it, that's it for him. Hopefully its this coming Thursday.

Battle Report #20 - 1500 Deathwing vs Blood Angels DOA

So I got to play against a proper competitive DOA army tonight, opposed to my mate who runs the some what hybrid list. I ended up having (alot) few beers with him and his mate afterwards so my recollection of the game might be *hazy* lol.

Deathwing List

Same 1500 as per.

Blood Angels List

Libby - Shield / Lance - JP
Libby - Rage / Lance - JP

2x SP - WP / JP

10x RAS - MGx2 PF
10x RAS - MGx2 PF
3x DC - JP PW

VVx5 - JP / PF / LC / SSx2

So his list wasn't quite optimal but it was tough in its own right. I told him to drop the DC and libby and run another VV squad and if he could fit it HG squad with melta, but he wanted to try the double libby for his own tests. The guy is a great player, attends a lot of tournaments himself, I've played him before with his foot guard and death star black templars, he is no push over and knows the game.


THE SETUP

I completely forgot to take pictures this game, but the table was fairly standard. We had 2 ruins on either side of the center line of the board, then smatterings of area terrain in the corners and sandbag/hurdles in various spots. It was not a jumpers heaven put it that way.

MISSION - 2 OBJIECTIVES
DEPLOY - PITCHED BATTLE

I won to go first and was looking to take first turn as for some reason I though we had spear head and felt that would lend to my favour, then remembered pitched and really I want to go second in that mission. He takes the side of the board I wanted him to

NOTE:

The way the terrain was positioned  I wanted "my" side - the south side - as the terrain was "open" on my side - I thought he'd drop and run into terrain - so I didnt want him dropping out of LOS and then being able to avoid counter charges due to diff terrain checks + shooting from my AP3 and down and blitzing me on the charge with everything.

DEPLOY

So he gets the "far" side of the board and puts his objective behind the big terrain piece on my right flank , I put mine fairly central - about 30" from his - but its in around the "spiked hurdles".

I deploy 1 squad around my obj - then 1 infront "bubble wrapping" - then belial and co to the right "near" his objective and mine (on the 12" line) so that I can counter charge or charge into the open space where I felt he'd land, bikes and 1 squad in reserve.


THE GAME

BA T1 - He asks if I am going to seize - tbh it wouldnt have been the worst idea but I want that lasts second grab ability - so nothing happens.

DW T1 - Normal Squad (S2) drops near his objective - about 12" away - doesnt scatter. I move  / run the rest of my guys so that that they deny good landing spots near my objective and push him into mid field / bad drop area's

BA 2: He gets x2 libbies x1 SP + 3 Squads - he lands 1 near his objective  - 1 center table that scatters back towards his edge about 5" and one just left of center table towards my lines that scatters a few inches. He shoots the 2 squads near his objective at my dropped squad and kills 3!

DW 2: I begin my reaction - Belial and co move up towards his objective with the plan to support in T3, the other 2 squads in my lines move towards the big blob near my objective - the 2 man squad moves to the center troops (they lost their CML). Shooting see's me drop drop 2 or 3 from each squad on my left and center, and I assault - 2 guys into about 8 without priest, and then 2 squads into his big unit w/ priest and libby. The 2 guys begin to whittle down his squad, as I cant chase him down he fails LD but doesnt take wounds. The big combat see's me win by a couple but same as the above.

BA T3 - He gets his DC and VV - his VV drop near the big combat and assault me - killing a couple off the drop. His other 10 man on his objective w/ libby with UR assault Belial and co and kill a couple, but I take a few in return and win combat, but dont do much, same again with VV/RAS multi combat.

DW T3 - I get 1 bike unit - the AB turbos to midfield the bikes go 12" as I think I may be able to assault as I thought the assault w/ belial was about 16" in, I was wrong, it's 18.5 lol. The VV combat I take out a couple more, but still stick in combat, the 2man group finishes up with the small group and consolidates near the DC. The big combat on the right with the UR libby goes on a bit and no one really is winning - he keeps making LD when I kill 1.

BA T4 - DC assault the 2 man squad and do nothing, the VV combat ensues and I whittle away to about 4 guys now - 2VV 1Sp and 1PF. The UR Libby combat see's it down to just the Apoc DW guy and the bikes that charged in. No one is going any where here just yet. The DC combat w/ 2 guys see's 1 guy die to the DW and no one die from the DW

DW T4: Rest of the bikes come in and turbo to mid field - VV combat is ended with a win finally - consolidated towards the DC combat. DC combat ensues, Libby with UR still goes on killing the remainder of the bikes w/ power weapons.

BA T5: Not much to happen, combat see's the DC finally lose, Libby squad down to 1 or 2 guys and not much else.

DW T5: The consolidations allow me to get everything into combat and finish off the final bits of the squad. I had 1 Attack Bike turbo to his objective, and already had 1 squad back to mine.

Conclusion:

I've tabled the guy, and hold 1-0 in objectives after 5 turns.

This guy is sound, and he's just getting back into his DOA list. I am helping him with it, and really he is looking at 1750 more than 1500 really, but we are working on a good list for him, he doesnt want dev's as he has ML spam for his SW's, so we are opting down the VV line more, but we were discussion some bits, the DC and double lib were just a pure "lets see" move really and he knew he wasn't really going full on with it.

It was a good game, he really shocked me with his drops, I expected him to drop his entire force near Belial and go nuts on them, but instead he stood back and attacked me from the front, I didn't expect that and didnt have my FNP squad as the front guys - I might need to run them as the bubble wrap in these sort of games. I didnt't DWA them, but I might need to create them as the "bait" for the 2++/4+FNP and 3++. I lost a LOT of guys to failed 2+'#s early!.

Big game tomorrow vs Eldar, the guy I played with my test mech list a few weeks back. People think his scatter laser x3 WW's and single squad of Dire's will soundly trash me. I am interested to see. I am not confident, but I know what I need to target!