Ghost Nebula

Happy Martin Luther King Jr day everyone.

In a bizzare twist of the usual things, my otherwise holiday shy employers have decided to give us the day off today and so I have time to write some reflections on the battle I played with friends yesterday.

First up though, I have to help out an awesome, hot wargaming friend of mine Courtney. She and her husband (sorry boys, she's taken) are my new 40k gaming buddies and best friends for life stuff in general here in Maryland.

One of Courtney's greatest passions is nail polish and while it was not something I knew much of before spending time with her, I am impressed at the artistry and work done on a different palette with a different medium than with miniature painting. I know that few of my readers are likely to use nail polish, except for Old Shatter Hands on weekends ;-), but for those who have wives or girlfriends who might be interested go and sign up as followers to her blog Polished Casual. Courtney is a wargamer too so she will probably return the favour and check out your blog if you have one.


So the battle report and my cheating (Oh the shame).

To clear up my dastardly behaviour, I will detail the cheating first. I played as orks and declared the Waagh on turn 1, letting me get right into assault. This is not allowed as, in the words of the codex:

"This may not normally be declared on the first turn as a proper Waagh needs some momentum behind it."

I completely failed to read this ahead of the game and so cheated my way into combat on turn 1, not cool. In addition, any ork unit rolling a 1 for the Waagh run takes a wound as the boyz fight. I also failed to do this for one unit.

That aside, here's a short battle report.

We played 2vs2, 1000pts per side. I took my vehicular assault orks, my teammate Chris had shooty marines and we faced off against Iron warriors on foot and nasty Tyranids.

In turn 1 we took a few hits from shooting but nothing much. I then waaghed my way into combat with the iron warrior squads for big casualties on each side while Chris largely missed with his shooting. In fairly short order we started crushing the Iron warriors flank but then the outflanking Genestealers (each led by Broodlords) showed up on Turn 2 and pretty much tore our army apart. The ork's momentum was lost after the first power charge, the nobs were whittled down by Hive Guard (no FNP on S8 shots), took their revenge then were eaten by the Hive Tyrant and her bodyguards. The marines kicked hive guard butt, were ravaged by the Genestealers, finally wiped them out but we ended the game with about 7 marines left vs a Tyrant & Guard, 8 Genestealers & Broodlord, plus a full CSM Havoc squad. We conceded on Turn 5.


Key lessons:
- Don't cheat, read your rulebook AND codex fully ;-)
- Orks need to hit the lines in one block. Trukks are vulnerable to light weapons. My nobz were stuck in a stunned transport so they boyz hit the line without them.
- Only models within 2" of an engaged model may fight, so your big mob of boyz might not swing with full numbers. Keep this in mind when picking fights.
- Outflanking Genestealers are very dangerous. You need a way to take them out before they hit your lines as few things will deal well with them in combat.
- Even losing games are fun when you play with your friends :-)


So thankyou to Matt and Kira for playing against us (Husband and Wife team no less), thanks Chris for being my team buddy and D'oh me for not reading the rules properly.

Thanks for reading.

Pete

PS: Now go see some nice nail polish pics ;-)

So I logged onto Bell of Lost Souls today to see the latest news and BOOM!

Now price hikes from GW are no great surprise and it shouldn't be a big deal but this one is getting to me. I've got a completed marine army (~2500-3000 points) and a half done (~1000 points) Tau army.

My issue is that I need a goodly investment into my Tau to make it to a standard 1850 point army and I'm getting less and less interested in GW in many ways. The fluff is rich and thick, but stagnant in that nothing changes. Being on the back end of the cool models and rules is annoying as a Tau player and I just don't get the same excitement that I used to. Instead I'm finding myself excited by warmachine and it's dynamic pacing, great models and moving fluff line.

So my question is whether I should take the time and effort to invest in my Tau army. My current list is:

- 2 Helios (plasma/Fusion) crisis suits
- 3 Stealth suits + Marker Drone
- 12 Fire Warriors
- 12 Kroot
- 2 Piranhas
- Hammerhead
- Skyray

And to this I'd like to add:
- 3 Deathrains
- 3 Stealth suits
- 12 Fire warriors (6 converted into Pathfinders)
- 12 Kroot
- 2 Piranhas
- Hammerhead.

This neatly corresponds to 1 battleforce, 2 Crisis suits, 2 piranhas and 1 hammerhead boxed sets. Using prices from The Warstore which are pretty solidly at 20% less than retail I will be spending: $72 on a battleforce, $48 (3x$16) on crisis suits, $40 (2x$20) on Piranhas and $33 on a skyray kit (for the hammerhead) for a total of $193 plus $6 postage, so we'll call it $200 even. Please note that this already $40 odd under retail so it's a good deal right there.

Adding 10-15% (the general tone of the price hike from GW) pushes it up so that I would have to buy one fewer crisis suit to hit the same price level. It's not a huge increase but it's got me thinking about my 40k gaming and what I'm willing to spend.

Also my wife and I are talking about getting dogs, a house and kids in the not too distant future so I really have to think about what I can afford to spend. I think that my enthusiasm for 40k has really waned in the last few months so I'll see where I go from here. Thankfully I have Warmachine and Nuclear Renaissance to keep me excited for new models, and I can still play 40k with my existing armies.

Perhaps I'll come back to 40k in a collecting mindset in the future but I'm not sure right now. It's a shame but at least I have a solid army core to work from for now.

I think the new players coming into the hobby will be hit hardest though. I can't imagine how difficult it will be for an excited young player (like I was) to get an army going when it will involve dropping $200-300 or more. The basic boxed set games are fun but they run out of variety pretty fast in my experience.

Any thoughts or grumbles from other 40k players?


EDIT: I've found a local gaming club in Frederick, Md and somebody there is selling a whole bunch of Tau models so I might be able to get my army finished on the cheap. Perhaps that will be the way to do it and then I can set 40k collecting aside for now.

Some nice looking marines from coolminiornot.com by Ed209b

I was inspired on this post by Jake over on his blog Holy Cathedral when he posted a general tactica on tactical marines, the cornerstone of my marine forces. I wrote some lengthy comments on his post to add specifics on how to best use these humble troops and figured that it would be a useful way to add a post to my blog (as well as send some traffic his way).

So tactical marines. I generally will run a list with 20 tactical marines if I'm playing with the Grey Knight Deathstar (plus 5 scouts) but without that unit I might bump it up to 30. It's quite something to bring a wall of power armoured bodies to the field and see your opponents recoil as they see the sheer number of tough, armoured, well-armed, ridiculously morale resistant superhuman warriors. Of course, you need to know what to best do with Tactical marines to make the most of them and let them work well with the powerful killing sections (Elites, Heavy support) of your army.

I'm going to be lazy and just post my comments from Jake's blog here since I'm tired of typing :-)

That's a pretty good overall tactica Jake but it could do with some more specifics and detailing on the aspects of tactica marines.

E.g.
- Heavy weapons. When a squad gets to 10 marines they get a free Missile launcher, Heavy bolter or Multi-melta (or pay a bit more for a Plasma/lascannon). These weapons add such versatility that it's almost never worth leaving home without them (with 10 marine squad size). You only lose a single bolter shot at range if you don't move and gain a heavy weapon attack. If you do move, then the bolt pistol can shoot out to 12" in any case. The flexibility that these weapons add are really important.

- Special weapons. A flamer for free, meltagun for 5pts or plasma gun for 10 can add some more punch to the squad. The flamer is great for those times you're close to getting assaulted by a big squad as it can land plenty of hits, or can burn out orks/guard/termagents from cover. The meltagun is commonly taken with the shift to mechanised forces in 5th edition and can always be turned on a regular enemy if need be. The plasma gun and melta are also well suited for knocking out well armoured troops. Adding a few AP 1/2 wounds to terminators will really help your marines do the damage to these foes.

- Grenades. I don't find too much use for the frag grenades in general but remember that they can be used to stop your opponent gaining initiative on you when you charge them in cover. Krak grenades are winners when you remember that every marine has them, they hit at S6 on vehicles, and most vehicles are rear armour 10. I've taken out hammerheads, rhinos and vindicators with this technique. Scouts also have this and it is one way for them to really pay your opponent back for ignoring them.

- Combat squads. Tactical marines can be divived into two 5 man squads at the start of the game (or when the disembark in the case of drop pods). This can be a liability in annihilation missions as they become 2 kill points but it adds lots of flexibility. You can now keep the heavy weapon static, with 4 bolter marines for ablative wounds or fire support, and send sarge (for the CC ability) and the special weapon in close where they can take the fight forwards. Also, this will let you hold two objectives with one troop choice. The weakness is that the squads can be dropped relatively easily because they are small. Still, if just one survives then the opponent must waste lots of fire to bring that last one down, or risk a single model contesting/claiming a vital objective.

- Dedicated transports. The humble rhino gives you an armoured box to take your marines to their obejective and protect them from fire. If it survives after they have been dropped off then it's time to use that vehicle to block assaults to your marines or box in enemy vehicles by denying them movement.
The razorback is somewhat similar but can only carry 6 marines. In this case you'd probably send the close-range combat squad up forwards and then use the razorback as mobile fire support and blocking, like with the rhino. Some do add TL-lascannons to their razorbacks though and leave these on the rear lines with the other heavy weapons. At 75pts for a TL-LC shot, this can be nasty, though expensive. Alternatively you can give them TL-assault cannons and turn them into Baal Predator wannabes that can shred light (and sometimes heavy if your rending rolls well) armour or troops.
I don't use drop pods but there could be great utility in sending a wave of dreads in on turn 1 to mess up the enemy while your main force advances. After they foe is knocked around and has moved to counter your attack, your tactical marines in pods come in and land on the enemy objectives at full strength.
Another nasty trick is to stick a combat squad in a Land Raider and have it sit on a home objective. You can still blaze away with the big guns and your enormous brick of a tank is now scoring. Nasty...

- And They Shall Know No Fear. This is a real key for marines. They automatically regroup even under half strength (as long as there are no enemies within 6") and can move normally or fire. Note also that they don't count as moving when they rally, which means you could stand still and unleash the heavy weapons if you need to. This is a great ability as you can almost always count on your marines getting back in the fight. I found out in a recent game that there is a 3" move allowed when you rally too so you can even set up your heavy weapon shots without counting as moving.

- Combat tactics. This is underutilised in my view, perhaps because of the popular special characters that replace it with other army buffs. It allows you to choose to fail a morale test. This is great if an assaulting enemy shoots you and causes 25% casualties as you can run out of assault range, auto-rally and then hit them up next turn. Or you can run after combat if you lose in the enemy's turn. As long as you roll higher on the initiative test, you will get away, auto rally again and can shoot them next turn.

- Assaulting. I would generally not assault with my marines unless I'm facing something that will outshoot me or gains a boost from assaulting. If there was a smallish squad of orks, I would probably move in, bolt pistol them and then assault as you deprive the orks of their furious charge (now only 33% of hits will wound you rather than %50) and the bonus attack for charging. I play against tau a lot and they can be quite easily tied up with tactical marines, even if you don't win. Broadsides are great for this as you can lock them in combat for the rest of the game sometimes (2+ saves keep them alive though) and stop the railguns from messing up the rest of your army.

- Special characters. While I don't like to use the special characters in the codices, you should be aware that they bring some great changes to the way tactical marines play.
Pedro Kantor changes your marines to have stubborn rather than combat tactics. This doesn't do so much for me but then his key point is making sternguard scoring so he has less of a focus on tactical marines. He does give a +1 attack bubble within 12" though so your tactical marines holding the objective are now that much tougher to assault off it.
Kayvan Shrike. Makes your marines fleet instead of combat tactics. This doesn't really work for my use of tacs but then his boost is for other troops (like assault terminators).
Vulkan He'Stan. Makes your flamers, heavy flamers, meltaguns and multimeltas count as twin linked. This can be fairly potent as your tactical marine firepower with these weapons just went up a serious notch. Even if the tactical marines are moving, the threat of TL melta on the next turn will be a good deterrent for the enemy.
Khossaro Khan. Outflanking marines. Give them rhinos/razorbacks and let that mech madness roll into the enemy's backfield at high speed.


Those are just some extra thoughts on the core unit for marines that you might consider adding to the tactica (and future ones). It's much more of a specific use guide rather than an overall descriptor and hopefully it will give some good help to newer marine players.


So there are some thoughts. Comments are welcome as always and I reserve the right to change my opinions after playing tomorrow night. I think I'll be matching up against Ravenwing so we'll see how my hybrid list handles fast moving bikers.

Poor sidestriker. The dice were not kind to him.


So last night was the clash of my new 1850 marine list vs Old Shatter Hand's 1850 list. We played at Dream Wizards among the masses of MTG players and some other 40k/Warmachine folks. I noted the prevalence of Deff-Rollas among the ork players now that the FAQ has ruled that they can hit vehicles ;-)

So my list was a heavy tank-deathstar-hybrid sort of thing.
- Captain with Powerfist
- 5 Terminators with Cyclone Missile Launcher
- Multimelta dreadnought
- TL-Autocannon dreadnought
- 10 Grey Knights with 2 Incinerators
- 10 Tactical Marines with Missile launcher and Meltagun
- 10 Tactical Marines with Missile launcher and flamer
- 5 scouts with bolters
- Land Raider
- Land Raider Redeemer

Old Shatter Hands brought
- Fireknive Shas'El with 2 bodyguards (target arrays, a target lock, 2 drones)
- Fireforge (Fusion/Missile) Shas'El (target array)
- 3 Deathrains
- 10 Kroot with 5 kroot hounds (converted from LOTR Wargs, great idea).
- 9 Fire Warriors in Devilfish
- 9 Fire Warriors in Devilfish
- 3 Piranhas with fusion
- 2 Hammerheads with railguns and SMS
- 3 Broadsides with Target arrays, leader with target lock

We rolled up pitched battle deployment and annihilation as missions. In many ways, this feels like the most original way to play 40k to me. Basically we line up and kill each other.

So the game can be described in two ways and it looks very different based on which way you consider. We have the game result and the tactical part of the game.

Game result: A strong victory to me (7 kill points to 4, with the chance of adding more kill points if we played another turn and not many chances for OSH to get more).

Tactical result: A close fought battle.

So what happened to lead to these divergent results?

Basically OSH deployed with a central firebase of the Deathrains, Broadsides and hammerheads, sent his piranhas out wide and put the rest in reserve. I played cautiously with my Land Raiders by putting them on my far right so that they were out of the way of the railguns in the early turns. In the centre I sent my dreads and Grey Knights with the captain. The tactical marines combat squadded and took supporting positions.
As I advanced up the centre with my Deathstar and went to my right flank with the Land Raiders, Old Shatter Hands swung his forces to the opposite flank and kept up a strong rate of fire. The broadsides stayed as an anchor so that they could fire and also so I would continue to come forwards to assault them as there was a big difficult terrain block to my left that would have left my Grey Knights in the open if they'd tried to change direction.
I responded by continuing my sweeping manouvers and gradually caught up with a battered the Tau forces. Overall it gave me a strong win as I dropped a lot of troops and didn't take too many casualties. Tactically speaking, OSH played well and used the Tau strengths to put me in tough positions over which units I would expose to fire.

On the other hand, the dice completely killed him....

I managed to make roughly 90% of all cover saves on my vehicles (from smoke or terrain), his attacks routinely failed to penetrate (even the broasides rolled 1s vs the dread) and when they did, the damage rolls were weak. I had one dreadnought immobilised and with no autocannons and the other lacking a multimelta but it had taken 5 turns of shooting to get them to that point. The Land Raiders were impervious to the few shots that came their way and if I hadn't immobilised my Redeemer on dangerous terrain then I could have been even more aggressive with my heavy armour. I rolled well on shooting in general, really well on assault attacks against OSH's vehicles and generally had a great game. I even started to feel bad by the end as it seemed so stacked in my favour for this game. Only the kroot did well on their rolls as I tried (in vain) to blast them out of cover and claim another kill point.
I'm sure we'll have a rematch where the opposite will occur and I have to thank OSH for remaining a great opponent even when it was all going wrong.

As far as his list went, I think it is fairly solid. The tournament he's looking at is 2000 pts so we talked about adding pathfinders, dropping one FW devilfish (they can use the PF one) and using the points to add another piranha. This would give him 2 units of 2 fast fusion blasters and the markerlight support he will need to deal with heavy cover saves.
In any case, a great (albeit lucky) game for me and I've already offered to swap sides and take Tau against OSH's blood angels soon.


PS: On a side note I met the local Press Ganger (Warmachine/Hordes intro guy) who has offered to show me some cool Cygnar stuff next week if I make it to DW again. Yay for steampunk walkers.

Well, the deathstar got its outing last night against Old Shatter Hands' Tau Cadre. I was trying out a big assaulty unit as a spearhead and OSH was giving pathfinders and firestorms a go.

We played a 1330 points game because I grabbed models in a hurry took more than 1250. My list was:

- Captain with powerfist leading 10 Grey Knights (2 Incinerators)
- MM Dread
- TL-AC Dread
- 10 Tactical Marines (Missile launcher and flamer)
- 10 Tactical Marines (Missile launcher and meltagun)
- Land Raider

And OSH brought:

- Old Shatter hands (Fireknife) with two gun drones
- 3 Fireknives
- 3 Firestorms + 2 Gun drones
- 12 Fire warriors with a devilfish
- 12 Fire warriors
- 8 Pathfinders with a devilfish
- 3 Broadsides with Targetting arrays and 2 shield drones.

The table setup was an urban board and we set it up so that basically I was going to head for OSH's gunline. There was one roadway space for the Land Raider to deploy in and the Tau had plenty of barricades. I was aiming to get as many troops as possible inside OSH's deployment zone. He chose to hold back his crisis suits to deepstrike while OSH and the Broadsides anchored the central barricade. I was nervous setting up my LR in front of the broadsides but there was no choice and I figured that fear was not becoming for marines :-)

So how did it go?

....in short, aggressive movement and poor rolling for OSH meant it was a slaughter of the Tau.

Slightly longer:

I was lucky in my first turn as I moved forwards on all fronts (LR with deathstar in the middle, one combat squad on the right, one in the middle, dreads and full tac squad on the left) and didn't do much firing. OSH used his pathfinders to boost the broadsides and take away my smoke cover save but the railguns only managed to stun the raider. Turn 2 I dropped my deathstar and moved them up. Two incinerators (S5,AP4,no cover or invuln. saves) later and the pathfinders were gone. My other forces carried on sweeping around.

OSH gets both crisis teams in but they both scatter into buildings. He rolls three 1s on the dangerous terrain for the fireknives and loses and wound on the other squad too. One set of fire warriors jump out of the devilfish to rapid fire the deathstar. They are joined by OSH, the broadsides firing SMS and the fireknives. By putting as many plasma shots as possible on the captain, having cover and good rolling, I lose 4 Grey Knights and a wound on the captain. The firestorms don't have much luck on the flanking combat squad either.

What follows is basically a series of nasty assaults from the Captain, Grey Knights and Dreadnoughts to wipe out the centre of OSH's lines. The Land Raider keeps popping shots into the devilfish and Fire warriors, and my full tactical squad sweeps into the deployment zone of OSH. We end the game after 4 turns. I lose 6-7 Grey Knights, my captain and 5 marines. OSH loses himself (bizarre but true), 4 crisis suits, 3 broadsides, a devilfish and a few fire warriors.


Lessons from the match:

- A basic MEQ deathstar is actually quite vulnerable. If OSH had rolled better, or I rolled worse (passed 7 saves on the captain in one turn) then the Grey Knights would have been badly thinned out. Also, their combat success was against Tau forces. A real assault opponent would have been tougher, though striking at S6, I4 is still powerful.
- Land Raiders can be really mean once you have taken out threats to them. By the end of the game it was literally invulnerable to OSH's shots.
- Railguns are not as powerful against AV14 as you might first think. We talked about their effect (or lack of) and then decided that they were possibly better used against Rhinos as they will always glance at the worst. Still, bad luck on this unit was the problem for this game.
- Pinning can sneak up on you. OSH's devilfish popped a tactical marine with a gun drone and the squad then hit the deck, giving me one fewer missile shots during the game.
- Markerlight support is a really key element for many units in the Tau codex. OSH was unlucky to get roasted by the heavy flamer equivalents that Grey Knights have as just boosting his shooting by a little might have spelled the end for my deathstar.
- OSH is one of the most gracious and fun guys to play against, win or lose. We had a fun time and it was so easy to play with someone who knows the rules, doesn't argue over awkward points and just wants to enjoy a game of toy soldiers.

Thanks for the game OSH.


PS: I may have unintentionally cheated at one point. My fearless Grey Knights were joined by the captain when they got shot up. I believe that the addition of such a character removes their fearless status and so I should have taken a leadership check when they got shot up. My bad.

Well good morning folks.

I've had a busy last week so sorry for no updates. My wife and I will be moving to a new apartment next month and so things have been busy at IKEA (getting model kits for grownups) and desperately working every extra shift at starbucks to help save up.

Good news though:
- The Krylon primer I got went on a dream and I really like it.
- I've been painting a whole bunch in my free time and the pile of 'to-do' miniatures is slowly shrinking
- All of my orders from Ramshackle Games have arrived (yay Curtis) and I have loads of new models to play with.
- I managed to get free tickets to a Muse concert last night and the show was incredible. You have to love working at a radio station!


Anyway, the point of the post is about using a Deathstar unit as I'm playing Old Shatter Hands tonight. For those who don't know, a Deathstar is a unit that is incredibly powerful, hard-hitting and usually very expensive. It works by forcing the opponent to concentrate on it entirely because left unchecked, it can usually smash apart their forces and swing the battle. Examples include:

- Marine maxed out TH/SS assault terminators led by a chaplain, in a Land Raider. This will hurt when it hits you and takes so much to kill.
- Ork Nob bikers kitted out to abuse wound allocation with a painbody to add FNP. This moves fast, eats almost anything and has to take a huge number of wounds before even one dies.
- Eldar Jetbike Seer Council. Fast moving unit that hits so hard and can benefit from all sorts of deadly farseer powers.

There are many others but that all share the same principles of focusing your opponent's attention and forcing them to react to you rather than follow their own plan.


Now I don't go for the big power plays (like above) but I do want to try out a nasty assaulting unit since I'm normally a shooty kinda guy. Luckily I got two boxes of Grey Knights when I was making my army (loved the Ben Counter Grey Knight novels) and so a lightbulb went off.

I'm planning to run the following:

- Captain with a powerfist.
- 10 Grey Knights with Justicar, 2 have incinerators.
- Land Raider

Now mine don't look quite this good but you get the idea :-)

Having a squad like this that can put out 16 storm bolter shots and 2 heavy flamer equivalents per turn is nasty. They can keep moving and firing too which is great in the current game setup. Then when they charge into combat you have 14 S6 attacks, 4 S4 attacks, 3 S6 power weapon hits and 4 S8 powerfist attacks. Given that all but the captain will strike at initiative, that is some pain right there. Vehicles will largely go down against this many high strength attacks as well (they are basically krak grenades) and the captain allows for some real hitting strength. Bringing them up the Land Raider stops them getting shot so much and allows me to control line of sight to them via an AV14 mobile bunker. Any real threats to the GK will face lascannons from the LR too.

Still, this is an expensive unit at ~670 points as I have it kitted out, but I'm hoping that OSH's Tau will not be able to deal with it in time to prevent their lines getting overwhelmed by scary assaulting marines. They are fearless too, which helps me to avoid morale checks or pinning. Of coures, I'd need to detach the captain for that but they can still charge the same target if need be.

What are people's thoughts? Deathstar units any good?

Hey folks,

Old Shatter Hands sent over the photos of our game so I am posting them up seperately from the game rather than trying to stuff them into the same post. I'll try to remember when each photo was taken in game.




These two show the combination of my colour scheme with OSH's. We agreed that they looked pretty neat together and it will be cool to see them lined up alongside one another when it comes time to have a big apocalypse game with them.



Stealth suits and deathrains ready to open fire.


Me checking TLOS.


The Chaplain's hiding spot.


Tau firing line.


The Skyray blocks the Death Company.


Again without the flash.


Our version of a stunt shot with rapelling lines for the Fire Warriors.


Thanks OSH for all the great photos and for the great game. Also, check out how cool his terrain is for the game. I love the ruins and the homemade buildings in particular.

Hey everyone, here is my first battle report of the year.

After our last tangle on his 4x4 urban board (see http://ghostnebulae.blogspot.com/search/label/Battle%20Report) OSH and I decided that we needed to scale the game down for a better experience (and a shorter game length). We settled on a 1000 point cities of death game. Braving the icy chill of the snowstorm that hit the DC area on saturday (20 deg F/-6 deg celcius) I hopped on the metro and struggled the few blocks to OSH's place in the snow.

Now OSH has been playing with his Blood Angels a bit more recently and so wanted to stay with a fast assault army. By contrast, I've been using marines and I jumped at the chance to have a go with some Tau. Fortunately OSH has plenty of Tau models so I could flesh out my guys with some of his to make the force I wanted.

My list:
- Shas El with Fusion and Plama, 2 gun drones.
- 3 Deathrains (Twin Linked Missiles and flamer)
- 3 Stealth suits with marker drone
- 12 Fire Warriors
- 12 Kroot
- 6 Pathfinders with Devilfish (Multitracker, Disruption Pod)
- Broadside with Targetting Array and 2 gun drones
- Skyray with Smart Missile System, Targetting array, Target Lock, Multitracker.

I was partly playing around with some different options but I think it is a reasonably solid list. It felt weird not to have hammerheads running around but they are just too vulnerable in city terrain for me and can't always make the most of their firepower. I was hoping that with a decent amount of markerlights I could drop seeker missiles on OSH and boost firing effectiveness enought that I could torrent through his armour saves.

OSH's List (from memory, may be slightly wrong).
- Jump pack Chaplain (plasma pistol)
- 5 Assault Marines (Plasma pistols, 1 power weapon)
- 5 Assault Marines (Plasma pistols, 1 power weapon)
- 10 Tactical marines (Missile and Flamer)
- 10 Tactical marines (plasma cannon and plasma gun) combat squadded.
- 5 Scouts (Missile Launcher)
- 3 Death company marines.

The mission we rolled was to control the city ruins. There was one in OSH's deployment zone, 1 in the centre and 2 in my deployment. For strategems, OSH took infiltrate so his scouts could get close and I took Rapelling lines (can deploy out of a skimmer along its move path with a dangerous terrain check). It was partly just for the cool factor but also I thought that the Fire warriors could make a later game rush for one of the buildings.

OSH rolled first turn and deployed forwards towards the centre with everything except the plasma combat squad, which held his home ruin, and the scouts who snuck round the building on my far left. I put the broadside, Shas'El, Kroot and Skyray on my left, the pathfinders and devilfish behind a barricade in the centre, and my Fire Warriors, Stealth suits and Deathrains holding the right. Then I was lucky enough to sieze the initiative...OSH didn't look so happy.

I figured that I needed to make the most of my 2 turns of shooting before the blood angels ripped me apart in assault so I moved to do this. The kroot took position behind the barricade, the skyray moved to open LOS to the assault squad with the chaplain and my stealth and deathrains jumped out to shoot. For firing, we managed to put three markerlights on the assault marines, the firewarriors dropped one, my shas'el plasma rifled one and then I popped three seeker missiles into them from the Skyray (I was determined to fire all of the missiles this game). Sadly the broadside rolled a 1 to wound. On the other side, the deathrains didn't kill any marines and the stealth suits were about 1" out of range. OSH mostly just moved forwards towards the central building. His chaplain jumped out of sight on my left, the scout missile man peeked around the corner, and a plasma cannon blast melted four kroot.

My second turn let me open up with a bit more firepower but I didn't kill as much as I would have liked. The pathfinders did manage to remove the cover save of the marines in the centre and my broadside splatted one. In reply, OSH failed to damage the skyray with a krak missile, but killed a broadside drone with plasma fire. His chaplain jumped over the building and into combat with the kroot, killing four, losing one wound and then sweeping up the survivors...ouch.

For the third turn I moved the skyray out in front of my barricades, looking to block off the mass of marines heading my way. I also shuffled the devilfish out as well ready to pick up the fire warriors. I knocked out a couple of the assault marines in the centre after markerlighting their cover away for the broadside and hitting them with various small arms. My Shas'el blasts the chaplain with plasma and fusion fire and moves down to go for the scouts. OSH gets his tactical marines into the central building to claim that objective and sends his assault marines after the stealth suits. The suits hold out, losing only the marker drone. The death company must go for the Skyray but fail to break through its armour.

Fourth turn sees me needing to make a real push for the objectives as OSH is holding two and close to getting a third if his assault marines beat up my suits. I send the fire warriors into the devilfish and they go skywards, leaping out on the rapelling lines to land on the top of the central ruin. The deathrains pop some of the marines in OSH's home ruin and my skyray pushes forwards to clear my front lines. With some markerlight help, my fire warriors, skyray and broadside gun down one of OSH's tactical squads. Only two marines left in the middle ruin now. In assault, OSH's assault marines cut down the stealth suits. In his turn the death company chop up the skyray (furious charge and rending are nasty) and the assault marines get into combat with the deathrains, killing one.

Fifth turn I really lay on the firepower to try and clear OSH off the objectives. My Shas'el shoots and assaults the scouts, killing them. My fire warriors and devilfish manage to torrent OSH's home plasma squad to death, the pathfinders finish off the other tac marines in the centre and my broadside splats a death company marine. In the assault phase I lose another wound from the deathrains. OSH's turn is short as he only has 4 models remaining. His death company charge at the devilfish but don't reach it and the assault marines kill the deathrains and consolidate onto the nearby ruin.

OSH rolls a 2 and the game ends in a draw with one objective each, though OSH gives me the moral victory for holding another ruin (though not with troops). I later realised that I'd forgotten to make a dangerous terrain check for the rapelling Fire Warriors so I give him the moral win as well.

Whew. Well that was a blast to play. I really like Cities of Death!

Game wise, there was a lot of luck swinging my way. Rolling to sieze the initiative was a real kicker as I got to pummel OSH's troops while they were out in the open. Knocking out one assault squad before it could move was great for not getting overwhelmed too early. I think that my army choice overall wasn't too bad. The markerlights were really key for forcing OSH to take certain saves or to boost my shooting. It's the first game where I've actually really fired off the seekers from my skyray so that was a cool use of markerlights too. The stealth team suffered with their short range and the speed of OSH's assault troops so next time I might swap them for another squad of fire warriors. Overall it was really fun to play on such a constricted board where every turn was key and I loved the tight fire lanes and movement zones etc.

I will add photos tonight probably when OSH sends them to me.

Spidertank, Spidertank,
Does whatever a spidertank does
Spins a web, superheavy size,
Catches vehicles just like flies
Look Out!
Here comes the Spidertank.


So here comes the battle report that was teased about a little while ago. Old Shatter Hands sent me all of his pictures so hopefully I can get them loaded into the post and formatted properly.

The game was based on the rules for the upcoming Inner Circle tournament on december 12th in Glen Burnie. Basically it's 1850 pts, standard FOC, five objectives (one in each quarter, one in the table centre) then you pick 5 killpoints from the other army that decide the game if objectives are drawn. It's a neat system because you can pick out the squishy bits of your opponent's army and it means that you don't get really penalised for having too many killpoints (since only 5 can be claimed). This will probably help balance IG vs marines etc.

With Old Shatter Hands' encouragement, I brought my Hunstman Spider Tank (HST) out for its first outing since I finished building it. We used the rules in teaser post below and it seemed to work out alright. It's important to note that we're playing on a 4x4 table instead of a 6x4. This turned out to be a big factor in OSHs ability to manouvre.

Army lists were in the teaser as well so let's just get on with the game.

Deployment



So basically that shows everything that was on the table. My captain is with the central tactical squad to avoid any first turn sniping. Technically it's turn 1 you're seeing but we forgot to do top down photos until then. My scouts are infiltrated behind the central building and the terminators are deep striking. OSH has his Devilfish and Fire warriors in reserve, the kroot are outflanking.

For kill points, OSH chooses my three tactical squads, the dreadnought and my captain. I choose the kroot, the hammerheads, sidestriker and the piranha gun drones. My thinking is that the kroot will go down easily, sidestriker only needs a lucky shot and I'll get a killpoint, the gun drones will pop off easily enough, and the heavy support is something I'll be firing at anyway so it makes sense (I think) to add them.

Turn 1

OSH goes first, boosting the piranhas into the centre of my formation. He keeps them facing outwards so that all shots will be on AV 11 (you must fire at the closest facing of the closest vehicle in a squadron). His firing is pretty good. The hammerheads drop a bunch of marines from each tactical squad on the flanks. The deathrains chip in firing at my left flank and I lose six marines from that squad by the end. The broadsides get no such luck against the HST and miss, even with Targetting arrays.

My turn one is mostly moving. I surge forward with everything. The captain detaches to charge the piranhas and my scouts make a run forwards to try and krak grenade the hammerhead (like last game).


Come on Brothers, we can make it...

My firing is not too hefty. The devastators and spider tank fail to damage the hammerhead on my right flank. My assault phase is good and bad. The scouts fail to do anything, leaving them out in the open to get shot up next turn. However, the captain and spider tank roll three 6s from seven attacks. The captain destroys one piranha and knocks the gun off a second, which the spider tank then shreds. Never forget that super heavy walkers can assault different target to what they shoot. The gun drones break off and form a squad by the central objective, though they are pinned

Turn 2

OSH gets one devilfish from reserve and his kroot come in on my left flank. He uses the devilfish to take the objective in his right quarter and the kroot charge my remaining 4 tactical marines on the far left. The deathrains stun the dread as well, darn it. OSH and bodyguards gun down the scouts. Fortunately the remaining piranha misses with its fusion blaster (good since it had flown over the HST to shoot the rear armour) and the railguns fail to make any impact. Not for the first time, OSH kicks himself for using the hammerheads in an anti tank role. In assault, the marines kill off kroot for no losses (love power armour) but the bird men stay in the fight.



In my turn, the terminators show up. I drop them in OSH right backfield but they scatter into the centre of his lines. Oh well, let's trust in our 2+ save. My left tactical squad moves into combat with the kroot, the right one runs forward, the captain charges the gun drones, the HST and sternguard move forwards. My shooting is pretty good with the HST blowing up a shield drone and broadside, terminators killing OSH's drones and the devastators knocking down the piranha (two lascannons and two krak missiles to the face will do nicely, thanks very much). In assault, the kroot drop and I roll high for my consolidation forwards. I pop smoke on the dread as well.

Turn 3

OSH gets another devilfish (in on his left). His firepower whittles away at my marines but the HST keeps getting saved by his poor rolling or my good luck on 5+ cover saves. That luck flips in spades when OSH turns his fireknives and sidestriker on the terminators. They are wiped out except for the cyclone guy. Ouch, when will I learn how deadly tau plasma/fusion fire can be? Luckily the smoke saves my dread from the attention of the deathrains.


Now that's a big spider infestation...

I surge forwards again. The HST knocks sidestriker down to 1 wound, the cyclone guy brings down one of OSH's bodyguards and the tactical melta stuns the devilfish (I think anyway). I run the captain up to the shrubbery (bring me another shrubbery!) by OSH's backline. Hopefully he can get into combat with that powerfist of his. Some other fire must have gone down too as OSH was on 1 wound by the next turn but I forget when that happened.

Turn 4

OSH gets his last devilfish so everything is on the table now. He pushes one forwards on his left to block up my movement and hold the objective. I lose my reduced tactical squad on the left to OSH and bodyguard and my captain gets melted by Sidestriker (oh well, that didn't work). The HST continues to be elusive and gets missed by the railguns. Maybe those spidey senses are tingling :-)



The HST has ineffective shooting but charges the devilfish in the way. My plasma tactical squad shoots down the broadside gun drone. My other tactical squad misses the devilfish on the objective but the dreadnought wrecks it, forcing the Fire warriors to bail out of the back. The sternguard gun down some fire warriors in the centre (can't remember when they deployed, oh well). The HST hits once on the devilfish and immobilises it. The terminator manages to land a krak missile and a storm bolter wound on OSH and bodyguard. Luck is not on his side as the bodyguard is hit with instant death and OSH fails his 3+ and bites the dust. The tactical squad nearby guns down the fire warriors who bailed out of the devilfish.


With their backs to the giant red tape measure, OSH and his bodyguard have no way out

Turn 5

OSH jumps his hammerheads back and to the side, looking to put fire on my tactical squad holding the objective. He kills off a few but can't get them all. The lone terminator is blasted however. The dreadnought finally succumbs to the hails of missiles that the Deathrains have been sending his way.


My 'stunt thumb' in the photo to show the Deathrain's celebration

Unfortunately for OSH, the HST is still in contact with the devilfish. Three damage rolls later (auto-hit for immobile target, S10 +2D6 penetration on rear armour 10) and the devilfish is a smoking wreck, leaving just two fire warriors alive to face down the rampaging super heavy (see first photo).

The spider tank then rampages forward and opens fire. Its rail rifles bring down two loose gun drones from a devilfish and then the demolisher gets a perfect shot and wipes out the deathrains in one go. My tactical squad nearest the HST charges into combat with the broadside to stop it shooting up the HST. Unfortunately they fluff against the 2+ armour and lose combat, though don't run.

Turn 6

One hammerhead comes to the centre to try and blast off my marines from the objective. The squad is knocked down to 2 members but stays in the fight. The other hammerhead jumps over into my backfield but doesn't get a good hit on the HST. Sidestriker also has a go with his fusion blaster but no luck. He jumps back into cover. I fluff against the broadside again. Drawn combat.

Desperate to hold onto the single objective I tuck my marines as far into the nook of the devilfish and terrain as I can.


And we shall know no fear if there is a great honking wreck to hide behind

The HST has nothing to eat up and the demolisher cannon scatters off the board when I go for the hammerhead. The sternguard do better. They can see sidestriker through the trees and rapid fire 10 S4 AP3 vengeance rounds at him. Enough hit that he fails a cover save and drops, killpoint. My devastators fail to land anything damaging on the hammerhead and, once more, I fail to scratch the broadside.

We roll and the game ends at this point. I win with two marines on an objective. The others are contested (OSH's left flank with the broadside, tac squad and two fire warriors) or not held by troops. For killpoints we end up even at 3 apiece. I claim the kroot, sidestriker and the piranha gun drones and OSH gets the captain, one tactical squad and the dreadnought.

To show how much death was inflicted, here is the board at the end of the game. Note that only the two hammerheads are still functioning. The other Tau vehicles are wrecks we left to look cool and show dangerous terrain.




Thoughts on the game

Well first of all. Big kudos to OSH for hosting the game at his place (thanks for the dinner too) and letting my bring a super heavy to the table for a normal game. We talked through things and decided that the HST is not overpowered, though it is a little bit potent on such a small board. To be honest, that was one problem with the game. On a 4x4 arrangement, OSH was very limited in his ability to get out of the way and use his mechanised mobility. On the other hand, the limited manouvering space meant that I was exposed to his firepower a lot of the time, or had to move into fire zones in order to advance any further.

I feel that OSH's tournament list is strong though we both discussed alternate piranha tactics (since i have two and am going to get two more at some stage). In our first game he used them mostly in a harassing role and avoided my best efforts to take them out. This time around he was much more agressive and perhaps paid the price for that. Overall the little skimmers are very resilient to firepower but can go down quite easily in assault. The trick to beating them is to charge with things that aren't easily affected by flechette launchers. That means walkers and independent, multi-wound characters. Where a squad of 10 marines would take 15 wounds on average (3 flechette launchers wounding on 4+) and lose 5 before getting to attack. My captain on the other hand, would be wounded 1.5 times on average, and only take 0.5 of a wound. In this game, he took one wound and dealt back two hits (good rolling admittedly). Overall, a mixed strategy would seem to be best for the piranhas. Use them to corral and threaten things so that they can soak up firepower and save the aggressive stuff for really critical times in the game. Anyway, just a few thoughts.

I go with my same conclusion for the last game about OSH's firepower. It doesn't seem like too much at any one time (a marine here, two more there) but by the end of the game I'd lost 6 terminators, a dread, captain, 5 scouts and about 25 tactical marines. My units generally performed well and I'm mostly happy. The devastator squad didn't have as much of an impact as I might have liked so I may try something else next game. Thanks to OSH I have a new godhammer land raider so perhaps putting a combat squad of tactical marines in there and holding a home objective is in order. It'd definitely be tough to crack an AV14 bunker with lascannons and heavy bolters that is blazing away at you.

Anyway, thanks for reading and we'll see if the spider tank wants to come out and play again sometime.

PS: I managed to snap off the raised leg of the HST when I got home and put the box down to get my keys out. Damn resin and its brittleness. Fortunately it's a neat break so I'll break out the epoxy and fix it up soon. I need to get carving on some foam for that thing.

Hi folks.

For those who read the Tau of War (http://tauofwar.blogspot.com/) you might notice that i've started playing against Old Shatter Hands with my marines. Last night we had a very close fought and brutal game to test out his tournament list and new gaming table.

First of all, this post is not the battle report. I've been working through my memories of the game and trying to place when all of the key events happened. OSH has promised to send me over his pictures of the game so I can make it a proper report.

It was a small and deadly game. OSH has a 4x4 urban style table and there was a reasonable amount of terrain given the size. He brought his mech tau list which is:

- Old Shatterhands (Fireknife (FK) Shas'El), two FK bodyguards and two drones.
- Shas'El Sidestriker (Fusion and Missiles)
- 3 Deathrains
- 3 x 6 Fire warriors in Devilfish
- 3 Fusion Piranhas
- 2 Broadsides with 2 shield drones
- 2 Railgun Hammerheads

I came with a specially made footslogging marine list (similar to the last battle report with me on OSH's blog)

- Captain with power fist
- Multi-melta Dreadnought
- 6 Terminators with cyclone missile launcher
- 5 Sternguard
- 3x10 tactical marines (Missile/Plasma, Missile/Melta, Multi-melta/flamer)
- 5 Scouts with heavy bolter
- 10 Devastators with 2 missile launchers and 2 lascannons
- Huntsman Spider Tank (Super heavy with custom rules)





Now the last item is probably the one that will draw the most attention and justifiably so. Since I don't have the pictures of last night ready yet, I will shamelessly use one taken from the gallery of the guy who makes the model (http://www.ramshacklegames.co.uk/).

This thing is a beast of a model. It's baneblade sized with its massive legs and we had a few problems figuring out how to fit it around the terrain and other models. It's a really intricate resin kit but fits together very well and has so much character. Curtis, the guy who runs Ramshackle Games, is one of the nicest people you can deal with. I got the spider tank, two other vehicles and a host of figures from him for a great price and he even included a set of miscast pieces for conversions etc. for a cheap cheap price. More info on my vehicles can be found at http://www.lead-adventure.de/index.php?topic=13537.msg168754#msg168754 and http://www.lead-adventure.de/index.php?topic=13496.msg162183#msg162183.

Now the tank was made for a different game system so I needed to make some suitable rules for it. Thanks go to OSH at this point for agreeing to play against custom designed rules and a superheavy unit in a small game.

Name: Huntsman Spider Tank
Points: 350
Type: Super-heavy walker
Structure Points: 3
Armour (Front/side/rear): 13/13/10
Ballistic Skill: 3
Weapon Skill: 2
Attacks: 3 at Strength 10 (2D6 armour penetration) with no armour saves allowed OR stomp attack (1 attack at each model in contact with it during assault phase resolved at WS and I 1. S10 power weapon, 2D6 penetration)

Weapons:
- Turret Mounted Demolisher cannon (R:24", S:10, AP:2, Ordnance 1, Barrage)
- 2x chin mounted twin Rail rifles (R:36", S:6, AP:3, Heavy 2, twin-linked)
- Two crushing claws (-1A per claw destroyed)

Fleet walker (6” + D6” + 6” assault)


I made the rules this way so that it is a resilient unit that is not too outright killy. I wanted it to be tough but not as over the top as some of the apocalypse units. At first I thought twin linked rail rifles might be too much, then I saw the Brass Scorpion has a Heavy 10 S6 AP3 gun, 2 heavy flamers, a demolisher cannon, more attacks and goes nuclear more easily, all for 50 points less.

Overall, it was a very solid unit in the game but didn't dominate overly or unbalance things. More on that later.

Stay tuned for the real battle report when i get the photos from OSH and get a chance to write everything up.

Well I got back into warhammer slightly after the boxed set Assault on Black Reach was released. I wasn't entirely sure which army/armies I wanted to collect but since the boxed set was such a good deal, and my wife had raised her eyebrow at the price of the hobby, I decided that it would be a good place to start. By the time I painted my way through the models from the box I decided that orks might not be for me. Painting one mob of 20 boyz was hard enough that I wasn't sure I could face doing another 40-50 to fill out the army. Space marines it was then. This actually fitted in well with my imperium-centric 40k fiction and I was taken by the idea of playing with a small elite force. Plus, being few in number, they were relatively cheap.

After a year or so of collecting my army is as follows:
- Captain
- 6 Terminators
- 5 Sternguard (converted from plastic tactical marines)
- Dreadnought
- 30 Tactical marines
- 5 Scouts
- 10 Grey Knights (an online order mistake gave me two boxes and I loved the models so much I decided to keep them)
- 5 Assault marines
- Land Raider Redeemer
- 16 Devastators (well I had to make the most of all the heavy weapons)

I've played with this army at various points levels as I gradually increased the size of my collection though mostly it's been at the 1000 or 1500 pts level. Recently I moved from England to Maryland and have tweaked a list that I play with at 1850 points since that seems to be the main game size over here. Overall I guess I have about 2500 pts but I haven't really fielded it all in one game (yet).

This chapter (The Sons of Anteus) is my own creation and has a deep red and gold colour scheme. In several places I've used a white circle with a golden ankh design to mark special units. The sternguard are a good example of this.



That's not the best image but gives a good idea of my general colour scheme. When I get time I'll put up a background to 'The Sons of Anteus'

After about six months of playing marines I found myself getting more interested in a second army. Partly I wanted a change of tactics and partly I was just a bit tired of painting red and gold. With a little time looking through the background and model ranges (and playing Dawn of War) I ticked off the races one by one.

- Special Chapter marines (eg. Blood Angels etc.) didn't appeal to me since I prefer to play with my own background pluse I wanted a change from power armour.
- Chaos Daemons. I love the background in the codex but the models didn't appeal too much, plus they are largely metal and so expensive.
- Daemonhunters. Very tempting but since they are so expensive I thought I'd just use them as allies (love those rules).
- Witch Hunters. Same as daemonhunters. I'll probably get a squad or two of battle sisters at some point.
- Dark Eldar. Tactically interesting but I don't like the models.
- Eldar. Same as Dark Eldar.
- Imperial Guard. Too many models and not my style.
- Necrons. No thanks.
- Tyranids. A little tempting but I'm not sure I could paint a horde.
- Orks. More tempting than Nids as I love the crazy ramshackle nature of them. Perhaps in the future when I have more time to paint large numbers of models.
- Chaos marines. These nearly had me for a while. I'm an absolute sucker for Nurgle in the background and I figured out how easy it was to paint just by adding lots of layers of drybrushed green, brown and washes. If I could get plastic plague marines I might have gone this way but having to shell out for Forge world torsos was too much.

So that left just one army who really grabbed me with their modern style of combat (rather than semi-medieval) and sleek lines. Tau were the way forward. Luckily a friend of mine at the university wargaming club had a pretty sizeable Tau army and that gave me a chance to try them out. We swapped armies and played a really close game that ended with my marines pinned down as I enjoyed the Jump-Shoot-Jump tricks with his crisis suits but also had my Tau forces nearly wiped out as I played them as if they were marines.

I started out my purchase with a Tau Battleforce. This is definitely one of the better deals out there as every unit is useful and you also get a balanced selection in the box (unlike some other battleforces). I also picked up a Skyray missile gunship. The reason for the latter was twofold. First, I like the idea of the Skyray itself and second, it comes with the sprues to make a Hammerhead gunship. With very little tweaking I now had myself a Skyray and Hammerhead from one boxed set (and the Devilfish from the battleforce). I later picked up a Piranha from my local store and a player there bought me a Crisis suit in exchange for one of my old Warhammer Fantasy models. Fortunately, in some ways, my Piranha moulding was really bad so I called up GW customer service about getting a hull that actually fit together. They sent me a whole new kits as a replacement, thumbs up there. Needless to say, with the incentive of making a squadron I managed to force the warped hull into place for long enough that the glue could set.

So my tau force is:
- 2 XV8 Crisis Suits
- 3 XV 25 Stealth Suits
- 12 Fire Warriors
- 12 Kroot Carnivores
- 2 Piranhas
- 6 Gun Drones
- Skyray Missile Gunship
- Hammerhead Gunship

I decided to go for an arid landscape camouflage for my units. I figured that a modern army like the Tau would definitely use any means they could to keep their troops concealed and protected. Having painted a stack of models now I'm wavering on this because it takes a lot of green stripes (~30 per Fire Warrior, ~50 per XV8 and >100 for a vehicle) to make the camo effect. On the other hand, once they're completed, they do look cool so I'll just suck it up.

The huge spider tank thing there is a model from the small (but perfectly formed) Ramshackle Games (www.ramshacklegames.co.uk) company. I picked it up just for the joy of such a cool steampunk model and it will hopefully make a fun ally for the Tau in a future game. In fact my new gaming buddy, Old Shatter Hands (http://tauofwar.blogspot.com) has already expressed and interest in playing with/against it.

Well that's about all for now. I'll post up thoughts on each of my armies as I spend more time with them.