Space Marines vs Orks 1500

My second game while I learn the rules, against the very patient and helpful Dave.  This time I borrowed the Ultramarines that are 30/70 mine and my eldest sons.

My force
Captain (relic blade, artificer armor, iron halo)
Command Squad (Company Champion, Apoth, two lightning claws and a powers sword)
Together, riding in a Land Raider Crusader with melta gun.

Tactical Marines with flamer and lascannon.  Half the squad riding in a TL Heavy Bolter/Storm bolter Razorback.
Scouts, 5 snipers, 1 heavy bolter and Sgt Telion

Dreadnought with Multimelta
Sternguard (meltagun, power sword, couple of combi weapons) Riding in a TL Lascannon/Stormbolter Razoback.

Landspeeder Typhoon with multimelta.

His Force

Battlewagon with a big mech and an ass load of nobs and a pain boy.
Trukk o' boys and a power claw nob
Trukk with war boss and other stuff
20 boyz
3 deff copters (separate units)
15 Lootas
Getchin Lobba

Game type was Annihilation, set up was spearhead and I was first player.

I chose a corner with some big terrain in it that would give my marines a great field of fine.  Then realized most was too close to the table center.  Raider was set to come charging round the left side, razorbacks and dread around the right.  The land speeder held back to see what happened and the las cannon squad sat on a hill.

His forces arrived as a big cluster in the middle.  Supported by lootas and the lobba behind and the copters coming up the long edge.

My scouts arrived on a couple of hill tops ready to sit in cover and start popping stuff.  His Copters skimmed forward towards the snipers and dreadnought.

And then he stole the initiative.  Bummer.

Orks 1 - Trukks and wagon move forward, one copter shoots the DCCW off the dread and then charges it.  Two copters charge the snipers, killing all but one.  Fire from the Lootas and Lobba does nothing.

Marines 1 - The Raider decides to man up and speeds out towards the Battle wagon, guns blazing.  And missing.  Nothing but a few dents as the now worried command squad climb out.  But the battle wagon heading towards the Raider gave side armor to the razorbacks.  As they pull forward the TL lascannon lights up the battle wagon which explodes in a pile of orky parts.  The Land speeder kills a copter, the various marines and TL Heavy bolter razorback start whittling down the boys squad.  The command squad run to assault the Orc nobs.  Unfortunately the tide of luck has turned against the marines and the command squad gets wiped out after killing one nob and just putting wounds on a couple of others.  The Captain is the only one left standing.  In a nice example of know you codex (like I said, I'm learning) and remember to bring you codex, I screwed up with on deployment.  Well kind of, Dave messed up on one rule but seeing as everything was from his memory it is no big deal.  I had Telion and the scout heavy bolter off to the side to pop trukks.  Except Dave thought Hellfire rounds was all it could fire, and those were no use against trukks.  So unfortunately all these guys did was slow down one of the trukks.

Orks 2 - A trukk roars forward towards the raider, its load of boyz pour forth and the nob smacks his power fist into the tank.  Nothing.  The mass of nobs in the center manage to kill the captain.  He'd done really well on saves, but then fails one against an instant death weapon.  The copter fighting the Dread tried to break off but can't.  The dread also can't hit worth a damn.  In 5 turns of fighting he hits once, and that is saved.  The other copter misses the TL Las razorback with rockets but manages to hit it in assault and turns it into a crater.  Five of the six sternguard climb out.  Lootas open fire on the land speeder and get a ton of penetrates. The lobba does nothing.

Marines Turn 2 - The Ork command squad did any Orky victory dance, completely missing the Land raider baking up a bit for a clear shot.  The Raider opens fire and the Mech, nobs, pain boy are reduced to two.  The sternguard put a wound on the copter but leave it to the lascannon to finish the job.  The other copter and dread carry on hugging or whatever they were doing.  The rest of the marines and the other razor back carry on pinging fire off the boyz and a couple more drop.

Orks Turn 3 - The boyz over near the land raider have another go at it with the same result.  But the more inspiring command squad nobs that survived earn their keep by immediately destroying it.  Things aren't looking too good for the marines.  The lootas kill another marine off and even the Lobba manages to kill a Sternguard.  Telion is down to just one man with him after more fire from the trukk heading his way.  The copter and dread continue hugging.

marines turn 3 - First good news is the one remaining sniper scout is clear and can get back in the game.  He runs back to get in a better position for later.  Telion continues to be useless as his squad does nothing.  The marines and sternguard put some more hurt on the boyz now getting dangerously close but still just about in cover.  The copter and dread thing drags on.  Get a room or something.

Orks Turn 4 - Telion finally bites it and the trukk heads off to join the rest.  The boyz by the dead Raider jump back in their truck and get ready to join a new fight.  The two remaining nobs climb the hill to shortcut getting back into action.  The copter finally destroys the dread.  Its victory is short lived.  The Lootas kill another marine, the lobba hits but no kills, while the boig boyz mob carries on forward but now mostly out of cover.

Marines turn 4 - Seeing the nobs moving, a few of the marines move back for a clear shot.  First the las cannon and remaining marine on the hill shoot.  And miss.  Then a few bolters open up, killing one and wounding the other.  Finally the sniper scout, all alone at the base of a towering cliff, takes his shot.  The last nob is dead.  The razorback opens fire on the boyz out in the open.  Not a good time to be an Ork.  The Sternguard turn their meltagun on the Copter and slag it.

Orks turn 5 - The Boyz let out a cry of waagh and make it into combat, just about reaching the 4 remaining sterngaurd.  The Lootas ping off another marine leaving a single guy on the hill the Lobba again does nothing, and two trukks of boyz zip across the battlefield.  The boyz and the sternguard fight does not go well for the boyz.  The sternguard out wound them, they fail to escape and are destroyed.

marines turn 5 - Not a lot to do, the scout, marines, and razorback don't have range to anything, the lootas being too far away and everything else being on the wrong side of obstructions.  The only hope for a final bit of glory is the one remaining sternguard with a meltagun.  He dives across a crater to take a shot at the first trukk.  The crater slowed him down too much however, and he's just out of range.  Everyone else backs up and finds better positions to receive the orks and avoid the lootas.

We roll the dice, a 1, end of game.

Ork losses - Big Mech, Wagon, Nob squad, Boz Squad, 3 deff copters
Marine losses - Captain, Command squad, Raider, Razorback, Dreadnough, Scout squad

I had one man left in three squads, would have taken bad losses in turn 6 and would have been tabled if there was a turn 7.  So a victory for the marines, but a hollow one.  And a big thanks to Dave who I'm learning lots from, even if I will need to correct him on the scout heavy bolter thing.

Lessons learned.

If I'd known the rules better, Telions squad would have had three rounds of BS6 heavy bolter fire into the trucks.  Bad dice rolls can see a good command squad eaten by nobs, and Sternguard are awesome.

Holy pinning batman

One of my kids got some Warmachine Protectorate of Menoth stuff for his birthday.  A paladin of the wall.  Three pieces, no problem, just put the cloak on after it is painted.  The Avatar of Menoth.  Eighteen pieces including some that look like they will be really annoying with thin attachment areas.  Damn, that is going to take a while.   A box of Exemplar Errants.  Six of them but each appears to be at least 4 pieces, maybe 5 as I only had a quick look. now I've had a good look is many pieces for a total of 44 bits of metal to pin and glue.

I see lots of drilling, staples and superglue in my future.  As much as I like metal stuff for the weight, this would be so much easier if these were plastic.

UPDATE:
OK, couple of days later and the arms are all pinned and attached.  I'm starting on the shoulder pads but they are even more fiddly.  Limited contact areas so super glue would not hold well.  If I pinned it I'd be drilling right through the pin that attaches the arm to the body so that is no good.  I tried gorilla glue and it went OK on the first guy.  Second one I made a mess on though.  With gorilla glue you need pressure on the joint while it hardens, and it hardens slowly.  Which means rubber bands around things and trying to get them in just the right place.  First guy I did two at once.  Second guy I tried that, but after making a whole mess of everything I'll leave it to one at a time from now on.  This will be slow.

Army Transport Miniature Case Review

I've previously kept most of my minis in bits boxes.  When they are plastic it seems OK.  If they are tough enough to be played with they should be tough enough to be transported next to a few more of their kin.

And then we got into Warmachine where the minis are predominantly metal, heavy, and often multi piece.  Time for a new solution, and the $60 Army Transport case seemed like a good deal vs $130 for the Battle Foam equivalent.  Overall I think it was worth the $60 as any padded case seems to run fairly pricey.  Here's my thoughts on it.

Materials are kind of second class.  Not bad, but not top notch.  Looks OK at the moment but feels like it could wear out easily.  I hope to be proven wrong.
The front pockets are pretty tight.  Room for a thin manual, some cards, a few dice.  Anything thicker though, like the ever present Chessex blocks of 36 dice, there is no way to store in here.
The zipper only runs around the top which limits access.  You want something out that bottom tray?  You are going to be removing every other tray to get to it.
The trays that come standard with the 'full' version are 6x 1 inch trays and 2x 2.5 inch trays.  1 inch is about 25mm.  Warmachine small bases are 30mm.  Yeah, problem there if you are buying this for Warmachine.  You can buy an empty bag and get 1.5" and 2.5" trays separately.  Thing is it costs more that way, now you are looking at close to $80.

Tray dimensions are 7.5" by 12.5".  In pull out squares that's 13x24.  You can shuffle them around a bit, but unless you have lots of really bulky guys that is about 18 small minis per layer.  As a guide, a regular marine will fit in a 3x3, Devastator or Sergeant, 3x4, Standard Bearer 3x5 or 3x6.
If you spring for one of the 3 or 4 inch foam layers (and the bag will hold 11 vertical inches of foam) you can get most vehicles in.  A layer will fit 3 transports (trukks, chimeras, razorbacks) or 1 large vehicle (land raider, battle wagon) and a transport.  It'll only really fit two Russes as they are kind of chunky.  The biggest stuff though, like a Valkyrie will not fit in this.  Well not unless you break off the wings and front antenna.

So am I happy with the bag?  Yeah, I guess.  Kind of wishing I'd sunk the extra into one of the dedicated Battle Foam bags though.  Yeah, twice the price, but bigger, better built (it seems, no first hand experience) and just better designed.  Plus, the Warmachine version has trays designed to fit Warmachine minis, rather than the too thin standard Army Transporter trays, and a big ol' Warmachine logo on the front.  While the Army Transporter does its job, it feels too much like a cooler bag someone shoved foam trays into.

Just a test

I wanted to see how the mobile email part worked.  That way I can annoy people by posting during a game.

To keep the gaming theme going though here are a couple of shots of the kids having fun painting their own minis.

Dawn of a new blog

As regular listeners will notice, things are a little different here. A new domain name, http://www.bladefall.com/ for one.  And a new look for the same basic layout which I hope you like.  A few things to fix, like why did my favorites disappear?  more later.

Grey Knights

Apparently they will kick much ass when the new codex comes out.  The 'Say ni' ability for one is great.

So anyway, I had a few Grey Knight minis and wanted to use them as painting experiments.  For this latest one I got my wet palette wet for the first time.  It worked, the paint I was blending for shading (adeptus battle grey to codex grey) did stay wet.  It also soaks in a fair bit so you need lots of paint.  Plus, dropper bottles would be good, I use GW pots so transferring to the palette makes a mess.  I wanted to at least make a vague stab at the NMM method of painting.  It came out OK, looks good, although not metallic.  More like just realistically shaded grey.  I took time to figure out where light would be falling and got it right for the most part.  I also took some time on the lettering panels, basing them in Chardon Granite with a dry brush of gold across them before I started the rest of the mini.  Pity because you really can't tell.  Oh yeah, and Secret Weapon ruined temple base.  Seemed appropriate.

I've got a GK termie with psycannon, one with force sword, and another standard, but heresy era, termie that is painted grey.  Add those to a death cult assassin and a load of IG stormtroopers that can be Warrior Acolytes.  Do I have an army yet?  :)

Warmachine - wave one finished

I've finally finished the first set of Warmachine minis we picked up at christmas.  This is the Khador and Menoth battle boxes, a few mercenary solos, and then some Cygnar stuff and a couple of units rescued from the consignment case at the FLGS. 

From Cygnar with have my "best ever consignment case purchase™"  These three were $20, unassembled and all crammed into one box.  Caine, a Stormclad and a Defender for a 13 point start.  Happy with how they came out, although I need to redo the eyes on the war caster.  I suck at eyes.

From Menoth we have the 11 point start of Fletcher's army, a basic Menoth battle box.  Again, fairly happy with how they came out.  Only issue is a like a dirty, battle worn kind of look.  On the white though its killed detail some.  I may go back and try and tidy these up a little.

From Khador we have the17 point start of Morgan's army, a basic Khador battle box with a unit of Doom Reavers.  These all came together well, I'm happy with how the came out.

And lastly, assorted mercenaries.  Greygore Boomhowler and Co, Taryn Di La Rovissi, Rutger Shaw and  Dannon Blyth and Bull.  The Greygore lot were the other consignment case find.  The rest were picked up just because they were cool minis.  They'll be useful to balance points out though when we start playing and learning the rules as there are 14 points worth here in 4 selections.

We've got a few more coming.  I've got Reinholdt and the other half of some Khador Mekanics sitting on the painting table (first half are done).  Then the kids are getting a couple of the cheapo minis for valentines day, and Fletcher is getting a bunch of Menoth stuff for his birthday.  I'll say one thing for Warmachine, seems like getting a good, playable army together is far quicker and cheaper than 40K.  Obviously its a smaller scale game, but with a lower entry cost building a nice custom army or two is no big deal.

Imperial Guard vs Necron at 1250 points.

Had my first game in something like 18 years.  It was a lot of fun despite barely hanging in to the end of the 7th and loosing one objective to none.
I was playing guard, we were at 1250 points.

HQ - CCS with two meltas, power sword
Troops - PCS with flamer
IS with flamer, autocannon
IS with flamer, autocannon, commissar
Veterans with melta, shotguns, power fist
Veterans with plasma, lasgun, plasma pistol riding in a chimera
Fast - Autocannon sentinel
Vendetta
Heavy - LRBT with heavy bolter sponsons
LR Demolisher
Manticore

I played against Necron which was
HQ - Lord on demolisher body with war scythe and phylactery.
Elite - squad of 10 flayed ones.
Troops - 2 warrior squads (10 or 12 in a squad I think)
Fast - 3 wraiths, 5 destroyers
Heavy - 2 tomb spiders

We had two objectives, roughly in the middle of each half and were deploying along long edges.
He took first turn and set up down one end.  I set up my LRBT and manticore in the opposite corner with the foot troops around them.  I had the demolisher, chimera/plasma vets and vendetta/melta vets in the middle to hit one side.  He infiltrated the flayers towards my troops, I kept the sentinel in reserve.

OK, not sure if everything is correct but the rough version of it is as follows.

Turn 1 - he immobilizes the vendetta despite its turbo boost and it lands behind cover so it now can't see much to shoot.
I drop a demolisher round, 2 template storm eagle,  battle cannon round and assorted multilaser and heavy bolter fire onto the middle of his troops/destroyers/lord.  I manage to down 1 warrior the gets back up and put one wound on the lord.  Yeah, bad rolls considering all the artillery was on target.  The guard open up on the flayed ones and do nothing.

Turn 2 - the wraiths roll up to find the vets that had got out the downed vendetta  and wipe them out.  Spectacular failure there.  The destroyers stun the chimera and shake the demolisher.  The flayed ones don't get very far.
The manticore and LRBT down a destroyer and a couple of warriors.  The plasma vets realize they can see the lord and open fire.  The lord drops.  The 30 guardsmen continue firing at the flayed ones and do nothing.  I think the quote was 'your dice are crapping on you and mine are giving me love'.  Even operation 'Deploy happy meal unicorn' failed to stop the flayed ones.

Turn 3 - The lord gets back up with one wound but decides to go help out the flayed ones.  The wraiths blow up the chimera but it drops one of them.  The destroyers fire at the plasma vets and kill a couple.  The flayed ones make it into combat.  A bunch of guard die.  It is the only flayed one to fail a save the entire game.
The LRBT and manticore do some decent damage in the midfield taking out a few warriors a destroyer, and the Lord.  Again.  The plasma vets tag the wraiths and take them out.  The demolisher knocks out a couple more warriors.  More guard die to flayed ones including most of the PCS and all but one heavy weapon team.  The CCS shoots at the flayed ones and kill one.  The only one to die all game.

Turn 4 - The lord gets up again, on two wounds this time, goes and finds the LRBT and blows it up.  The flayed ones arrive and kill all the CCS aside from the commander.  The demolisher is now weaponless and immobilized but doesn't die. 
The Manticore still does good with its last storm eagle, another warrior and another destroyer.  The Commander dies leaving me with 4 troops left.  But yay, the sentinel finally puts in an appearance, shoots and does nothing.

Turn 5 - The flayed ones finally drop the commander and run off towards the chimera.  The destroyers target the disabled demolisher but do nothing.  The lord comes back for the plasma vets and does nothing and takes no damage back.  Everything else is out the way.
The manticore opens fire with the heavy bolter, doing nothing.  The sentinel manages to kill a warrior and the unit fails the only leadership test failed by Necron the entire game and run away from the objective.  Small miracles.  This time the lord kills all but one vet who manages to put a wound on him before breaking combat and running for the table edge.

Turn 6 - The flayed ones and lord surround the manticore and by some small miracle do nothing but knock the heavy bolter off.  The destroyers kill the disabled demolisher.  Nothing else is in any position to do anything.  Aside from the 3 warriors who run off the table.
The sentinel pops shots at the destroyers to no effect.  The manticore plows through the surrounding troops and tries to leg it.

Turn 7 - The lord and flayed ones chase the manticore and for the second turn it amazingly survives.
The sentinel pops shots at the other warriors to no effect.
Game over, he has one objective, I have none.

So that's it.  Biggest failure, the melta vets in the vendetta that achieved nothing.  Best, the manticore gave me 7 templates of hits and the plasma vets did great.  The sentinel did show up late, but cleared an objective without ever taking a hit. The lord ate 6 wounds worth of hits when he could have been out turn two, and the flayed ones seemed to have extra magic armor the way they made saving throws.  Because of that the flayed ones destroyed my back field, and the lord kept me busy in the middle letting his destroyers do more damage.

Most importantly though, it was a lot of fun and I learned the rules a lot better, all the better to teach my kids.  Next week I'll be back with 1500 in vanilla marines that are half my kids, and half my old army from back when I last played.

More Warmachine minis finished

 

Been making good progress on the Warmachine figures my kids got for xmas.  The two units of troops are now done (Doom Reavers and Greygore Boomhowler and Co) and the Khador warcaster is done.  Now I just need to finish the Menoth warcaster and all the jacks and its done.  And all of those are at least 75% complete so it'll all be looking purty pretty soon.

Of course there is more on its way.  I managed to get a Cygnar battle box for $20 on ebay, and its Fletcher's birthday in a couple of weeks and he's said he'd like some more for his Menoth army.  Seeing as the painting is what I really enjoy, no complaints there.

Helsreach - mini book review

Haven't read any Black Library before but thought I'd give it a try.  I have a few to read too after they did the free kindle downloads for a while and then I found a few at a used book store.  A few blogs seem to recommend this as one of the best so I figured it'd be a good place to start.  So, in a few words...

Would I recommend it?  Yes.  It was a very easy read.  Gripping enough to keep you reading late into the night, and although its a large book it has big print so doesn't take long to read (4 nights for me).  Plenty of characters to get into, you get a good feel for the Imperial side, and there is plenty of cool stuff.  Negatives?  Well the orks are a bit of a characterless mob, and the Black Templars are a bunch of dicks.

If you like some 40K books and haven't read this one though, go ahead, its worth it.