Battle Report - Tin Can Party

It is summer at last, and so the weekly games in the garden have resumed. The first event was a wash (really, it rained!), but we did manage to squeeze in a game last Sunday, before the mandatory evening drizzle.

The game was Imperial Knights allied with Chaos, against Necrons.

Although I thought we’d agreed on a 2,000 points game, my opponent showed up with 2,500. In a rush, I simply added the Nightbringer and a Transcendent C’tan to my carefully crafted list (ahem), which originally was:

- Reclamation Legion with Overlord, 2 units of 5 Immortals in Nightscythes, 3 units of 10 Warriors & one Ghost Ark, 1 unit of 4 Tomb Blades

- Destroyer cult: Destroyer Lord with Voidreaper, 2 units of 4 Destroyers (including 1 Heavy), 1 unit of 3 Destroyers (inc. 1 Heavy), 1 unit of 3 Heavy Destroyers

My opponent, who we shall call the Taminator for convenience (if that one sticks I’m a dead man) brought 3 Imperial Knights, supported by 2 Landraiders, a Dreadnought, a unit of Terminators, a unit of Bikes, a unit of Marines, and a batch of Cultists (sorry, I am not very up to date with all the fancy Chaos units).

Wanting to play a Maelstrom of War mission, we rolled Cleanse and Control. We did stick to our usual long-side deployment however, creatures of habit that we are.

I lost the deployment roll but managed to steal the initiative, and off we went.

The Tomb Blades advanced a bit and made short work of the Cultists hidden in the woods. Cultists no like templates with no cover saves, they routed and gave me First Blood. I also managed two of my three tactical objectives (hold objective and kill a character – I believe this was the sergeant in the unit of Cultists). The Taminator was not so lucky, managing only one tactical objective.

End of Turn 1: Knights 1 - Necrons 3.

During the second Turn I concentrated on the Knights, felling the one with mounted AA in order to protect my incoming Nightscythes. The Taminator gained one point as one of my units failed a morale test (yes, my morale 10 Necrons fled, the silly things).

End of Turn 2: Knights 2 - Necrons 3.

Turn 3 was when I managed to kill both other Knights. This gave me Slay the Warlord, which was nice. One one the tactical objectives was to issue a challenge, so I charged the Nightbringer into the Terminators, but stupidly forgot to issue the challenge. The Taminator gleefully rubbed it in by challenging the Nightbringer back. So it was one point for tactical objectives for me, whereas the (now gone) Knights managed to get 2.

One of those was for wiping out one of my units. This was achieved twice in that turn, both times in most infamous ways. First, one of the Landraiders shot its lascannons at my first Nightscythe, failing to hit on the original roll but then with twin-linked goodness getting a double six to hit! Boom. Then, my souped-up Destroyer Lord (engaged in combat with the Terminators) rolled two ones and one two To Hit, losing the combat by one Wound. It followed with rolling an 11 for morale, then lost the sweeping advance roll and got wiped out. I realised much later that the thing had probably committed suicide after deciding that it could not deal with an owner stupid enough to forget both its preferred enemy rules (re-roll those ones) and Voidreaper (re-roll that two). Argh.

End of Turn 3: Knights 5 - Necrons 5.

We realised then we would not have time to finish the game, so agreed to end after Turn 4.

My tactical objectives at that stage were not helping me: I had to either hold an objective that was both completely out of range and threatened by the Bikes; or control all all three even objectives (the ones circled in the picture above). I tried, I really did. I held onto two of them, but could not manage to blow up the Landraider that was contesting the last one. Rotten luck with the dice meant I could only remove two of its four hull points.

The Taminator’s Terminators (see what I did there?) managed to get Line Breaker by charging a unit of Destroyers, wiping them out and consolidating within just 12” of my side. As this happened to also be one of her tactical objectives, this gave her 2 more points.

Final score: Victory for the Knights (7-5).

A few more quick thoughts to conclude:

- these Maelstrom of War missions remain as fun as ever, the randomness means that the balance of the game can change quickly and pretty much ensures that concentrating on just killing enemies will result in defeat.

- the Nightbringer’s gaze of death is a pretty horrible thing.

- I have never rolled so many 2s to hit with my Destroyers. When your dice hate you, they really do.

 

 

 

Brush cleaner

(Yes, it’s been a while.)

I have been using brush cleaner for a while now. The stuff is quite excellent, and has managed to restore brushes I would have thought were only good for the bin. As the contents of my tub were getting low, I looked for a replacement, and found something quite interesting.

To the left is my old 75g tub (typical price on Amazon and other sites: £11). To the right is the new one, all 717.1 grams of it. Amazon price including P&P: £25. I’d say I’ll never have to buy brush cleaner again, and that tub will end up in the inheritance. 

New Anarchy Models Kickstarter!

So the Summer Of Gaming Outside is over (had a good few games in the garden and tremendous fun, lost all of them but the final one, yes I’ll post about them someday).

In the meantime, Brian from Anarchy Models is at it again! With flexible, washable, semi-transparent and fully re-usable stencils for airbrushing! The project is already funded, and we’re now into ‘more stencils and freebies’ territory as the overall funding increases.

The campaign is over here, and update #2 has a nice demo of the stuff.

 

Filla-Glu's Powda and Wicking glue

Still no battle reports, I know… I did have a game planned for today, but the weather was quite dodgy this morning so, being cautious and all, we decided to cancel. In the end it did not rain in the afternoon, and I managed to squeeze in a bit of hobby. Among other things, I magnetised my canoptek acanthrites (still a work in progress, paint-wise) and my recently acquired Screamers of Tzeentch to their bases. The goal being for them to be easier to store. Plus, magnets.

As these models have balltop flying stems on their bases, and so nice large holes on the models themselves, I decided to have a go with Filla-Glu’s Powder and Wicking glue kit.

It’s all quite simple. Below is an acanthrite, with the hole for the base’s stem in its chest. 

 Step 1: pour the powder into the hole.

 Step 2: push the magnet in. It’s powder, so it’s easy to push it in.

Step 3: add a drop of wicking glue. The stuff is super thin, and binds everything together instantly. 

Step 4: use regular super glue to add a magnet to the base. I flattened the stems first (using a Dremel because I am lazy, but clippers and files should do just as well). The one below is slanted, as an horizontal one resulted in a seriously nose-diving acanthrite.

 Finished!

And here is the same on a screamer: 

Updated objective markers

I do have a number of stories on how I’ve been smashed by all comers recently – be they Eldar, CSM or Tau, but this will have to wait for a bit. In the meantime, I have updated my objective counters for 7th edition. A quick preview is below, and they can be found here. Previous notes on the topic are here, here and here, but in summary:

As I wasn't entirely convinced by GW’s Munitorum battlefield objectives, I built some. They're large (40mm), and have the effects written on them. Download the file, print the sheet (important: print at 100%, do not scale), cut and glue onto 40mm bases (I use the plywood ones from Fenris Games), and you're set. They're not fancy but should do the trick.

Nick from IDICBeer posted a video on YouTube about them.

Evil and fluffy thoughts

I don’t know about you, but even though I do not play them, I’ve accumulated quite a lot of Space Marines over the years. Never let good minis go to waste though, and with the release of the fall of Orpheus last year, I came up with a cunning plan: my Necrons, having triumphed over the Minotaurs, have now enslaved them (thank you, mindshackle scarabs), and use them as a meat shield when going to battle. All of this to be done during Apocalypse games, of course.

So last winter, when all was grim and dark outside, I started painting some minis. I did not go very far, but the intent was there.

Now with the new rules coming out on Saturday, I might go a bit further. I don’t know about yours, but my Necron are nothing if not pragmatic. We don’t have psykers, but the Space Marines certainly do. And what does it matter if they die horribly? So, I think I’ll add some librarians to the fold, and when in battle convince them nicely of giving themselves to possession. Whether or not they perish while trying to summon a daemon, I see it all as a win.

Plus, it should be fun painting a few daemons after all that metal…

Blast that weather

So the weekend wasn’t great weather-wise, what with the rain on Saturday and the excessive wind on Sunday. No airbrushing then, but I did manage to do a bit of work.

Deathmarks, finished last Monday:

My first cryptek. Not sure I like what I’ve done with it, but it will have to do.

And that guy’s been happening: