The Omnissiah's Wrath

Today the legions of the Omnissiah went into battle against the foul traitors of Khorne and their Daemonic allies. Due to the scale of the daemonic incursion a mighty War Convocation was mustered for battle.

The followers of Khorne prepare for battle

The Chaos had 2 units of Raptors, a unit of Warp Talons, a unit of Cultists, 2 units of Bloodletters, a unit of Possessed, a Helldrake, a Chaos Lord and a Bloodthirster with the S:D axe taken from the Daemonkin book.

My Mechanicus was built using the War Convocation formation from White Dwarf. The Skitarii consisted of 10 Rangers, 10 Vanguard, 5 Ruststalkers, 5 Infiltrators, an Ironstrider and a Dunecrawler. The Cult Mechanicus consisted of 1 unit of Kataphron Breachers, 1 unit of Destroyers and lead by a Tech Priest Dominus with the army backed up by a Knight Errant.

The Mechanicus stand ready

Playing with tactical objectives, we got the mission where you get a number of objectives equal to the turn number (not that it mattered in the end).

Turn 1 - Khorne: Khorne moved forwards. Then ran forwards.
Turn 1 - Mechanicus: Moved up with most units. Activated the +3 WS Doctrina for the Skitarii and then Canticle for +3 Strength. Despite my hindered shooting from the Doctrina I still managed to put some hurt into many of the chaos units. My assassins then charged into the Bloodthirster and annihilated it completely before it could even think about retaliating. Well the ones with the mini-uzi's and cattle prods did at least. The butter knives and DA CLLAAAAAWWWW's failed the charge. Still didn't stop me just 1 shotting the only threat to my Knight though :)

After that things kept going down hill for the Chaos. Yes 2 additional Bloodthirsters were able to be summoned but at the end of the game all that was left was a Helldrake on a single hull point that wasn't even on the table at this point.

As for how the Mechanicus played the 3 smaller forces work fantastically together, especially in the formation which makes them both affordable (points wise) and allows rules to cross over. The combination of Canticles and Imperatives is also extremely brutal, especially in combat. When the tasers went into that Bloodthirster they went in at WS7 and S9 with 4 attacks each (5 on the sarge). That's just crazy! I can't wait for more games using Skitarii and Cult together, although I doubt I'll get to use this formation for a while as I still need a Knight of my own as well as most of the Skitarii units (about 2/3 of the units I used were borrowed from my local store manager).

Cult Mechanicus Thoughts - Initial Game(s)

So the Cult Mechanicus are almost here. I've managed to use the White Dwarf rules to give the new battle Servitors a go and the Tech Priest Dominus as well and I'm pretty impressed.

The first game was 1k points and I allied them into my Skitarii against a BAngles Archangels Strike Force (exterminatus supplement), consisting of a level 2 libby in termie armour, 2x 5 man termie squads with claws and 1x 10 man unit with Hammers and Shields. Librarian got invisibility, no prizes for guessing which unit he went in.

I had 5 Rangers with 2x Arquebus, 5 more Rangers with Arc weapons, 10 Vanguard with 2 plasma, a Dunecrawler, Tech Priest Dominus and 1x unit of 3 Kataphron Destroyers (the heavy weapons one) as well as a bunch of Skitarii relics I didn't particularly want to fill in the points a bit.

The Mission: Relic, 4x4 table.

As soon as I knew that Libby got invisibility I knew where this game was going. That power is ridiculous (although reading the rules I did play this wrong with my Cognis weapons) and every time I play someone they seem to get this one god damn power. I decided to have the Servitors take on one unit of Claws, the Dunecrawler the other with the Sniper Squad giving some help. I then have the Vanguard take on the termies with the other guys giving support after finishing off the smaller units. By the end of the game all he had left were 3 Hammer Termies and that was it. I have the Dominus, 1 Servitor and the Snipers but most importantly he had the Relic. He said he enjoyed the game and that it was a fairly balanced list (mine). He changed his mind next game.

ROUND 2! FIGHT!!

Upped to 1500 for this one. I took the same list as before but added 10 Scions with 2x Hot Shot Vollyguns, a Lord Commissar with Carapace and Plasma Pistol, a Vindicare and a Level 2 Librarian with Biomancy and Force Thunder Hammer (clan raukaan relic). Considering the Librarian, Commissar and Vindicare did the sum total of fuck all over the course of the whole game the list suddenly became "broken beyond repair".

This time he took the same force org chart but had the 2x 5 man termie units, no 10 man unit, 2 librarians and Mephiston with several Sternguard units.

The Mission: Crusade (4 objectives), 6x4 table, Dawn of War deployment.

So what was the major change since the last game that made my list so broken? Was it the Vindicare and his super special ammo? Can't have been. He fired one shot that failed to wound and then died. Perhaps it was the Librarian and his Psychic powers? Nope. He never successfully cast a power nor could he be arsed to deny them. Must have been the Scions then. Wrong again they only took out half a Sternguard unit all game. Would you like to know what made my list so broken? My opponent did not get invisibility this time round. I then opened up with some serious first and second turn vollys of fire and killed off most of his units through sheer weight of fire. I then began picking off everything 1 at a time, slowly securing objectives as I went. Mephiston didn't stand much of a chance either. He was in a unit of 5 Claw termies that walked up the middle of the board only to be blasted by Vanguard and Kataphrons. Needless to say I felt a bit better after that game (had a bad day at work) but my opponent wasn't too happy prompting him to leave without helping to pack up (something that has really pissed me off recently).

Back on topic though. The new units actually performed really well. The plasma servitor let the side down a bit (he likes to lick the barrel of his gun) (I built the unit as 2x Grav 1x Plasma) but the other 2 did amazing no matter the target and the Dominus is just a marine killing, difficult to shift dick head, and that's without the relics/canticles!

Can't wait to use some more of these units, the battle robots in particular. Will get to try some stuff out tomorrow when the Mechanicus War Convocation goes into battle against the foul traitors of Khorne and their daemonic allies.

Trek Updates

So for my first post back I thought I'd start things off with some news on the Trek front. The Collective scenario set is now over. In the final tournament I came 2nd for the individual tournament but 1st over the set of 3. This snagged me the Assimiltion Target Prime (assimilated galaxy class). However as I don't play Borg or Mirror Universe I traded it with a Borg player for the Stargazer, a nifty little ship and Picards first command. Not a bad little ship for the points and some nice upgrades too including the Picard Maneuver. I also picked up the new USS Pegasus today, Rikers first ship out of the academy. It's not the best ship, fairly weak, no stopping power, no weapon upgrades and can't move faster than 3. But it is very maneuverable, cheap (20 points for the named) and being a science vessel can take a fair few tech upgrades. Speaking of Tech it comes with some Specialized Shields, a Phased Cloaking Device and (at last) an Escape Pod! For 1 point and a Tech slot you can save your captain and 2 crew members from death by pinging them out at the last second. Hopefully they'll be picked up before they're blown up.

Long Time, No Post

Been a while since I last made a post, but that's thanks to me finally getting a job. Now I've actually got to get up in the morning! I'm still getting used to my new routine and getting my training done but now I've got less time for the hobby but I'll have more money to spend on it. Already got some big plans. There may be a Stormblade sized treat for me in the near future :)

Salute 2015

Ah Salute. The one event I always go to. Always a good time and well worth the money to go. Unfortunately no pics from me this year but there were some things I wanted to talk about.

Firstly the queue to get in was just stupid this year. The way it was laid out was like someone was doing really well at Snake but about to fuck up. Then all of a sudden everyone just started moving towards the entrance. I don't know if it was planned or not but fuck it we got in there quicker :P

The boards as always were amazing. Beasts of War did a Hoth board with a huge Millennium Falcon and some very familiar looking models on it.

There were some guys that had a Battlestar Galactica board set up using the Full Thrust rules. The big ships were Revel kits and the the fighters custom 3D printed. Looked fantastic.

A team did a Resistance VS Scourge table for Dropzone Commander with underground bases that were just chock full of detail while Hawk Wargames themselves finished the big ship they started last year.

Spartan Games had both a Demo(ish) table and a display table for Halo: Fleet Battles. The reason for the "ish" after demo was because the guys demoing it didn't quite know what they were doing. 1 minute the Covenant are next to impossible to kill, the next their ships are made from wet paper bags. The models however do look incredibly pretty, for the both ships and the ground units.

I managed to get the big new GW figure case at 1/3 off (so only £50, thank you discount traders), the TOS era Enterprise, an ENT era Enterprise and a second USS Defiant as well as this bad boy:

That's right. I managed to get a hold of Deep Space 9 from the Dominion War OP Tournament. Only £40 as well (looking at about £100 on ebay). Considering it's a space station it's not actually as tough as I thought it would be at only 8 hull, 8 shields but it doesn't need to reload torpedoes so that's pretty good and it's only 44 points. Can't wait to put this thing on the table top tomorrow night against Owen's Dominion fleet. Will have to get pics for that as it's going to be a good one!! Especially as he doesn't know I've got this!

Skitarii List Idea and Second Model

Lets get the guy out the way first. I decided the next model I wanted to do was one of the Transuranic Arquebus's as it's big and pretty and full of details. Here he is

They might be taking ages but I am enjoying painting these guys up. Not sure how I'm going to do the Dunecrawler though. In pieces is probably the best way I think.

Now onto the list. It started as I wanted to know what I would actually take in a Battle Maniple Formation, and ended up as a list that I actually want to use. Depending on a reply from Forge World though there may be another Ironstrider going in there. I went for 1875 as that seems to be the standard these days.

Skitarii Battle Maniple Formation

10 Vanguard (240)
- Data Tether
- 3x Plasma Caliver
- Phosphor Blast Pistol
- Power Sword
- Conversion Field
- Pater Radium

10 Rangers (215)
- Omnispex
- 3x Arc Rifles
- Arc Pistol
- Arc Maul
- Conversion Field

5 Ruststalkers (190)
- Conversion Field
- Omniscient Mask

5 Infiltrators (205)
- Conversion Field
- Infoslave Skull

3x Ironstriders (165)

3x Dunecrawlers (355)
- 2x Neutron Laser
- Icarus Array

Other

Stormblade (505)
- 1x Set of Sponsons


You might be set there thinking "the Skitarii can't take Lords of War" and you are correct. What I can do though is go unbound and still take formations. So while the list is technically unbound I don't actually suffer from any of the negatives and still get that super shiny super heavy I'm saving up for. I mean, why can't the guys the build, own and maintain Baneblade chassis vehicles take them normally? As I mentioned before if Forge World say the Stormblades rules in their download page is the most up to date version I use the list above, if they say the Imperial Armour 1 Second Ed has the most current rules then it's 55 points cheaper which means another Ironstrider fits in perfectly.

Warlord of the Omnissiah

Not only is this guy my Vanguard Alpha he is also my Warlord and probably my best painted model to date. Now I've got the problem of keeping that up through the rest of the army but I wanted an army that looked good and pushed my painting so here is that start.

Unfortunately I can't do the rest of the Vanguard until the local GW manager can give me a lesson in making stuff glow. I want their guns that shoot irradiated bullets to glow in the classic vat-of-toxic-waste green. In the mean time though I've got plenty of Rangers to keep me busy.