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As usual I have to start off with a shot of the game... a pivotal moment. I'll tell you one thing, this was a horrific moment for a few 'big names' in 40K: ++ Mortarion swoops into the Dark Angels' lines, but he hangs onto life by a thread. The Deathshroud try valiantly to keep their Primarch alive, but Mortarion is met by supreme resistance; the new Helblasters are untouched, as well a Lientenant, Ezekiel and the Chapter Master Azrael himself step up to meet the challenge. Has Mortarion taken on too much? Have the Dark Angels overestimated their abilities against a Daemon Primarch? ..... ++ LINK: http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/344421-prot-quickie-batrep-death-guard-vs-da-2k-mortarion-pics/?p=5010846

So I'm off for another game shortly and just wanted to get this up before I get too back logged with pictures.... This was a really strange game for me. My opponent was Dark Angels and he's new to the game within the last year and doesn't have everything he'd like to bring to a game yet. I will say as preamble I should confess I helped him with tactics where I thought it was critical, but his list was surprisingly... functional. Perhaps that is the best admech type description I could use. :) Sorry but this is all from memory, which like Cawl's is sometimes swapped out for more useful memories such as.... where did I park my Dunecrawler? His list: - Belial - tons of Termies. Mostly 5 man squads with assault cannons. - 3 full tactical squads, usually with mixed weaponry like Missile launcher + special weapon, all in Rhino's - Librarian w/ Adversion (whatever it's called the ol' DA power that makes you -1 to hit something within 24" of him.) - Captain. - Vindicator - Dread with fist/twin Las. Adeptus Mechanicus of the mighty red sands of Mars: - Brigade: - 2 Tech Dominus, 1 Engineseer - 6 x 5 or 6 Vanguard/Rangers. A few Arquebus' etc. Some Plasma Cavaliers sprinkled in. - 3 Onager Dunecrawlers. 2 with Neutrons, 1 with Icarus. - 2 Kastelan's with shooty fists - 1 Datasmith -5 Sicaran infiltrators - 5 Corpuscarii Electro Jazz Hands! - 2 individual Ironstrider Ballastarii with twin cognis Autocannons - 3 Sydonian Dragoons with cattle prods The Game: Red Rock vs the Black Rock. Sand vs Secrets, etc etc... - Maelstrom: We get the mission where you start with one objective card, and can draw up a card in subsequent turns for as many objective markers as you control. This is always hard for my AdMech, as we prefer controlling... code over inanimate things on the battlefield! - Deployment: - Admech deployment features killy stuff around the aura, with defensive positioning on the outskirts by Vanguard/Rangers to prevent uninvited Terminator party crashers. - Dark Angels put rhino's on flanks, and the meat of his shooting is dead center. The Vindicator, Dread and HQ's advance. I know he wants to get his Termies into my board edge but as the Dark Angel player realizes I've spaced things with no way he can do this... so he reconsiders his options and plops all Termies down to my left flank. - He draws a card he can complete, and he gets First Blood and takes the early lead.... His first turn shooting is obviously plinking away at my Vanguard. It is only Stormbolter fire but it is quite a bit of it! Thankfully Shroupsalm is in effect and although he gets first blood I still have some Skitarii left on the flank. His first blood actually game from downing an Ironstrider. - Admech turn is a card I can't complete. He's already owning the middle of the board and the left flank is in serious danger.I elect to keep the Infiltrators in reserve due to unfavourable positioning in his zone. - I change the protocol on the Kastelans successfully, but the middle is decidedly owned by DA and there are two large imperial cylinders that literally block off all LoS. As a side note the Libby cast Averson on my forward squad of Vanguard making them -1 to hit. - Admech start firing back on Terminators while cautiously advancing, but it is quite bad... very bad. A few scattering of wounds. No points for Mars this turn. - Dark Angels advance and capitalize on Mars' lack of CC units and hunker down in the middle of the city preparing for a close quarter fire fight. - Dark Angels draw up 3 cards and some are quite doable. He gets some very handy objectives near his zone, and most of the objective markers he placed are mid field. This works very much to his advantage has he is drawing the right cards to advance and sit on those objectives. Mars is forced to advance. - The Terminators shoot up a lot of Vanguard, The Dominus orders a retreat, and units 'reverse advance' to create a gap, trying to lure the Terimnators into range of the Kastelans. - Dark Angels cast Aversion on the Kastelans this time... which really hurts... and confuses Mars. How is a robot depreciated in efficiency by the warp magic???? Does not compute...! Anyway, I realize the Dark Angels are trying to pinch me in. I have no answer for the Termies in CC, but he is taking the bait on the running Vanguard.... still he draws good cards on my right side, and starts to advance a Rhino with squad to claim one in his zone getting 3 objective markers, and earning D3 points. He's now got a healthy lead of 1111 to 0. That's binary for... I'm getting my ass kicked! ++ Counter measures are made. The Dominus takes control of the Dragoons and warns the Skitarii of the long term plans. This means direct confrontation with the misguided space men of the wrong rock. ++ - Admech have a decent draw but where I am hoping for 'kill' type objectives instead I get 'grab stuff deep in your opponent's zone' type of cards which Admech LOVE to do. (that's Martian Sarcasm btw). - One objective is up my right flank. Another is to have something in my opponent's zone. The Dominus calculates a plan to kill two birds with one stone... prevent the Rhino squad from taking a 'Defend' point, and score the objective instead, while grabbing a point for being in his zone; the brings out the Infiltrators, as well as moving up the Dragoons, and Vanguard. - On the left flank protocols have set in and the trap is set, terminators are in Kastelan range. I heal up two Onagers, and commit the entire double shooting of the Kastelans, and remaining Vanguard into the Terminators, BUT with Aversion still affecting the Kastelans this is a tough turn for me... the Termies with two wounds are still falling but nearly as fast as I need... - The infiltrators do terrible in shooting. The middle is still a mosh pit I can't seem to crack. The Dunecrawlers have been really mediocre to this point. The Vindicator and Dread are still picking away at my heavies but my ability to repair keeps everything going. I do score a point and I'm on the board. ++ Terminators are drawn in to the killing grounds, but the "Aversion'd" Kastelans have technical issues. And the 'bait' Skitarii aren't too happy about it.++ Mid to Late Game: - Although I'm on the board, it's become apparent the game is going poorly for me. Dark Angels have me pinched in on the left flank. Mars tries to hold the middle ground while facing the mounting thread at Mid Table..... - Dark Angels now draw a few objectives that are based on the MID table objective which he is sitting on. Some of these I can't do anything about, but one of them is 'Defend' so Angels have to keep that for consecutive turns. - He starts to put a greater dent into my Dunecrawlers but I keep reminding him to focus fire because my repairs out pace his wound rate. He FINALLY fails Averson. This gives the Kastelans a chance to clear the malware, and reboot quickly! - Dark Angels advance termies closer, and take down a few more vanguard, and damage my last Ironstrider which is taking pot shots at them. He also drew an objective near his right flank Rhino, I have to prevent it... - He scores for mid table, and my Sicarian Infiltrators are hit hard (I could not charge them last turn to get the point for being in his zone). But somehow I pass the armour saves. With his point scored, he's now up by 5-1. - The Datasmith resets the Kastelans and they double fire on the Terminators again, this time with full ballistic skill. This (finally) Kills a great deal of them, the Deathwing are forced to drop their Assault Cannons, Belial and a few heavy handed termies still live, they plod forward... - I grabbed a few decent cards in this turn, and had to push the right side, BUT to make matters worse (or more interesting depending on who you are) I draw the same mid field objective he has been sitting on because he needs 'Defend'. Ouch. I get another card specific to Admech: Do a full repair on something and score a point.. this I can do, But I need to use a Strategem to perform a double repair on a Dunecrawler, but a point is scored. - The Jazz hands turn the corner, and shoot up his mid field stuff... .I use 'Wrath of Mars' but it's terrible... I feel like I did something wrong, and I did.. .(more on that later). ++ Electrolysis-Priests offer free hair removal; Dark Angels refuse the service...+++ - Jazz hands don't do too well here but it's my fault. It turns out I only fired half their shots, total missread of their rules on my part, even though I knew better... very strange, but oh well. As you can see he's loaded up at mid and AdMech is forced to flank. - Finally the Dunecrawlers hit solidly enough to take down the Dreadnaught, giving the rest of the army some breathing space to take on the mid table...if there's enough time, maybe I can salvage this mess? - My fight phase and the Dragoons bring out the cattle prods and smack down the 10 man Dark Angel tactical squad. The Sicarians unfortunately fail their charge into the characters that are supporting the mid table (just off camera above). This means I can't score anything at mid Table. - I do score a few though and I'm within reach of a few points of Dark Angels. END GAME: - Dark Angels score to go up to 7 points holding mid, He can't score points, but he still leads and this is turn 5. The game goes on... - Belial is too far out of reach but the remaining terminators rush an Icarus Dunecrawler. The Dunecrawler would retreat in my turn, and the Dominus combined with an Ironstrider would kill the last of them. Belial would retreat, denying me Slay the Warlord. - The mid table fails a few critical psychic tests. The Vinidicator moves up to prevent me from assaulting the last mid table characters. - Now in my turn I know I need good cards, and a chance to table him... but Belial is clearly out of sight. ++ Mars boldly goes where no Martian has gone before... towards characters at mid table ++ - Desperation time. I draw the card that forces me to get everything out of my deployment, and have no opponents in my zone. I draw mid table, and an objective I'm already sitting on! - This works well with the Dominus' plan to be aggressive at mid. The Kastelans are ordered to fire everything at the Vindicator and kill it. - Jazz hands try shooting again with 'Wrath of Mars'. This time I realize I undershot previously. Even though the squad isn't full strength, I get 4 mortal wounds on top of 6-7 more wounds and a tactical squad is vaped. - I get 'kill a character' by making him the closest unit to a squad of Rangers I advanced. - Dark Angels are nearly tabled, and I have the points in this final turn to put me over the edge. Techically the game should have continued to turn 7, however the cards I drew put me over the top and with only Belial, he could not prevent me from scoring. Admech pulls off a very, very, narrow final turn victory. Conclusions: - I make a point of having the tables with lots of obscuring terrain, but this was brutal. He got to camp pretty darn good at mid field. I'm glad I had the legs on the table to advance without fear of losing high cost units. - I screwed up with the Priests. That miss count almost cost me the game, but I liked them a lot. Fun unit with Wrath of Mars. - Arquebus'. I just cannot get these things to do anything to characters. My best use of them is against Rhino's.. .this seems to happen a lot. But I think people may write them off as vehicle killers but I like them to finish off vehicles. - Tacticals. At first glance I saw his list and thought... tacticals... very juicy for Admech to tear into. I couldn't believe how much trouble I had getting rid of them. Aversion on my Kastelans, turning a 4+ to hit into a 5+ really, really sucks. Having no Psychic defence continues to be an issue. - Terminators. Wow. It's not that I can't kill them, it's just that a lot of the stuff I can kill them with, also happens to be what I need for anti-vehicle, and with the Kastelans psychicly 'nerfed' I had a lot of problems there. - BTW it occured to me in about.. turn 3 that I forgot to deploy my second Dominus. lol But I did not end up deploying him at all. Just in case anyone noticed he was missing. This was a much closer game than I though it would be. It was well fought by the DA. Thanks for reading this!

So here's something I thought I'd turn into a series. I'm going to try to play primarily Primaris marines, and make a series out of it. But to be honest for the past couple of months this is how I've been playing my marines since the codex came out (Previous to that with the index I used quite a mix which was effective). Doing a little teaser here.... this moment is a critical scene later in the battle: +++ Ultra's fight for their lives. Surrounded by floods of infantry, and iron might of the Steel Legion.... with the guidance of Tigurius, do the Ultra's stand a chance? +++ This game is Maelstrom at 2K. My UM army from memory: - Tigurius - Primaris Captain with Fist and Relic Halo - Lt. - 5 scouts hvy bolter - 5 scouts - 5 Intercessors w/Grenade launcher - Repulsor - Redemptor - 3 Aggressors - Ancient - 10 Reivers - 3 Inceptors - 5 Helblasters - 5 Helblasters (assault variant) IG army from memory: Steel Legion - Cmd Tanks: Punisher (not Pask!) - Russ - 4 Chimera's with troops (some characters, priests etc) - 3 Sentinels Autocannons - 1 Lascannon Sentinel - Manticore - Basilisk - Hellhound - 2 Sqds of Scions with melta/plasma and cmdr. The Scenario: Maelstrom - each player starts with one objective but only draws cards for each objective they control from turn 2 on. Deployment - Quarters. The middle bubble 18" is no man's land. - Using the FAQ I add one to my roll to go first. And deployment looked like this: ++ UM Deploy - Scouts forward on flanks - Aggressors embarked with characters. ++ The Astra deployment: ++ From the Steel Legion table quarter. ++ The Game: - Astra fail to steal the initiative. - Shortly after movement, I completely forget my Psychic phase. I pull a card for killing a unit.... this should be doable! - The Reivers back the scouts on the left flank by grav chute-ing right to the side of the building for some cover, and surround the Inceptors to insulate them. ++ Reivers mean business. Deathmasks? Check. Grave Chutes? Check. Bullets with no AP? Check. ++ - This flank opens up but can't kill the single tank. It's horrible to admit, but one thing I counted on was the -1 AP from the Inceptors. News flash: Steel Legion ignore the AP on all AP-1 weapons, thus rendering about 90% of my army incapable of modifying vehicles saves! Darn you Belasarius... darn you to hell. - The mid table opens up. I don't move the Redemptor because I don't want it hitting on 4's with the HOG. It really doesn't matter... it does some fair damage to a Punisher and the Line of Sight forces the rest of the army to go after other tanks... the scouts concentrate a Heavy Bolter strategem on the right flank to deal three mortal wounds to the Hellhound. - Helblasters, Repulsor, Aggressors open up on tanks but the shots from the lascannons only cause one wound for 5 wounds on the command tank. Not good... No other shooting I have can do anything. I get desperate with overcharging Helblasters on a high Scaffold and use Scions of Guilliman on the assault blasters, causing just enough wounds to blow up the Hellhound. I had to do this for the objective card and First Blood... giving me 2 Points. But I don't feel good about this.. .the army largely flashed against the armour, with only my 2 solo lascannon shots having ANY meaning against Steel Legion armour saves. ++ 2 Squds of Scions with Melta and Plasma. Exactly what my Repulsor needs....++ - Astra show up in my zone with the Scions and I consider using an "Auspex Scan" but with only 5 Intercessors I didn't think it was worth the 2 CP's to hit his dudes in cover.... - Astra obviously see the Repulsor as my only real threat to the army. Lucky for me he can't complete his card as it's an objective on the UM side of the table. As he starts shooting Tigurius uses his special ability to make the Repulsor -1 to hit. This works... to a degree but the amount of firepower hitting the Repulsor from all angles is immense... with help from the Scions, the Repulsor blows sky high. That's it for my real vehicle damage. He puts additional indirect fire onto the closest Helblaster squad. I take 4 wounds killing 2... neither get back up from the Ancient. - The Agressors are always shot up early, but they vaporize in T1, and only one shoots back (fails to do anything). The right flank scouts with the heavy bolter are also vaporized. ++ Here we are... bottom of T2. Astra start to push forward hard. ++ Mid Game: - In turn 2 the UM realize they have to take down some heavy vehicles as this is already looking like a slaughterfest. With the Repulsor being sent back to Belasarius' scrap yard, it's up to the Redemptor. Unfortunately I have to move it. With some assistance it does a few wounds to a tank, but not enough to fully damage one. I think I get a Chimera down this turn. But it's mostly the Heavy Flamer that does damage to Steel Legion infantry looking for glory. - Again the lack of AP-1 doing any modifying is very punishing. Most of my army is wounding on a 5 or 6. The tanks are tearing the Ultra's apart. Sadly the best hope is on the left flank where he can't quite get a bead on the infiltrators, but again with Assault Heavy Bolters, I do no modification to Steel Legion armour so for example I counted.... and this is embarrassing... but I counted 48 shots from Reivers, Inceptors, scouts, and the Redemptor to take TWO final wounds off of a Chimera. ++ Inceptors seek cover, but expose themselves to a lot of firepower. Meanwhile the severely wounded Chimera would take 48 shots to take out of the game. Reivers get ready to assault...++ - Reivers commit to a multi assault killing squads down to 1 or 2 guys. Some how I manage to score a point putting Ultra's up 3 - 0. but the Steel Legion hit back hard.... ++ Astra push back and even with Tigrius' -1 to hit, the Redemptor goes down to 3 wounds quickly. At three wounds with movement the Redemptor is essentially useless.++ - Things looks grim in Astra T2. Yet the Astra can't complete their objective. - Astra with a priest decide to assault the captain and remaining Helblasters. One Helblaster survives and the Captain fists these brazen fools in the face for their misguided sense of heroism, but the writing is on the wall... there are very few Primaris left. - The Chimera's would advance, into the Assault Helblaster unit, while shooting would take care of most of the Ultra core units. Late Game: - In a true sense of desperation the Ultra's try to hit the command tank on the left flank: ++ Desperate assault: The Reivers make contact with the Punisher, assault, but cannot wound. It simply drives off. The Inceptor loses one of its mates to overwatch and DUAL assaults the Lascannon Sentinel and the Basilisk! However both would be fine and simply move away. This bought the Ultra's nothing but a second of breathing room preventing fire from these units. ++ - The inability to cause AP adjustments to the tanks is literally killing the Ultra's. Some tanks are damaged, but mostly functional. - The Intercessors are still dealing with the Scions in the bottom corner. One squad was shot up, and then assaulted to death. This allows the other squad to break out into the open to shoot at the redemptor. - The Redemptor flames some more useless flesh bags, but the retreating Helblaster assault squad is unable to really do much to the Chimera with the -1 to hit I was afraid of overcharge effects... it turns out I should have done it.... ++ The Intercessors kill off the remaining Scions in the ruins, but it took too long to finish the squad off, and now they can only watch on as the Scions would melta the Redemptor to slag. ++ - Although Ultra's score again going up 4-0 the Steel Legion now have two 'Defend' Cards which are auto complete in my T4. So in T3 after the Redemptor is destroyed, he turns his attention to my Reivers who falied to take the final wounds off of the Punisher command tank and they are killed to a man. The failed assaulting Inceptor is likewise killed. - The last Helblasters are killed. All that remains is Tigurius, the Captain, LT, Ancient and 4 Intercessors I decide to concede. With no board presence, and zero chance of killing his tanks (all are still on the table, only a few Chimera's died), the Ultra's are pasted pretty hard in this one. Conclusions: - I considered playing '7th edition' marines in this one. IE: Get a massive Maelstrom lead, hide for the game. But I never had enough board presence to have more than one objective card. Although I accomplished them all, and had first turn, it never gave me the lead I needed to hide it out. - Steel Legion ignoring -1 Ap was so brutal I can't tell you how dehabilitating this is to a Primarily Primaris army. I would have needed Multi repulsors and 4 squads of Helblasters. The ineffectiveness of the Repulsor made a bad situation worse. Too much fire power on the other end meant I was losing either the Redemptor or the Repulsor in T1. I would lose one per turn rendering the army incapable of damage. - Hind sight being 20/20 I should have pushed the Redemptor forward and preyed to the Emperor. I needed to assault the tanks. I actually saw for the first time a scenario where the Macroplasma Incinerator is actually better than the HOG... and this would have been it. However moving forward, overcharging is a super dangerous idea. - I still have a love/hate of the Redemptor. I love the model, I think it stinks still. If I could rip off the Icarus I would. The damage chart is so punishing to this unit. I still believe a vanilla dread, or Contemptor or Ven dread are all superior. I have 2 Redemptors and have played them (together) numerous times. I've never felt they pulled their weight. - Immediate knee jerk reaction is to add vanilla marines, but I'm trying not to. My missile Devs would have been huge. A Stormraven, and vanilla razor backs... all decent options. - My test unit: the Reivers were horrible. I knew I wouldn't like the 0AP on the guns and a parking lot list had nothing to fear from this unit. the Steel Legion lack of reaction until the last minute is proof of this. The Reivers had no effect in the game. - Agressors. Fun but always dead. This was a tough game for them. There was no valid target for 0AP weaponry. But then again the mass of the Primaris had no AP in this game! - Hopefully I will have some good changes to equal this out. But by no means was the Astra list a power gaming list. I would consider that list very average. If anything it shows the weakness of Primaris and exploited it nicely. Back to the drawing board....

https://youtu.be/iI9G1-h8QV8 Skimask Mohawk's Talons of the Emperor vs Stricken1's Night Lords. http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e86/bulimic_possum/2017%20playerunkowns%20battlegrounds%20pubg%20screenshots/d-1_zpsrohiqs9j.jpg http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e86/bulimic_possum/2017%20playerunkowns%20battlegrounds%20pubg%20screenshots/d-2_zpselfn8dek.jpg

Battle Report 12/11/2017 Overview: Greetings brothers of the Rout. As mentioned many times, tales of victory for the Space Wolves are far and few in between, especially detailed battle reports showing the cunning and patient hunter aspects of the Vlka Fenryka. After a period of, frankly depression about 40K, I had a long talk with a friend on strategy, deployment as well as what I love about the game (which was manly Space Marines of the Viking variety fighting the forces of evil), and finally decided to have a game with his Ultramarines. To ensure that the fight IS an even fight, we agreed that only BRB strategems will be used on both sides, although I allowed him to bring a Codex Relic (sanctic Halo), his Ultramarine chapter tactic as well as Calgar’s warlord trait of recovering used CP on 5+. His was basically a shooty list, exactly the type of list I have trouble fighting, but at least, this time, I had about 50+ bodies on the ground, whereas he only had about 30 bodies. So the lesson I needed to apply was capturing objectives and denying him CRITICAL kills during the 5-7 turns. TLDR: I had a very satisfying victory in the end, which I want to share with you all in detail. Sadly its going to be long, but what the heck, like I said, detailed VICTORIES of Space Wolves are far and few in between. So I’ll begin this post with the setup of the armies and board. Space Wolves Army List: Battalion Detachment: Wolf Lord on Bike with Master Crafted Boltgun and Wolf Claw Rune Priest with Runic Axe, Runic armour and Storm Bolter 9 man Grey Hunter Pack with 1 Wolf Guard Pack Leader X 4 - 2 Grey Hunters have Plasma guns - Wolf Guard has combi plasma and chainsword - All have chainswords 4 Rhinos, each with 2 Storm bolters 5 man Blood Claw with Wolf Guard Pack Leader X 2 - Wolf Guard has combi plasma and chainsword 2 Razorbacks with Twin Assault Cannon and Stormbolter 2 Vindicators with Storm bolters Total CP: 3 + 3 = 6 Ultramarines List: Battalion Detachment: Chapter Master Marneus Calgar Lieutenant with bolt gun Venerable Dreadnought with Storm Bolter and assault cannon 5 man Tactical squad including Veteran Sergeant X 4 - 1 Plasma gun - Sergeant has combi plasma 4 Razorbacks with Twin Heavy Bolters and Storm bolters Devastator squad with 4 heavy bolters, sergeant with signum X 1 Spearhead Detachment: Captain with power fist and plasma pistol Lieutenant with Plasma pistol and power sword 3 Predators with twin lascannons and lascannon sponsoons Total CP: 3+3+1+2 = 9 CM Mission type : Retrieval with 4 objectives Deployment type: 3, the one with the big empty circle in middle -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ____ _____ _____ | | | | | | MC UL | | | | |___| Obj |UDV| P P P |____| | | URA URA URA | | ____ _____ URA_____ | | | | | | | |UDread | | R |___| V Obj |__ _| |____|Obj | | R RA R | | ____ RA RP V ____ ______ | | | | WL R | | | | | | |___| |___| |____| | | Obj | |-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------| Legend: V – Vindicator R – Rhino RA – Razorback RP – Rune Priest on Bike WL - Wolf Lord on bike URA – Ultramarines Razorback MC – Marneus Calgar UL – Ultramarines Lieutenant Udread - Ultramarines Venerable Dreadnought UDV – Ultramarines devastators Obj - Objectives Additional Notes: All Rhinos and Razorbacks have their squads inside them, no infantry except Space Wolves bike HQs, Calgar and one lieutenant is outside their transports. Ultramarine Captain and Lieutenant in spearhead detachment are hitchhiking on two of the Ultramarine Razorbacks. In the end, my opponent had first turn as I had far more units to deploy than him. So no choice, even before deployment I was already planning ahead with the assumption that my opponent would go first and needed to weather as much of the firepower as I could.

So in the spirit of mini-smite I bring you another mini-batrep. My hope is I get more of my games shared with you guys if I just make these shorter.... however I've been away with work so it's been a challenge posting this, but this time I goofed up, and I apologize, but I only have 3 pictures. This was a challenge because I'm playing Maelstrom against a well versed, long time IG player. And I'll be upfront about this, I took a Stormraven again even though I got bit pretty hard in my last attempt, having the flyer dumped in my zone, and a wicked loss as a result of having to footslog the majority of my force. So here we go... Maelstom, 2K, and I'm not going first (I failed the roll to go first even with +1, and then used a CP to fail twice at stealing. I never do this, but it felt imperative to go first against Guard). Astra List: Honestly I can't remember everything but I do have a deploy shot. Leman russ Executioner 2 flyers (one vendetta, one valk) Loaded with vets Lots of lascannons Sentinels Hvy Flamers Quite a few Flame tanks (he used to flank these but now he's playing Cadia) Scions (special weapons, command squads, etc deep striking) A couple of priests, and a couple of psykers. My list was pretty vanilla: Voldus Draigo GMNDK - H.Incin/H.Psycannon 4 Pals 1 Apoth Twin Las Razorback 3 Strike teams Doomglaive Dread Stormraven Las/Hurricanes/MM He wins the roll to go first and he does. He deploys on the back line and I feel a sense of doom... + As you can see the Astra back row is loaded as a gunline. I tried to deploy my Stormraven as late as possible to buy some space/time, but it didn't work that well. - IG draw some cards they really will struggle with. We do have an inhouse rule of free discards on any card you could never have completed, but even so he's got some tough ones. - I leave my Razorback poking out by half an inch without realizing it. So it's is annihilated in T1. (My understanding is there is no cover save unless you are IN the cover, not just obscured). So it was wasted pretty easily. - On the plus side this perhaps was to my advantage? I'm not sure but he saw the Las Razorback as my only true threat to his armour. Well aside from my Stormraven and he wanted first blood, so this made sense. But as much as I tried to hide my Stormraven, it MIGHT have been utterly destroyed if the Razorback wasn't poking out. - The Stormraven, even at -1 to hit is down to 8 wounds. My lucky saves combined with his tough shooting left me in the top tier for the flyer. I right away felt super lucky with this... and reminded my self of why I don't take big flyers anymore.... - I go for the Alpha and I can't believe how little damage I do. Seriously it's a shot off in the corner and I figure I got to get some points early, and then try not to get tabled.... - My alpha is mostly generated by some tiny smite action and Strikes coming in hot on my right flank, deep in his zone. Thank Titan for Draigo aura. The Stormbolters vape some cheap dudes, but it gets rid of the 'screen'. The Stormraven had zoomed up, but of course it can't hover so there are dudes inside. I try to take down a tank... twin las, flubs, multimelta has one hit and only does a bit of damage. Then to top it off the GMNDK fails his charge even with reroll, so my failure is now complete. It does not look good and I've only held back one Strike squad, and Voldus with the Pals and Doomglaive are still in the Stormraven. - The Astra get pretty cocky and start spreading out everywhere making Deep strike extremely difficult in any sort of meaning full way. My Strike squads gets vaped in the ruins. - Astra still have tough cards but do have defend on my left side and they advance the walkers to grab it. The fire base is now seeing the GMNDK as a big threat. They start to bob and weave tanks, and flamers, and heavy weapons.... but of course the first order of business is the Stormraven....sure enough it blows sky high... er to the ground I guess. Voldus tumbles out like a silver Santa Clause on fire. I lose a Paladin as a casualty. - Sanctuary proves to be a... er, Sanctuary as the GMNDK was now under heavy fire since the Stormraven went down. His Alpha comes in and tries melta shots on the GMNDK, it's ugly for IG because I just keep making my 3++ somehow. - End of turn the Astra go up a bit, and if I recall, my Doomglaive took a bit of a beating. Grey Knight turn of Turns! - Well not really, I just wanted to make it sound like I did something good... anyway I have very doable objectives this turn, and I get all 3 to tie the game. During this turn however Voldus would take on some serious competition punching through tanks with his hammer, and the GMNDK was finally in CC with a Hellhound. I continued to try to occupy as many tanks as possible. - Also Voldus gave Hammerhand to the Doomglaive, so he would wound the Leman Russ on 2's instead of 3's which turned out to be massive. (I can't take that much plasma every round - I missed this in the previous turn report but he melted 2 more Pals with it).The Doomglaive does a great job, consolidates towards some scary looking stuff but he's in the open now. MID/Late Game: - Astra get tough cards, and actually go for the death kill on me... he gets the card where you have to own every objective. Believe it or not he can do it, but we both realize as he's about to collect the points, Voldus is sitting / contesting one objective! Oh great silver Santa Clause.... how I love you. - So he gets nothing as a result of getting a pretty bad draw of cards and trying to get something out of that card. - HUGE moment of the game though.. I'm trying to stop him from getting his HQ/Warlord to safety in a Vendetta Gunship. I positioned myself to shoot it down, and assault the contents, BUT it has all of its wounds. I have no chance of doing this if I lose much more dudes..... So the IG unload on the GMNDK who is near, and there is the Doomglaive. The Doomglaive is now right beside the flyer and is down to 1 WOUND.... he takes a lascannon shot at it, hits, wounds and I make the 6 up! Ridiculous, but it now sits waiting for next turn.... - I fire everything I can at the HQ Vendetta, I take it down on a failed save, but he command point -re rolls the save and makes it.... wow. It's literally at one wound and all I have is two stormbolters on the Paragon and the Apothecary... I fire the 4 shots, one wounds the flyer, he fails the save and it goes down! - Voldus, and the Doomglaive team up and spank the HQ and his friends. This gave me a commanding lead. + Is this the end to the GMNDK? Why are these large smelly people with beatsticks singing songs with a Priest? This isn't my 40k! - Last hail mary here and the IG throw this squad of bafoons at the GMNDK. They sing a stupid song with the priest and a psyker gives them +1 save... wow what a bash up. I'm surprised but their slabshields hold up with the sing along powers even against my hammer attacks. But I had Sanctuary up and was up to the task. I stood after taking a few wounds, but in return I could only kill one of them. - Meanwhile Draigo in on the extreme left flank of the table trying to help strikes. I'm down to one squad of them, and they did a great job finishing some infantry. But this is just weird... Draigo did nothing this game, so I figure it's time to kill a tank... he goes after a flame tank that wounds on 2's and is -Ap3 I think... wow what a mistake. Draigo goes from unwounded, to on his last wound just by trying to charge the tank! That was insane. I think his robes are soaked in gas or something. (He failed the charge too) - That's one thing I didn't point out but charging in this game was super punishing in this game. I don't think the average IG list has so many flamers in it but it wasn't uncommon for me to lose wounds on most of my charges. I lost a lot of Strikes on one charge because of super overwatch as well... can't wait for the Tau codex! This was bad enough. Between fire and super shooting overwatch it really did feel disheartening in the early rounds trying to reach CC with anything. (especially with flame tanks). Turns out to be a MUCH closer game than the score shows. I had very little left, and so did he. I had a higher score but a few HQ's on low wounds (Draigo on 1) and maybe 3-4 scattered strikes and a half dead GMNDK who was my super wound sponge of the game. Definitely a brutal battle of high attrition on both sides.

So once again, for an army with mini-smite, I bring you yet another mini-batrep. Key Moment of the Game: + Early in the game, my Warlord, the GMNDK, is literally abandoned, on a suicide mission to distract the Hive Mind. He has withstood tons of phlem, acid, feces, projectiles of ANY description. But now he is surrounded by an angry Carnifex, and a Toxycrin. The end is near for this hero of Titan.... or is it? + Game: Maelstrom - Escalation - 2,0000 points. Tyranids: (guessing on a lot of this). Flyrant, 2 x Dakka fexes (95 points each?!?) 30 gaunts Tervigon 3 poison clouds dude with -1 to hit Nids aura. 1 giant thing with Tentacles that looks like it should be in an anime show 1 Mawloc 3 warriors 3 Hive guard 3 Zoanthropes 1 Broodlord 10 Genestealers 1 Deathleaper 1Mawloc (deepstrike) 2 units of 3-4 Raveners? (deep strike) 2 units of 3 spore mines (deep strike) Grey Knights: Voldus GMNDK 3 x 5 strikes 5 Purifiers 1 Apothecary 5 Interceptors 1 Doomglaive Dread Stormraven ------- Greyfax Acolyte Culexus Eversor Here's what my forces look like. Sorry for the WIP's! I'm scared to finish painting any 'new' GK until I see the Chapter Approved in case they make any changes to the (largely unused) close combat weapons. Also after selling my old GK army, I am still painting my new Stormraven... almost done though: Also waiting for Doomglaive in the mail... borrowing my Deathwatch Dread to proxy for now. + Grey Knights... Roll out. Assassins are ready to go, Purifiers are ready to test out their abilities in the new Stormraven.+ The Deployment is Vanguard.... so at an angle, corner vs corner. Here's the Nid Deployment: Early Game: + We both roll a 1 to go first, but since I have the +1 I get to go first. lol + I don't have a heck of a lot I can do. Since we are playing escalation, my single card on T1 is to defend an objective literally right in the middie of the swarm... the Emperor works in mysterious ways, but I prefer living to fight another day. + The Stormraven stays up in the sky and zooms over, my GMNDK joins him in the corner. This is to see if it's worth getting the Nids to move towards that edge, and see if I can poke any holes. T1 I also bring in one set of Strikes, and the assassins. What a mess.... I shoot and psychic attack a squad of Gaunts. It takes everything I have to kill 10 gaunts (I don't want them reviving with the Tervigon). I do this for first blood as I figure this is going to be a very tough game for points.... Other than that my Stormraven and GMNDK do very, very little. They try to take on the threat to the Stormraven: the Hive Guard. But with -1 to hit almost the entire Nid army at this point, I can't really cause damage. End of my turn I score first blood, but I think I'll pay in blood... for that first blood. + Nids come take the bait on the GMNDK, but I may be in over my head. The Toxicryn? (big tentacle anime bug) waddles up, so do the 2 remaining Hive Guard, and 2 Dakka Fexes! Wow... it gets hot here. The GMNDK has Sanc up thank the Emperor so he only takes a couple of wounds, the Stormraven takes one as well. BUT on the left flank of the table my first blood would put my assassins and Strikes in danger.... + Here we go... Flyrant, Broodlord, Genestealers... they're all tripping over themselves to get at the Strike Squad and 2 Assassins. Isn't this the Deathwatch's job? When's the next bus to Titan coming? + + A super weird moment here... the Genestealers have 3 D6, pick the highest (Kracken) and assault. So they easily make it. The Broodlord is a bit stuck behind the Flyrant, and the Genestealers easily make it in, but somehow I don't lose a dude... seriously... not a one. I made 487 saves in this close combat... or at least that's what they'll hear on Titan. The Eversor, and Culexus hit back hard, but the 3 remaining Strikes completely whiff.... they have apparently filled their boots with 'fear'. + Something new... my opponent's first time with new nids.He asks to go back to the ensuing close combat at try a Strategem.... we're both learning the new nids so I say go for it... it turns out on every death of a genestealer he rolls a D6 and on a 6 I suffer a mortal wound.... he kills the 3 Strikes, and puts 3 additional mortal wounds on the 2 Assassins! Wow. TURN 2-3: + I get lucky score 2 points in my zone... I still don't know what to do with the Flyer.... I zoom back to my zone and get away from the shooting Fexes, and leave the GMNDK to fend for him self... .basically he's screwed.... unless the Emperor chooses to spare him. + Back in my zone the amount of Psychic stuff he can do kind of blows me away... he stripped "Gate" off of a squad of Strikes, and I take a fair amount of Smite wounds, and he gets Catalyst off. My denial rolls suck and my Culexus is definitely in range, but it is having about a 20% success rate... The Broodlord annihilates the Eversor, and ties up the Culexus.... Unfortunately my opponent had his rules a bit off, and my Culexus would have been dead a long time ago, but survives til turn 5 (simply because he had the damage wrong for his wounds for the game.) + The Stormraven came, dropped every on off at the (Gene) pool and took off... The Purifiers get their chance to shine... or die. + + Now I have no choice, deep strikers are in, the Nids are pushing forward. Every one gets out and this is a total mess... The Purifiers get off Smite, but it's 3 wounds. I take 7 in return from the Mawloc with some assistance from the Flyrant, and they are wiped. I lose the Strike squad to 5 more Mortal wounds. Some of this is coming from the Mawloc (he rolled a 6 when he came up). + I see the Flyrant with his Psychics are getting really annoying, plus my -1 to hit is really hurting me here. I unloaded my ARMY on 10 Gaunts, and the Stormraven on the Deathleaper. I did no wounds to the Deathleaper, and killed 9 of 10 Gaunts. I decide to take the Lascannons to the Flyrant, and it passes 9 of 11 Catalyst saves from the Stormraven..unbelievable. Really all I can do is shoot up the small bugs. I can't seem to really damage the core of stuff behind his poison cloud, and psychics. + Remember when I left the GMNDK out to die on the right flank? Well.... he's got a goal here... to block off the Toxicryn from getting a point. + The GMNDK is down to 6 wounds and steals one point for me, but he's in trouble. He shoots down one Dakkafex, but a second one charges in as well as the Toxycrin. Getting off Sanctuary was HUGE here, the GM lives with 2 wounds, but hammers the poop out of the Toxycrin. I got pretty lucky here on my Invuln saves, and had to use a command point to keep him alive. So the GMNDK denies a point to the Nids here. + The GMNDK is my warlord, I've abandoned him, he's down to 1 WOUND, and he's all alone against the rest of the Nid core..... the Nids don't stand a chance. + + The push falters from the Nids a bit. The psychic stuff is still strong though. The Apothecary heals up Voldus, and the Doomglaive dread clears out all the deep strikers in shooting and CC. He advances on towards the Broodlord whom we have figured out his actual rules, and has now slain the Culexus without issue. + The Tervigon still lives, I but I think I killed the Flyrant here, and it was his last super mobile threat, but my Strikes are all dead from mortal wounds mostly ,and dakka shooting. The Interceptors were finished off by Mortal wounds. I still couldn't deny anything... UNLESS this is some cruel joke, I'm feeling like the Culexus is trolling me.... or is it Greyfax who will save the day??? + The GMNDK is really getting on the nerves of my Nid opponent. He's thrown a LOT of fire power at him. I get off Sanctuary on him, but it is cancelled by the Zoanthropes. This is not good... down to one wound, but the Zoanthropes get off WARP BLAST on a 11!!!111!! The GMNDK looks like his day is finally done... but off in the corner I hear the squeeling of an angry woman who hates all the psykers in this game.... Greyfax. She is within range of the Zoanthropes and adds 1 to her denials.... the old witch rolls a 12!!!! And saves the GMNDK! I thought this was absurd, but my opponent was livid. The GMNDK Just . Would. Not. Die. + Angry beyond reason (I didn't think Nids had such emotions!) they throw a pile of low end Warrior shots at the GMNDK, he passes about 6 saves on a 2+. Finally the last Hive Guard fires, hits, wounds the GMNDK but he rolls a 6 for his invuln! Still... not... dying. END GAME: + I drew a claim objective 6, + Defend Objective 6 (earlier in the game) and I drew a card which forced my opponent to pick an objective and I had to get it (this was earlier too)... he picked objective 6. I mention this now because I've been waiting... waiting, and now is the time. Obviously Objective 6 is deep in my opponent's original deployment zone. So... I cross the table with the Stormraven, and Voldus would roll on gate, and BARELY pass (my +1 is negated by Shadow in the Warp) I Cannot have this denied so I use my last command point to re-roll one of the dice, and get an 11. + (Opposite side of table in Nid deployment zone:) Voldus Gates to the Objective 6. The Stormraven guards him from being shot, and an undying hero of Titan, on one wound, in a Nemesis Dreadknight, still refuses to die. + + Bottom of Turn 5, the Nid player cannot do anything about Voldus, and the Stormraven isn't worth anything. So he wildly plops off anything he can at the GMNDK, and he passes all his saves, and continues to hang on to a thread of life. + With Voldus' last turn Gate, and the heroics of the GMNDK, the GK pick up 5 points to win the game 12 to 9. A crazy finish.... ridiculous in fact. Although I felt the Nids were very potent, my opponent seemed to disagree. He feels I have 2-3 unkillable models every game. I felt I hung on by sheer luck, and a bit of bad luck on his part. There was a time, at about end of T2 where I felt so violated by the sheer volume of mortal wounds I took... I couldn't believe it. Also his Psychic phase is solid, and just having normal smite on 5-6 units seemed MUCH more potent than having 7 units that are throwing baby smite. Luckily the Culexus worked on about 25% of those smites he threw. (I had so much trouble denying anything until the last turn super Warp Blast deny by Greyfax on a 12!) I thought it was a crazy close game, and my opponent felt the nids were underwhelming. I reminded him that it was his first game with the new dex. But he feels confident he played the army to maximum efficiency and his long history with the nids makes up for the new codex learning curve... so he left the game perhaps feeling a little underwhelmed with the new codex. Of course me having my typical finish of having under 6 models on the table is always hair raising.But it's how Titan rolls! I had a blast.

https://youtu.be/z1Kl29fjprE Stricken's emperor's children vs skimask mohawk's mechanicum, 2500pts. http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e86/bulimic_possum/2017%20-%20lcbr%20emperors%20children%20vs%20mechanicum/IMG_0160_zpsydzaoy3i.jpg http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e86/bulimic_possum/2017%20-%20lcbr%20emperors%20children%20vs%20mechanicum/IMG_0165_zps7vwqr6vn.jpg http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e86/bulimic_possum/2017%20-%20lcbr%20emperors%20children%20vs%20mechanicum/IMG_0170_zpsytwlppxq.jpg http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e86/bulimic_possum/2017%20-%20lcbr%20emperors%20children%20vs%20mechanicum/IMG_0171_zpsenyhfiwx.jpg http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e86/bulimic_possum/2017%20-%20lcbr%20emperors%20children%20vs%20mechanicum/IMG_0173_zpsew5ci9bl.jpg http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e86/bulimic_possum/2017%20-%20lcbr%20emperors%20children%20vs%20mechanicum/IMG_0176_zps7oeve996.jpg http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e86/bulimic_possum/2017%20-%20lcbr%20emperors%20children%20vs%20mechanicum/IMG_0177_zpsvxv63wm1.jpg http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e86/bulimic_possum/2017%20-%20lcbr%20emperors%20children%20vs%20mechanicum/IMG_0184_zpsolsefwwu.jpg http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e86/bulimic_possum/2017%20-%20lcbr%20emperors%20children%20vs%20mechanicum/IMG_0195_zpsysy6bxzk.jpg http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e86/bulimic_possum/2017%20-%20lcbr%20emperors%20children%20vs%20mechanicum/IMG_0200_zpsr15wltc8.jpg http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e86/bulimic_possum/2017%20-%20lcbr%20emperors%20children%20vs%20mechanicum/IMG_0207_zpsi4kdipzm.jpg http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e86/bulimic_possum/2017%20-%20lcbr%20emperors%20children%20vs%20mechanicum/IMG_0211_zpsgc0mq3hf.jpg http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e86/bulimic_possum/2017%20-%20lcbr%20emperors%20children%20vs%20mechanicum/IMG_0221_zpsnjgyxwnh.jpg - Cover Slaves

Work's getting super crazy for me but I want to quickly get this out there, because I haven't reported any of my recent Thousand Sons games, and this was the result of a conversation I had on the forum with some of you about using Magnus because I had been getting kicked around pretty good with my Thousand Sons. If you recall, I wasn't sure if going full Magnus was something I'd regret or not. Well some of you may know I like to start my batrep's with a critical moment.... and that would be right about here.... + " Hold my spear... I got this...." + So here we go: It's Orks vs. Thousand Sons. His list is experimental, he's been having good success with a Morkanaught. He uses a few trucks, and puts 10 boyz in each one. He has a repair dude on a bike to help fix the Morkanaught, and a few Choppas in reserves. Here's my list: Setup and Game: - It's my basic list, but with Magnus this time. I'm sure it was illegal now that I think of it because I put 9 blue horrors and one 1 pink horror as a squad. I haven't really used them in 8th and thought I'd throw them into the list for something to try. They are my 4th troop choice. I guess I could have made it legal by simply making the Rubrics an elite choice. Oh well... no biggy. - We play Spoils of War, and I go first because I'm awesome. Spoils of War dictates you can never throw away "secure Objective X" cards. (not to be confused with "Defend Objective X" which I see some people still accidentally putting in the same category). - The deployment looks like this: + There be green men on Mars, but they ain't martians. Ahriman surveys the battle ground. The Tzaangors spread out. Magnus is off camera to the left, and some Orks aren't quite in the picture. + Early Game: + I figure I should hold Magnus back. I explain him to my opponent. I decide in turn 1 NOT to use Magnus. I move him with his beautiful acid trip looking wings, but no psychics, no Weaver of Fate, no Warp Time. This would be a severe under estimation on my part, and I should know by now. + My lascannon Preds open up on the Dorkbot, and I do nothing. T8 isn't that bad, but out of 4 lascanons, and 3 Autocannon shots I do 3 damage total. This doesn't look good. + I score one point for grabbing an objective, but I don't even get first blood. I have to advance a bit with Tzaangors or as usual Orks will dominate the table space. + In his turn he picks up first blood, and a point.for something else, but he puts out horrendous firepower while advancing his trucks. He smokes a squad of Tzaangors... a squad that Ahriman cast Fate on and even with rerolling 1's, I lose all but 2, and Ahriman is assaulted T1. I thought I was deep enough to protect him, I know that Orks can, advance + assault, but I didn't think it would end up on Ahriman in T1. He dies quickly to a pile of attacks. Slay the Warlord goes to Orks. I'm losing 2-1. + After the Orks kill off Tzaangors and Ahriman, I get the Rubrics out and with 4 flamers, and bolters and I kill only about 10 orks in total. They get around the moral test ,and the orks are fine. I realize the trucks are advancing on my endges, trying to leverage the Predators. I fire on them.... get this... I finally get a Pen- 6 DAMAGE, and he Ramshackles it down to 1 DAMAGE! He does it again on another lascannon shot from 5 DAMAGE down to 1! Ugh. Man is that ramshackle annoying when it kicks in. + I realize after the Morkanaught finished firing, and his army finished assaulting, I was out gunned, and probably out assaulted, but I had the psychics. On the right flank my disk sorc went to town on some dreadnoughts, but I really had trouble killing them. I had to rely on SMITE a LOT this game for vehicle damage. Too many walkers, and trucks. + Magnus is angry, and I can't blame him, I still do not cast Fate on him because I just want to see what happens.... He swoops in and joins a pile of Tzaangors in the middle. I've been here before and if you don't contain Orks early they will own the real estate and you can't get them off of stuff with Warbosses and large mobs around. + I decide to drop in the Scarab Occult (7 termies) in behind the scene to set up some reinforcement for Magnus.... + Magnus, Goats, and Scarab Occult! Now we have a game going.... or do we? + Well Magnus does what he can but the trucks are all full, and the Orks on the ground are wasted pretty good. I thoguht I'd try to put some dents into the Morkanaut but the Orks keep repairing him about as much as I can damage him. Magnus spanks down a large mob, and surprisingly the bladed Tzaangors blow up a trukk... but 10 dudes come out without losing a guy. + + The Scarab Occult fire up Smite, Hellfyre Missiles, bolters, and Soulreaper cannon.... on the Morkanaut and do one damage. Ouch. This is looking uglier and uglier. Late Game: + The Orks counter with everything they can. What this does is buy my back lines some time. I knew he'd do this... he has to, but this way I have some breathing room. I get some valuable points. He has very doable cards though, but he can't do them without killing some stuff first.... + The Ork Morkanaut opens up it's belly button and a squad of Boyz with Big Choppa's comes out. I hate these things.... sure enough he piles them into my Scarab Occult termies..... + And here we are.... the Morkanaught pours everything into Mangus..... + + The Morkanaught hits a ton. There's an Ork banner I cannot get to that has him re=rolling 1's in a radius. He hits Magnus pretty hard, and he's quickly down to half wounds even with my Invulns, re-rolling 1's. + + Magnus interrupts and splits his attacks against the two most damaging units I can see.... two Warbosses with fists. He kills both of them... barely. But the Orks continue with boyz galore, and a dreadnaught. Even without fists, Magnus goes down. + The Scarab Occult get owned pretty hard. This is why I don't like Terminators in 8th. Everything affects them... heavy bolters, fire, assault cannons, etc. In this case a cheap squad of boyz... with Big Choppa's hits a ton, and they are S7 I believe, wounding easily, reducing my save to a 3+. Each Big Choppa does 2 Damage. The Scarab Occult are easily diced up here. + So things are going pretty bad for the Thousand Sons as usual.... but it's okay, I still have... .Tzaangors! And predators (which have done nothing even with prescience running). They plink some more wounds off of the Morkanaut. The Disk Sorc I have gets me "scour the Skies" by killing a chopper, and he directs Tzaangors to take down some cheap troops for another victory point. + I'm playing for points here, it's all I have.... the Rubrics use good ol' fashioned Rhino wall to stay alive... I'm still shocked people don't play more Rhino's. This Rhino literally keeps the Rubrics alive for 2 additional turns. + The demise of Magnus has acted as distraction keeping my Rubrics alive.... The Rhino blocks the Morkanaught buying me 2 turns+ + I snag a few more points here. The Morkanaught cannot get through to the Rubrics who are roasting the Orks trying to get close... I can't kill them all, but he can't get within 8" of me for the assault without melting..... + so here we are at the end. I've been down a Primarch since T2, and I have the points to win.... I'm purely playing the objectives, and somehow my Rhino lasts through all shooting... down to 1 wound, this forces the Morkanaught to assault the Rhino instead of the Rubrics which he desperately wants to kill to so he can move around mid table easily, but it won't happen... the game ends and Thousand Sons literally win by one point.... wow, what a close one. I never thought I had a chance. Thanks for checking out the batrep!

So I'm a bit strapped for time and I'll try to get this done in a reasonable fashion with some pics. First up, I apologize for so many unpainted figs. In my batreps I really prefer more painted stuff but I've had a few people actually ask me to do some of my DG games up as batreps. Secondly a shot from the heat of the moment.... bodies are flying, and Genestealers are turning into Poxwalkers, while Poxwalkers are being consumed for Genestealers... it's a bloody mess, yet one particularly stinky champion stands out amongst the carnage.... +++ Typhus stands amongst the carnage. The smell would kill a horse... or make a plaguebearer smile. Take your pick. The Nids have poured their chaff into the fire, but now Old One Eye enters the fold, backed by a Hive Tyrant and a Dakka-Fex. Can the Poxwalkers hold? Will Typhus cut the Nids down? All to answer the question: Which stinky force is more desperately in need of some Old Spice? +++ The Game: - 2,000 pts Maelstrom. It's a new one where you MUST complete your 3 cards by the beginning of your turn as all cards are discarded. This feels like a disadvantage to such a slow moving army such as mine. - Deployment is in opposing quarters with a no man's land in the middle (18" bubble) - My Army: Typhus 20 Poxwalkers Lord in termie armour with Combi Plasma (Warlord - re-roll Plague weapon aura) 5 Blightlord Termies 1 combi plasma, one flail, one Blightlauncher 2 squads of Plague Marines 10 Cultists Plaguecaster 1 Plague Crawler 1 squad of 3 Myphitic Blight Drones 1 Foul Blightspawn 1 Tallyman 1 Plague Surgeon 1 Blightbringer. Nids: Flyrant 2 x Dakka fex Broodlord 2 x 14 genestealers 4 Zoanthropes + the character Zoanthrope dude 3 Hive Guard 3 shooty warriors Old One Eye Drop Pod w/ a big bug with a mega flamer 3 Venomthropes... can't get enough of these guys! First turns: - This is the first time I have the +1 to my roll, and I actually have a tie/win on the roll off. I don't think first turn is too particularly important for me in this one aside from moving to objectives. - He's clumped up, I'm clumped up.... there's not a lot I can do with some line of sight blocking terrain, it looks like I have to stay away from his Hive Guard since they ignore cover (negating Blight drones), and have indirect fire. I keep my Plagueburst Crawler out of his range though in case I need to do some damage. +++ Deployment. Stinky clump of dudes vs stinky clump of bugs. +++ - with first turn I chuck out some Melta/Krak missiles from the Blight Haulers. They do very little because they are hitting pretty much everything on 4's. About the only thing that really goes off is my psychic phase. I buff the Poxwalkers with toughness, and get Miasma off on the Poxwalkers. I blow a CP on Walking Dead, and push up the Cultists of course. The Plague Crawler gives some good indirect shots to a dakka fex to start working him over...Everything pushes up, and I get only one point for an objective I happen to be sitting on. - The Nid turn is far more dyanmic.... everyting rushes forward with the venomthropes super cloud. - A Pod drops in on an objective with the super flamer Nid rolling out of it. Genestealers ultimately push forward hard and some of the Dakka Fexes make themselves visible. - To my surprise the Nids hold back the Zoanthropes, the Hive Guard and the Warriors. Everything else is making a break for the edges of the ruins in the center of the board: +++ Genestealers come crashing in.... the plague marines are waiting for it.. Typhus relishes it. The poxwalkers fill their pants. +++ - The buffed Poxwalkers do attract firepower. A good volume of it is wasted on them which I kind of hoped for. I think the Nids realized this wasted potential and started throwing shots on the Cultists... which turned into Poxwalkers... all according to plan! - His psychics were limited to buffing running/shooting units. He had a mix of two different rules so he could reroll charges on his shooty units.... then something really goes against me.... I'm hoping this will be a game I get some real use out of the Foul Blightspawn but no...He gets off a psychic power that says my units must fight after his are done. Brutal. So it negates Foul Blightspawn entirely. - The good news is the Cultists die rapidly, and he doesn't know what to do with my growing numbers of Poxwalkers... does he engage them? does he ignore them? - He does some good damage, gets first blood, and an Objective. Nids are up 2 to 1. Turn 2: - Somewhat a repeat of T1, except the Poxwalkers with Tallyman in effect absolutely tear into the Genestealers. It's shocking really. Even the Broodlord is overtaken. All of these absorb into Poxwalkers. Hey they were once humans, turned into Genestealers... now turned into Zombies. Works for me! - I hold my Lord and Blightlord termies in reserve still. They just don't have great targets without sacrificing themselves, and I have no objectives in my opponent's zone worth getting. (I also don't want to deepstrike them too deep near all those Zoanthropes and Hive Guard.) - I think the assaults surprised him.. .they surprised me. - His heavy flamer bug in the pod was trying to snag 2 points for a 'Defend'. That plus the fact it was an infantry muncher kind of scared me, so I poured the Blight Haulers, the Plague Burst crawler and some desperate last shots to get the thing to die... it took a LOT of firepower, but it went down. - Our Assaults continued like T1 I came out ahead, now he was surprised. - In his turn he draws an objective on my Right Flank. He can't get to it on the ground so he deepstrikes the Flyrant and although he subjects himself to quite a range of firepower, it's a resilient bug. - He puts a lot into my Blight Haulers and one goes down. This greatly impedes their shooting. I have no re-roll aura around. T3 is looking to be a big one.... Turn 3: And here we are, back to the first shot of the game.... +++ Young Two Eyes wasn't available... so they sent in Old One Eye. Typhus cares not, but he is flanked on both sides by Dakkafexes, Old One Eye, and a Flyrant just dropped in. +++ - The Flyrant had good dakka, and I can see both Dakka fexes are going to wreck me. The high volume of firepower combined, is mulching my infantry. I'm VERY lucky I had Vitality running on the poxwalkers to make it harder... but that goes downhill at this point.... the Tyranids deny two of my powers. No more Miasma, no more +1 S and +1 T. Getting Blades off is huge on my Poxwalkers though. - I have to get the Flyrant down first. He's sitting near an objective I need... I also need big game hunter, but my issue is I'm having trouble doing damage to all these Toughness 7 units! The Plasma isn't helping much, and the Blight Launchers are putting little dents in. - I decide to call in the Termie Lord and Blightlord Termies! +++ Termies to the rescue! Overcharge plasma to save the day? Or overcharge plasma to melt my own dudes? +++ - So this is the game I swap out melta for plasma on my termies and I'm starting to regret it. I overcharge everything and roll a lot of 1's. This scares me, but I get lucky and no 1's turn up on the re-rolls. But with the Flyrant's 4 ++ invuln, I'm hard pressed to get a shot through, so the only wounds that do count happen to only cause 2 Damage. I end up pouring a LOT into the Hive Tyrant. and I realize the 4++ save is just making this a wasted effort with plasma. I get off a few Plague Crawler shots and luckily I get a 5 damage wound through thanks to a CP re-roll (he finally failed a 4++). But he had 6 up feel no pain and saved 2 of them. - I put a lot of wounds on his Dakka Fex on that same flank using my remaining Blight Haulers. Believe it or not I had a lot of low AP wounds on him to finish him off... 11 wounds. The Dakkafex saved 10 of them! WOW. He just went down. - Without being able to do much to the Flyrant I had to assault... I made a 10" charge but that 4++ held through. I felt like I was now in big trouble. I also couldn't do anything about Old One Eye and more big bugs were rounding the corner. - All said I did well in points and took a good lead. Going into bottom of Turn 3, my opponent did not feel great about his chances because he was down to his big bugs, but I insisted he had a chance... Turn 3 Nids: - It's about time he moved his Zoanthropes up and sure enough the 'super smite' hurts like hell.... - The Hive Guard finally have some targets, he's mobilizing his reserves but I think it's too late for them. I feel lucky he left them back there so long. - His Hive Tyrant simply flies away from my Termies and starts pelting my Plague Marines. +++ All of the sudden with a Hive Tyrant in my backlines, I can't help but feel a great need for a melta gun right about now. +++ - The Hive tyrant almost blicks a 7 man squad of Plague Marines. - Old One eye starts wrecking face because my Psychic buffs were all denied. - The Venomthropes slink into the ruins so now my shooting is going to be further nerfed. - This turn of events puts the Nids tied with me... crazy stuff. Turn 4: - I have to be very smart this turn. I don't have enough left to make a huge push. I know Old One Eye is his Warlord, - The thing I wish I had a picture of is the Venomthropes in the ruins..... I have an epic moment with the Foul Bligh Spawn. He advances in the ruins, pulls the hose out of the Toilet on his back, and hoses the Venomthropes with true filth.... Strength 10 Filth! Now that's 'venom'..... The 3 Venomthropes take all 3 wounds which are 3 damage a piece.... just killing all 3 of them to finally get rid of the -1 to hit!!!! Huge moment. - I lob some indirect on the Zoanthropes killing one, bringing their numbers to 3 and reducing the super smite ability. +++ A flock of brain bugs... just floating casually in the background (thankfully they stayed too far back to have any real effect until late game). +++ - I've had it with the Flyrant, but he's down to one wound so I throw 11 wounds from various stuff at him in a volley... (not to be confused with the 11 wounds from the previous turn) ... he saves ALL of them. So I overcharge plasma on my Warlord Terminator, roll a 1, re-roll a... 1!!!! I've killed myself, surrendering Slay the Warlord, and give the Nids a 1 point lead! Damn Papa Nurgle is fickle sometimes. - Old One Eye is his warlord, and I also need another large target for a card, he'll do fine...so Typhus runs in and guts him... thankfully buying me some time on that flank. - I get a few points out of all of this and take a good lead, even with the misfortune of my Warlord. - Nids Turn 4 is looking pretty bleak. He can't draw cards that give him anything 'easy' and he doesn't have the model count. We play through the turn but he can't make up the deficit and we call it in turn 5... a Death Guard victory. Conclusion: - I really missed melta in this one. I know everyone is a fan of Plasma on Termies... I just don't know. - I miss having two Plague Crawlers. One is just a little hard to take advantage of. - Poxwalkers probably had their best game here.... they were insane and I think they truly shocked both of us. With Tallyman they were a force to be reckoned with for once (they usually get shot up before they ever have an effect in game.) - Typhus the more I need him, the more trouble I'm in. He only saw action once, but it was brutal. - At first the Foul Blightspawn seemed like he wasn't going to have any effect with that crazy psychic power making me go last.... but then his one toilet spurt event on the Venomthropes was truly epic... that may have changed the game (I cut out all the misses I had firing at stuff in that bloody cloud). - The Nid Flyrant absorbed a ton of plasma. So did the Carnifexes. This caused me to heavily rely on the Blight Haulers and Plague Burst Crawler for heavy duty firepower. - The Blight Haulers had me rolling 2+ on Plague marines. That was nice.... really nice at times. But their shooting stunk once they shrunk down to 2 dudes. I hope you enjoyed this. Thanks for checking it out!

Hey guys, Works been insane, so I haven't had time to do batreps of my games but I wanted to really try the new Renegades rules and I was a little disappointed. I thought this Deathguard matchup would actually favour my setup.... it was a fun game and I thought I'd share some of the highlights/lowlights! Unfortunately I'm super short on time and gotta run to a meeting so please excuse the brevity of this... The game was Maelstrom (2000 points). He got to go first, and his army being Deathguard was largely footslogging, with a Pred, and 2 Helbrutes. Lots of Poxwalkers of course, Typhus, and a large contingent of it all was of course from the Dark Imperium box set. One thing I realized I missed was he had 10 Termies I believe. They were obviously not "deathguard" but played as such with a good mix of plasma, and an Autocannon. Otherwise nothing unusual in his list... a Plague caster, plague marines, etc. My list roughly was: Huron Sorc Exalted Champ (MoN, plague blade thingy...artefact, wounds on 2+) Cultists x 3 squads (one was 13 dudes, extra points) 7 Possessed (had to proxy some Mutilators in there, I'm expecting stuff in the mail.. Vorbak) Landraider w/Havok 4 Spawn 3 Oblits (always have, always will use these guys). I had a second detachment (outrider? Fast attack one) Daemon Prince, MoK, set of talons, wings, 5 Warp Talons 6 Bikes, Chainswords, 2 with bike mounted Meltaguns (maybe should have went with flamers but realized I had no decent AP shooting in this list). Champ w/Poweraxe (bad idea) I think the Spawn were in here. Baledrake. My army: My army is an ecclectic gathering of missfits from my old metal Huron (missing a thumb!) to some Thousand Sons cultists, World Eater models, and some Crimson Slaughter stuff (Ex. Champ and LR). His first turn is largely uneventful, but he does have a full Lascannon Pred.... that thing just rips into a piece of my Landraider...... it losses a lot of wounds, but is just ONE above being in the second damage tier. This stings, but I get away without giving up fist blood. First turn using my Renegade 'skills' I simply advance everything. He's making a play for the center of the table with his Poxwalker farm and Typhus in the middle of it... Now I've played with my own Deathguard enough to know that the Poxwalkers are a giant tarpit, so I shoot them from a distance and pull back my Cultists but I know he needs cards (objectives) in the mid / my zone of the table. My Landraider moves, and completely blanks on hitting his Predator which has the psychic -1 to hit power on it (wouldn't have mattered anyway). \ - First turn assault? Maybe... but it was ugly. So really uneventfull but I do get first blood from my Oblits coming in the right flank and pounding something down... can't remember what. The inevitable Poxwalker blob is advancing to my edge. - I watch his Helbrutes take quite the toll on me..... combined with the Predator, my Landraider is down to the first damage rating, but I still haven't hit a thing with my Landraider. - I clearly have no shooting, but my army is built to advance, and assault. I forgot something... T1, my Baledrake flew up with my Spawn advancing, and the Bale Drake assaulted a squad of Plague marines, but the Spawn did too even with a command point re roll and the Baledrake got owned by a fist and the other dudes. - So I realized the Mid is totally swamped.... It's going to grab all the objectives, and sit in the middle and stick the joint up like a clogged toilet that can't be drained.... this forces me to move the bikes off the flank, and 'block' the middle..... - Trying to 'unclog' the toilet. - With things really blocked up in the middle at best I bought some time. The right side was now only flanked by my Daemon Prince, and Oblits (bikes left them alone). - My Daemon prince alone was a bad move. he charged into a squad of plague marines, and the way my shooting was going, I couldn't kill anything so I thought what the heck and did a charge with him into the plague dudes, but wiped them out in a turn, which left me in the open.... My Oblits were ignored, he was afraid of the D.P so his Predator opened up on my DP and wiped it in a turn. (with I think a Helbrute's help) - The other Helbrute took my LR down to 1 HP! - So my right flank is gone... I have a couple of Oblits left, but although they are rolling 'average', they really aren't putting a dent in any infantry because of the layering of saves... Resilient saves are being made at an alarming rate. - Everybody out of the bus. - I think I got this a bit mixed up... .sorry. This is turn 2 on the left flank... my LR limps to a halt, Huron and the funky bunch get out with the sorc. - Anticipating a big push on this side, I deep strike the Warp Talons to meet up with the Spawn and Possessed for a giant multi assault... the likes of which I wouldn't be able to do in most Turn 2 games. I was easily as far as I needed to be with Renegade rules. - The Sorc casts Warp time to make sure the Warp Talons cannot miss their CC charge. Sorc also casts the cancel invuln saves power, but it is canceled. Huron casts the +1 Strength, toughness, attack thing on him self... get this, he rolls two 6's. And Perils! I use a command Point, re roll one of the 6's... it's another 6. So now I roll yet another 6 as the result and he's down by 3 wounds! Ugh. - This was a sign of bad things... the assaults go off, but I can't damage anything. Warp Talons kill 2-3 guys, Spawn kill a few guys, but Huron does little, and the Possessed do squat. Their random attacks (thanks GW for more random) roll a 1 for three combat phases... they seemed like a horrible waste of points. - I lose almost as much as he does, but my inability to kill anything is worstened by the fact that THIS is the main thrust of my army which I have carefully planned to take out a third of his army with, but I bounce hard. - So we made it... now what? - The Deathguard hit back just as hard, but I don't have near the resilience. Typhus opts to leave the Poxwalker farm to help out... by my calculations with my overload on this side, I foresaw Typhus coming in, but what I didn't see was that very little of his stuff would die. - I still have the upper hand in this side, but not for long..... I would roll another 1 for the possessed, and the Warp talons would hit and wound about 8 times on his last Plague Marine. He would save all of the wounds from all squads on that one Plague champ with armour or Disgustingly Resilient. Then fist them back, causing a few deaths. - The Helbrutes wade in and I somehow kill one with Spawns, but they wreck the squad in return (I think I interrupted). Everything is fading here on my end. Huron killed one dude. - On the right side of the table I lose an Oblit, and this keeps his Predator busy and distracted from my 1 wound left Land Raider. - The mid is going badly now.. the Bikes were holding on okay, but shooting all those combi bolters is what they do 'well'... not assault... and his Termies came down.... The bikes were smoked as the Pox walkers retreated, and the Termies came in shooting, and hitting... I survived the first combat turn, then I faded. - Huron's last stand? Typhus joins the fray, the Plaguecaster is in, and a Helbrute vs Huron, a spawn, and the Exalted Champ. - So Huron is the first to die...easily to Typhon, he never had a chance. - The Exalted is put down to one wound and does very little in CC. Even against a character. The saves/DR saves are too strong. - The Spawn dies. - The Bikes are removed by Termies - My Warp Talons (down to 2) + my last 4 Possessed still cannot kill one Plague Champ in the ruins. he saves with armour, and DR saves, and I can't get through all those saves and T5. Of course the Possessed rolled a 1 again for a tremendous 4 attacks. END GAME: - His turn has him hunt my Sorc down with his plague caster. He got to swing first, but really the Smites added up over the game and I took a bit of a beating in the psychic departement. - In his turn the Helbrute, and Typhus had easily overwhelmed Huron, Exalted Champ and Spawn, so at this point they have rolled over into the Warp Talons and Possessed. I see what's coming so I blow my last CP's on an interrupt. It doesn't make a difference. He's got me down to a few Warp Talons and 2 Possessed. Of course now I roll a whoping 2 attacks each for the possessed, but the Toughness/saves/DR saves prevent me from killing that last Plague Marine yet again... unbelievable. - So Typhus, and the Helbrute, and the single PM overwhelm the Warp Talons, and 2 Possessed. Huron is dead, the Sorc is dead, the bikes are gone, DP is dead, Baledrake gone... all I have is a 1 wound LR, A few random squads of Cultists and 2 Obliterators so I call it. POST GAME: - This was a hard one to take. I came to a few realizations: There's no point being the first into the fray if you can't remove saves, or do the wounds necessary to overcome the math. T5 is a really difficult hill to climb for this army. I was into him early, and fast, but this was actually to HIS advantage. He hits harder, and outlasts my army with sheer resilience. My army does not hit hear hard enough to be confident against something like this. It was like chopping down a tree with a rubber mallot. - The DP was good. Huron was bad. The Sorc was 'okay' but underperformed this game. The Exalted was 'good' but perhaps a bad fit here... I didn't feel like I had anything take advantage of him. I feel like he's better suited for WE. (I just had crappy attacks at every level). - The Bikes were bad. Bikes just kind of ... hang around. I used them out of the gate in 8th and didn't like them. They went down in points so I thought I'd try them again.... not too impressed. - Oblits. Probably tied for the DP with effectiveness. I misused him but got a glimpse of what he does and it could be good for my World Eaters. It was an enjoyable game... I was outshot, outlasted, out assaulted, and I had no board control after T2 which is game over in Maelstrom.... but it was fun. I really enjoyed playing my own Deathguard and enjoy playing against them.

I've posted a few batreps for Konor, but failed to mention it here... but I did remember this time! I played about 3 games during the weekend but by far this was the best: ++ The smell of burning garbage rips through the air. The Deathguard have found some dark means to flank the Ultramarines. Somehow Typhus has waded through death and destruction, but Calgar waits in anticipation. Not only would the outcome of this fight pretty much dictate the game's outcome, but it would be perhaps the mist bizarre finish to a game I've had in 8th edition. ++ The full Battle report here: http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/337804-konor-week-2-prots-ultramarines-vs-deathguard-pics/?p=4849188

Here's a batrep I did up for a 2K Maelstrom game vs the heinous Admech. They apparently thought Guilliman was going to appoint Cawl as the Archmagos of the Admech and all hell broke lose and Ultramarines were being attacked all over Mars.... Here's a pretty pivotal moment.... ++ This is not an Ultramarine going into a donut shop. It's 'counts as' Calgar going toe to toe with an Admech Knight. The Inceptors and the Ultramarines' back line watch on in disbelief (at the insane heroism or stupidity is yet to be determined) ++ Check it out here: http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/336907-prots-quick-batrep-ultramarines-vs-admech-2k-maelstrom/?p=4826198

https://youtu.be/e6ERhROAKhc An00bis's Tau Empire vs my "Imperium" list comprising of deathwatch and count as ultramarines. 2000pts, tau empire had one battalion detachment, imperium was a battalion and flight wing I believe. - cover slaves

Heya folks! So I'll preface this by saying that I'm a very new collector to 40k and don't have many models at all. No vehicles, no dreadknights, no transports, nuffin. So it was pure infantry by necessity and not choice, that being said here we go! Playing with 100 PL My Knights; Brotherhood Champion Castellan Crowe Voldus 2 5 man Paladin squads with 1 hammer, no special guns 2 5 man Interceptor squads with 1 hammer, no special guns 1 Purgator squad with 4 Psilencers Allies; 1 Custodian Guard Squad, 2 with Guardian Spears, 3 with Storm Shields DELETED 5 Eversor Assassins cause I needed to fill 20 PL at the end and didn't have enough models I'm realizing that this probably isn't thoroughly battleforged. Unless maybe I took a TON of allied detachments? Maybe? Idk the rules for how you would take assassins in an allied detachment. But if you're still interested read on! Blood Angels; 3 Drop pods (the pattern that transports dreads) 2 Dreadnought Librarians with force spears 2 Dreads with 4 autocannons A DELETED bunch of other dreadnoughts with combinations of twin lascannons & Dread CCW with Heavy Flamers. I can't remember how many but it was the standard loadout. Mission: Deadlocked Deployment Style: Corners So we've got a very cluttered board, half forest terrain and half city. Blood Angels get to choose the map and deployment type. We start deploying and I've got the 5 Eversores to put into 'Deep Strike' so he ends up getting first turn. On the board are my Interceptors (with GoI), Purgators (far away in cover), my Custodes, 1 Assassin, Brother Champ, and Crowe. Everyone is hiding. All other units in Deep Strike Turn 1 BA: 8 autocannons fire on my Interceptor squad and reduce them to 2. Autocannons. Another 2 autocannons fire on my other interceptor squad removing 2. Autocannons. Rest of his turn is moving to grab the objectives he generated. GK: Move to secure objectives. Brotherchamp moves alone up toward a dread&pod holding nearby objective. I hope his hammer hand will give him the edge against the Dread. Discussion ensues as to whether or not the pod blocks line of sight. Discussion ensues as to whether the pod block charging. Drop pods are still dumb...DEEPSTRIKE EVERYONE!!! Assassins all over the board, Paladins popping up near objectives, Voldus appears on highground near the middle of the map. Psychic Phase: Voldus with his Leadership 10 (+1 warlord trait) casts Purge Soul on the dreadnought threatening the Brother Champ. POP! Well not total pop, mostly popped. Smites from Voldus and Brotherchamp finish it off. Purgators GoI onto the highground with Voldus. I am intrigued by how the Psilencers will do. Interceptor squad with only 1 casualty shunts near an objective and dreadnought, other Interceptor squad with 2 remaining hide in back lines holding objective. Shooting Phase: Ok here's the fun bit. Most of the shooting does little pecks or dings here and there, remember I've only got storm bolters besides the Purgators. BUT...the Purgators open up on his HQ Dreadnought Librarian! Voldus gives them reroll 1's. 24 shots rerolling 1s is no laughing matter. Wounding on 5's, HQ has 3+. HQ gets :cussing PLASTERED! Did a few wounds, but the d3 roll of damage cranks it up to a total death. Psilencer Purgators...interesting. Charging: only the 4 man interceptor squad makes it into combat. Do a couple wounds then get wrecked down to 2 with D CCW. ... ....... Ok this is gonna take too long and be too wordy. So suffice to say Paladins prove to be excellent objective holders, especially when the Objective is in cover! Purgators GoI to a better spot and Voldus follows them on the next turn. GoI avoids the Heavy Weapon limitation so they can shoot without penalty, and they wreck FACE. Not sure how it'd do against something with more than 8 wounds...but they did a good job. Custodes, Voldus, Brotherchamp, and Crowe never see combat. Purgators make a 24inch ':cuss YOU' bubble that the dreads wont enter, giving me center control hard. Assassins do some OK damage, but surprisingly aren't that damaging to dreads, their 3d6 charge helps make some big moves and tie up shooty units though. Game was called 11 to 7 for the Grey Knights, with only 1 dread left on the table. Casualties for the Grey Knights were 7 Interceptors, 3 Paladins, and 3 Assassins Take Aways Psilencers may be worth taking in big groups. I don't think 1 psilencer is gonna do the trick, but reroll buffed they hurt. Just a couple of d3s on a multiwound high toughness model is enough to wreck its day Force Swords are great. You're wounding on 5's usually, but the -3 AP and d3 wounds per hit can make a difference. Every one of those has the AP and damage of a powerfist. Hammers are great for the guaranteed 3 damage, but 2 sword wounds can easily result in 3 each and avoid the -1 to hit Paladins in cover are a bitch to get rid of Purge Soul with buffed Voldus isn't a half bad idea assuming you have a valid target. There's a lot of IFs before it pays off, but it can pay off really hard. Eversor's probably shine better against hoards, but weren't awful. Is there a way to take multiple assassins now? Or are you obligated to take only 1 due to allies? I guess I could have had SEVERAL allied detachments and just lose all my command points? I only used 1 all game anyways Lemme know if you have any questions! Didn't realize there was a cuss filter, my bad

Anyone interested in a written batrep? Why is Hedonism-bot (Contemptor) laughing maniacally at Valoris while he fights a devious Word Bearer's Sorc? Link: http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/345184-prots-quickie-batreps-custodes-vs-chaos-pics-2k/?p=5030198

So a few very quick Batreps. Sorry not a lot of time today....can only do one of these... I got a few games in, and had time to take pics from a few of them. The first one was very challenging against Chaos. Word Bearers specifically. Keep in mind these aren't ultra competitive games as you'll see from the lists, but they aren't pushovers either. I didn't want to go stupid deep into Custodes bikes, and he didn't want to get into mixed traits, etc. But as you'll see there's some punch to the lists as well. We played a Maelstrom game with our typical house rule of discarding any card that could never be accomplished from turn 1. Also 'Domination' has been voted on as an auto-discard as well. (have you ever accomplished this when you weren't already hammering your opponent? ;) ) So from memory here's the stinky Word Bearer's list: Sorc Sorc in Termie Armour Dark Apostle (there's a LOT of cultists in this list) Exalted Champ 5 x Warp Talons Rhino + 8 Zerkers 2 x 30 Cultists, 4 x 10 Cultists = 100 disgruntled Imperium Postal Employees serving the word of Lorgar. 3 x Oblits... MoS Pred Annihilator Some Forgeworld Units: 3 x Heavy Bolter thingies... very annoying... cheap. Manned by marines 12 shots I piece I believe. 1 huge tank from 30K Mechanicum (Or so it looked like. All I know is when it penetrates it's an Auto 6 Damage (it has two firemodes) 1 tank that was proxied... I want to call it... a Vindicator laser? All I know is when thing thing fires it's one shot, S12 ! And the damage is dependent on a chart and can be 3 x D6 damage! Ones who used to watch, but now kick Word Bearers out of Imperium Union meetings: HQ: Valoris (warlord - testing stuff) Allarus Termie Shield Captain 1 x Vexilus Praetor Magnifica 3 x 3 Gaurdians 4x Allarus 3 x Wardens 1 x Contemptor Kheres 3 bikers (one with Salvo for experimentation... I've been trying it out in my last couple of games) ( I finally ditched the Landraider... just feel like it needs to come down a hundred points or something lol) So it's a basic scenario with 3 objectives a turn and we are in quarters with the 9" circle of no man's land in the center. - The Word Bearers looking to spread the word.... unfortunately the Custodes have a copy of the pamphlet and are attending the next union meeting.... +++ The Custodes "Union Busters" deploy in a tight circle around the Vexila Magnifica. behind a mostly LOS blocking building. - The Contemptor and all Alluras Models remain in reserves. - The dirty Word Bearers get to go first, and they decide to hit hard... it was with heavy contemplation that the Word Bearers did indeed go for a gutsy (unusually so) move. ++ There will be no fair fights against the heinous Legion of dirty lies and exorbatant union dues.... From my non-deploy corner the Oblits drop in, and the Termie Sorc comes down with a body guard of Warp Talons. They've played their hand fairly early... will the game pay off? ++ - The Warp Talons aim to tie the Custodes up, and the Cacaphony of double firing is used, and a Guardian squad is sent back to Terra in the form of shiny Loonies (*Canadian coin currency). It's ugly; I never had a chance there. - Back in the Psychic phase I get a real break.... he fails so many things it's obvious his false gods have left him here to die. Even with command point re rolls he fails the big test... Death Hex. This is huge since I took a massive chance and am trying a game without Impregnable Mind! - The Talons do make a charge, it's pretty impressive because even with all that hit back, he still had 2 of those Warp Talons left from some good invuln saves. - He puts a small, but important dent in the small model count army, but even though he scores First Blood, I feel lucky about the Psychic phase. That could have been far worse on the Mortal Wound front too. + Custodes early game: - Custodes get objectives that are just too difficult to achieve. I'm okay for numbers, but I really need an objective (Hold) that puts me too close to his Oblits. I take a chance and call in the Contemptor Dread to see if maybe he can do it. +++ The Contemptor comes down from the Teleportarium and needs to punch some shots through the Oblits. The Bikes react as far as they can to lend a hand. - This was not a good turn. The Contemptor had to deploy too far from the objective to declare it for the turn. The Bikers are on their own because the Warp Talons have completely clogged my slow foot sloggers... I don't think it was intentional by my opponent but it had a VERY annoying, and effective result of stopping me from moving models through models to get to the Sorc/Oblits. - I hold off on the Allarus. The Contemptor fires and with cover saves -nothing- goes through the Oblits. The bikes unleash the Salvo shot, do nothing, the Hurricanes are bouncing here as well I think one or two wounds are finally failed after I dump everything I can in range into the Obllits. I fail the long charge with the bikers. I score nothing. ++ Word Bearers: - Their long shots are not able to really get a fix on the Custodes. This is intentional on my part as I know by turning a corner on the center ruins almost insures certain death. I am feeling the weight of the small model count, and the Word Bearers are pushing through the whole table with cheap, expendable bodies. - The Cultists charge in, Vets of the Long War, and multiple shots do some good wounding numbers, but I make a lot of saves here... it's low end damage, but there's a fair chunk of it. - BIG moment here. The Ruins have a Rhino in them, and the Zerkers get out about mid game, and try to charge the Wardens... Zerkers are scary with a Dark Apostle and Exalted Champ it's worse.... I throw down Tangle Foot. This is huge as he only needs about a 5, but I roll a 3 for Tangle Foot and he rolls a 3 for the charge! He has the banner though and re-rolls... a 3! The Custodes feel the Emperor's blessing and have a turn to deal with Cultists without the Zerkers in the mix. +++ Tangle Foot Grenade is key. With Berzerkers delayed, the Dark Apostle and Exalted Champion send in the peons. A lot of chaff is cleared... enough to cause the finicky worshippers to run off to join a different circus. +++ - With breathing room in the middle the Custodes try to push back. A lot of Cultists die, and Trajann is finally freed up to attack the heinous Sorcerer. Unbelievably the Sorcerer has apparently preyed to the right gods and survives the exchange! +++ Valoris takes on the Sorc and surprisingly the Sorc still stands. Meanwhile the Bikes get shot up while trying to reach the Oblits+++ - Custodes are down 3-0 by turn 3. I feel quite pinned by sheer weight of bodies and heavy firepower lurking around every corner. I realized I have to take a big risk. It was really unfortunate to have to turn the bikes into the Oblits but they were brutal if left unchecked. Here the Oblits manage to down a biker in Overwatch (they were also "Cacophoned" the turn before). Oblits go down screaming though and the bikers are victorious. +++ My Custodes' Contemptor: 'Hedonism Bot' lays on the ground, cackling in robotic laughter as the Sorcerer continues to survive the 'Victor of the Blood Games' Trajann Valoris. +++ - Finally Valoris stamps the life out of the Sorcerer with the Watcher's Axe. The Cultsts wave has started to fail severe Moral tests. - The Wardens take advantage of the Tanglefoot grenade and smash hard into the Berzerkers dispatching them fairly quickly. - Hedonism bot (contemptor) tries for "defend #2" but will ultimately fail as another wave of cultists will have more Obsec on that marker. + Word Bearers are in the lead.... - Word Bearers are up 3-0 and I still have to get out of my zone. The continual wave of Cultists is nearing an end though. - The Word Bearers need 'Defend' on an objective deep in my zone. In an interesting twist of events the Word Bearers use the 2 CP Strat to recycle a nearly full 30 man Cultist squad and plop them right on top of the objective. - This forces my hand. I can't turn the Guardians and Trajann around. It will cost me the game because I'll never score points past midfield with the slow speed of the army. However, I can't let the dirty followers of Logar secure another 2 points here... pretty much ending the game for me. - I answer with the Allarus and Shield Captain. They land and put everything they have (plus some assistance) onto the Cultists.... and unbelievably the Word Bearers rolls exactly the number required to take the very last models off of the objective, denying him Defend for 2 points! This is huge. He had no command points left or would have surely re-rolled this. He only needed on surviving Cultist. But they all failed moral after the shooting... just to a man, no overkill. Close one. - Now that my zone was finally free of smelly cultists, I could try to push, but this meant taking on the other stuff which has basically been quietly chucking the odd shot out. +++ Hedonism Bot gets some back up.... Bikers clear out the Cultists and another attempt can be made at "Defend #2" however, the vindicator lasers can be heard screeching in the distance.... +++ - Hedonsim bot fails his second invuln attempt and the mysterious laser goes through, and the table tells us it's going to be 2 x D6 damage.... receiving 9 wounds, Hedonism Bot would be no more. (He had just 9 left). - The bikers were forced to sit on it and took a lot of predator firepower, heavy bolters x 12, and that other tank... the Mechanicum one. It was quite a bit of firepower. - The Word Bearers had lost mid field, and could not draw cards that let them sit and collect points, so it was up to the Custodes to press the advantage at the late stages of the game. +++ Custodes need to get a bonus point here. By overtaking Objective 4, this would help put the Custodes back in the game.... +++ - Custodes push for #4 and easily over take the Cultists. - Unfortunately my Allarus are almost completely out of the game as they were forced to handle the Cultists deep in my zone. However, the remaining forces took a lot of casualties but kept pushing the traitor legion back.... +++ The last of the Custodes make a desperate push against the cowardly retreating forces of the Word Bearers +++ - Every last custode took the advance order from Trajann. The Allarus were a little too far back, The Guardians would lose a few more, but the Mechanicus tank would get caught up in the ensuing combat and would not be able to fire next turn. - At the to of turn 5 with 2 more points the Custodes just took the lead by a point... 4-3 and with that the Word Bearers shot everything they had but would not get past enough invulnerable saves to make a difference, and with that the Word Bearers conceded. - A very, very close game. Some real moments stand out to me in this one that could have easily swung the game either way... the first psychic phase, the cultists breaking, a turn my Bikers saved so many lascannon shots.... but those are the best games. Thanks for reading this.

Hey guys, A quick batrep I want to do up for my last AdMech game. The Game: Maelstrom: One of the Chapter Approved missions where you have to draw 3 cards, and you must complete them before the beginning of your next turn or they are discarded. This makes movement a real key element of the mission I find. And it's not something my Admech are awesome at... too much sand in the joints. My List: - As you can see I opted for a Knight. I was tired of having pace dictated to me by my opponents. I feel it's one of my least favourite parts of Admech. In the past I had used a lot of Jazz Hands priests to counter that and fight for some of my own board control, along with Sicarian Infiltrators. Today I went with the beef option: Knight Crusader, pretty loaded. -Cawl -Dominus -Tech Priest 2 x Rangers with Arquebus 1 x 10 Vanguard with 2 x Plasma Cavaliers, taser dude.(had the points) Dunecrawler Dunecrawler 2 Kastelan Robots with Phospher Blasters Datasmith 2 x dragoons 5 Sicarian Infiltrators (not show above). Knight Crusader: Avenger/Ironstorm Missiles,/ Battle Cannon / Very large feet. Dark Angels: - Mostly a very, very shooty list: - Azrael Lt. - 5 Helblasters - Pred Annihilator - 3 x Ven Dread: dual las/missiles - 2 x 10 Tacticals with special weapons - 5 scouts w/Shotguns - Dev squad Plasma/Las - Squad of BlackKnights w/plasmatalons - Dark Talon (really good flyer for the points) The Dark Angel player just came off a great win against a soupy chaos/renegade list with a lot of shooty/forgeworld units so I didn't know what to expect. He has a LOT of high quality shooting, all with re-rolls thanks to Azrael, and the infantry is getting a 4++ invuln from him as well. Deployment: +++ We are playing corner to corner, and I get lucky with first turn. I always deploy to go second so I had my Knight outside of 48" of his Lascannons. In this picture I had finished my movement. - My cards were bad, but I had 'kill a character'. If you can see I set up my Arquebus' for a crossfire on Azrael. He couldn't hide from both, and I had first turn so both got to shoot at Azrael, and I managed to take a few wounds off. - I felt this would be a short, violent game because we both had the potential to rip a lot of armour apart. I got VERY lucky and my Dunecrawlers both had 3 shots, and ripped through his Flyer netting me first blood. - The advancement of the Vanguard left them sitting at mid, but my other card gave me an easy objective squatting in the middle. The Knight did very little. I decided to poke at some Dreads, and one is left with one wound, but other than that I decided to go after the Devastator squad because of the high damage potential of the Las/plasma there, and really the Knight is kitted for anti Infantry. Kastelans plink some infantry, but can't touch all that armour so are fairly ineffective. - Also I go up with my Dragoons, and infiltrate my Sicarians.... I lay down "Wrath of Mars" and get 3 Mortal wounds on the Black Knights, and 4 normal wounds which he saves.... not a great return, but I take it. I fail all charges. - I manage to take a 2-0 lead. Dark Angels: - He's down a Flyer, and 5 of his Devs, and I think I got one dread, and a good piece of the Black Knights. So he juggles the Pred, and starts firing back, but his army list is largely static... this is new to me as I typically am avoiding close contact with my opponents, but I'm happy to see he's content in his zone. However, it's built that way so the shooting starts.... - Even with all the remaining Las, he ignores the Knight (I don't think it was a huge threat to him) and he goes after the Dunecrawlers. Sure enough I make some darn good invulns, and he gets unlucky on wound rolls. Yet with weight of dice I do take a pile of wounds on one Dunecrawler.... down to 3 wounds! + Sicarians survive overwatch, and the Dunecrawler is charged. - Not shown: the bikes charged the Dragoons and kill one. It's okay.... I still have one and he laces into the remaining two bikes along with the Sicarians and I get really lucky here. - He manages a few points, but he's starting to feel the results of my very lucky first turn.... Admech Turn 2: - Admittedly this is a big turn for me. The canticles result in me being in cover, and having ONE Dark bike stuck in close combat with my Dunecrawler the other Canticle is the one where I roll and on a 6 cause a mortal wound... I tell my opponent Cawl will NOT adjust this number because I wish to troll him and kill his last wound on his last bike in this cheesy manner.... I roll a 6!!! The Bike is dead and my opponent can only roll his eyes at my cheesy luck. - The Knight positions for a ton of firepower and takes the Helblasters down to 2 models, but it took a lot of firepower through that 4++ save bubble. - The Vanguard clean up the Devs, and his flanks are now heavily severed. His movement is hampered by this giving me a lot of freedom of movement for Maelstrom cards which I take advantage of and score a couple of points. - The Kastelans change protocols from Aegis to Protector (but that won't take effect until T3). However they do kill some scouts... they were a bit disappointing this game. - The Dreadnoughts have to go and the Cawl combination with the Neutron Laser Dunecrawlers is devastating this turn taking a Dread and the Predator out. - At this point my Sicarians are closing in on his green wing bubble wrap, and the Dunecrawler is on fire.... I have a stellar roll with my special Bolter and Chainsword dice: + 6's mean +2 hits each! + = This roll puts down a lot of the bubble wrap so for turn 3 this leaves Azrael exposed..... + Cawl looks on longingly at his lovely creation... the Hellblaster plasma gun. He asks the Knight to retrieve one for his personal collection.... + - In Dark Angels turn 3 I lose a slightly repaired Dunecrawler but it takes everything he has left.... Azrael comes out of the back lines to clock my last Dragoon. - At this point the Dark Angels concede. It was hard fought but I think this game was decided turn 1. We both had very destructive lists, and my opening salvo put him at too big a disadvantage. With no real assault threat this gave me a lot of room and he didn't have the foot print to push me back. - The Knight was a good... 546 points I believe. He was quite mediocre. I don't think he earned his points back... I'm pretty sure of that. Cawl was good, not sure if he was so good to be 'auto include' in this type of list, but again I think the fact a Dark Angel list was trying to outshoot me helped me although those Helblasters with the Dark Angels' Strategem do 3 damage. I had to take them out early. Thanks for checking this out!

I thought it was time to put a batrep up. I have been playing a lot... with lots of armies too, and trying to get a feel for where I really like in 8th. I've resisted using Magnus only because I wanted to get a feel for a lot of the Thousand Sons units. That said... Magnus is in this game. Let's get right into it... The Game: 2000 pts, Maelstrom Astra Army: HQ: a couple of LT's from Astra and Tempestus Scions- Cadian HQ dude with all the orders + Commissar with Conscripts Tons of tanks Punisher, Demolisher, 2 x Basilisks 2 x Hellhound (can't remember but they were both flame tanks) Chimera 2 x Valkyrie flyers 15-20 Conscripts. Lots of dudes... Sniper Assassin - Vindicare Tempestus Scions - 3 x special weapon squads (deep striking) and their HQ. Thousand Sons: Magnus 2 x Exalted Sorcs 10 Rubrics, Soulreaper, 1 flamer in a Landraider Baledrake Helbrute Las/Missile 20 Tzaangors 5 Scarabs Baledrake Thousand Sons Deployment: + Magnus knows how the small minded mortals of the Imperium think, and he boldly deploys front and center (plus as a massive peacock from hell let's be honest, he can't hide. + I have far less items to deploy than the heinous loyalist.... so I get to go first. The Astra/Tempestus do not seize. EARLY GAME: - Thousand sons pull an objective card that forces my Warlord to actually accomplish the objective... it turns out to be a an objective deep in the Astra zone, high on the east side of the board. Magnus sends a psychic pulse to the Baledrake, they will rendezvous deep in the enemy zone to take the point. - Tzanngors advance, the Landraider fires off las shots and pulverizes a Hellhound granting first blood. The Tzaangors run/advance, and the Exalted Sorcs stay hidden amongst their ranks. The Helbrute fails to hit on any shots. - The Scarab Occult drop in front of the Leman russ Demolisher - their psychic attempt does one Mortal wound to the the tank. They would charge, successfully, but fail to do any damage to the tank, but prevent it from shooting. - Magnus fires off some Psychic mortal wounds, but does extremely little to the squad of Astra with autocannon.... Magnus does very little here, but with the Baledrake they now threaten the Vendetta. Magnus must stay back, but the Baldrake smells the fear of the Valkyrie pilot and surges forward for a T1 assault... + High in the Eastern board flank, a view from the Astra Militarum pilot's cockpit. #84 probably needed an air sick bag after seeing the terror unfolding in front of him. + - The Baledrake 'flames' the Astra in front of Magnus but again, only 1 wound. But the Drake does clash with the Valk and causes a few wounds. + Astra draw a card they can't accomplish. We houserule cards that are impossible to accomplish from T1 on. He re-draws but needs to grab an objective on my side. + The Astra unload all their Scions..... Did Magnus see this coming? Perhaps, but the Goatmen will have to fend for themselves on yet another hostile world with no edible grass. + Tempestus Scions unload... the Helbrute is caught unaware and is easily destroyed. The Tzaangor are vaped between the Scions and the Valkyries zooming overhead.+ - The Exalted Sorcs somehow evade the carnage and watch their Tzaangor disappear. More Tzaangor take casualties in the Ruins however several saves are made. - The Astra largely ignore Magnus and the Landraider. + The Exalted Sorcs direct the Rubrics to disembark, while they advance on the Tempestus Scions. The Tzaangor lives will be paid for in blood!!!+ - The Exalted sorcs do suprisingly little for Mortal wounds. A large volume of fire power from the Rubrics hit the Scions, but they do not break. It would take a full out assault to break the corspe god slaves. They fought bravely and while the Exalted sorcs finished their squad, the Rubrics would be stuck in for 2 turns of close combat!!! - Scarab Occult fires of baby Smite and does 1 wound to the tank which keeps retreating, his squad is largely diminished as an Astra squad keeps picking them off. - The front lines threaten to collapse... masses of tanks are taking their toll on the last of the Tzaangors. The Baledrake continues to flame the Conscripts but their loses are not notable. The Baledrake continues to terrorize the Valkyrie but with very few wounds. - This puts a lot of pressure on Magnus. He soars across the lines of Astra and smashes into a Basilsk, punching a hole through it. - The Landraider failed utterly to hit anything. - Astra valkyries continue to fire, now the Vindicare takes aim on Magnus but fails to hit. The Conscripts destroy most of the Tzaangors, and finally my Rubrics kill the last of the Scions. + Magnus collides with the second Basilisk. He is destroying the ordnance one vehicle at a time while the Tzaangor fight ferociously to keep the blob of Conscripts engaged. + - The Punisher kils what it can. Line of sight is hurting the Astra a bit, but everytime the Thousand Sons break mid-table the Astra punish them with a hail of bullets. - Magnus finishes the Basilisk off, and the Landraider tries unsuccessfully to take down one of the Valkyries. The Scarab Occult fail to do much to the Demolisher tank but the surrounding Astra are picking away at the Terminators, until they are destroyed. - Thousand Sons get a few points in this turn and it becomes obvious the Astra need to get a few objectives this turn if they hope to succeed... - Astra pulls a double point Defend objective card. They fly a Valkyrie over, and a Hellhound to secure the objective.... but the Thousand Sons still have options. +Magnus soars over the backlines of the Astra. The Conscripts look on in horror, as they watch the Primarch slam into a Valkyrie in mid flight. + - Magnus rips the flyer out of the sky preventing the point score. Meanwhile below the Exalted Sorcs have lined up with the Hellhound and jointly Smite it to death. It becomes obvious that the Astra cannot hope to win at this point. But for the heck of it we continue with the bottom of the Astra turn, and just for interests' sake he fires everything at Magnus, and he dies... just dies... and I remember to use a command point, and save the last D2 wound to prevent Magnus' death!

Just a very quick batrep based on a 75 power level game. I'd estimate 75 power level is somewhere around 1200-1400 points. It feels like it anyway. We ended up playing Big Guns Never Tire, and my force looked like this: So a few squads of Tzaangors, some Cultists, 5 Scarabs loaded up of course. Two squads of Rubrics, one in a Rhino. Exalted Sorc + Ahriman. The one item I was very hesitant on here but wanted some real ranged punch is the Forgefiend. He's got some serious wounds, and some serious cost associated with it, but at S8 -1 AP, it seemed like something I wanted to try in 8th. The heinous T'au, once known as the heinous Tau, were quite buffed in areas I didn't really foresee.... they play better with different units now. The T'au were basically a lot of Battlesuits (the new sauce) and a Riptide, a Ghost Keel, Jump-mander, lots of drones, a transport with Breachers, a Tide wall drone thingy (it's now a transport) with Troops in it.... it turns out the T'au list was slightly illegal as it only had 2 Troops but someone else told us he probably could have easily fit it into one of the elite style detachments at the cost of a few Command points. I ended up with first turn, and after deployment he failed to seize. I chose the deployment that has you closer in the middle. I realized he would / could far out maneuver me and out shoot me, so I wanted a chance at getting to grips with him early.... - After deployment the T'au did take an infiltration unit to deny my Deep Strike on his 'softer side', so I was forced to put my Scarabs on the right side of this picture. This made me make a stronger offensive push to the right side of the table to try to take out the Riptide with the Forgefiend enhanced by Ahriman..... whom advanced with Rubrics on foot, and ended up with Perils on a Warp Time and try to avoid it with a CP re-roll. - I surged up right side, and dropped the Scarab Occult. I simply could not wound. Wounding on 5+ is incredibly difficult. The Forgfiend had to move up to gain 36" range... this makes is WS a deplorable 5.... so Prescience was key but the shots simply bounced with only -1 AP on the Riptides 2 plus.... he still rolled 3's. - On the opposite (left) side I felt with his infiltrators he did take a risk... or so I thought, in that I could at least try to keep him occupied with softer bodies.... but I was wrong. - So a squad of Tzaangors actually gets in a first turn charge with help of Instrument. - A rhino rushes up as well... The Havok Launcher is worth it typically but there's something very different about T'au now.... they are ridiculously tougher. T5 stops me in my tracks. - The Tzaangors get the charge and I'm glad they have Tzaangor CC weapons but in truth I could could not get much wounds with that T5.... when did fish get tough? Tau turn: - Of course every unit is fixated on the Flamer Rubrics in the Rhino. I made sure my opponent knew what was in there, and at this point I realized he was taking drones and planning to absorb future charges.... and then everything I hit in CC simply "Flew" away, unimpeded. This left Tzaangors in the open. My Tzanngors (green ones) in the middle ruins were also going to be heavily targeted by heavier Battle Suits.... - The Rhino was completely health and already on his door step. I had faith in the T7 holding out a full wounds for a single turn at most... but I was wrong again... in a few salvos the Rhino went down to zero wounds before I could get to turn 2, so although it didn't explode, the Exalted Sorc and Rubrics take 3 wounds on exiting!!!! 3 wounds! Wow are vehicles tough on expensive models.... - The Rhino (I assumed) is removed from play and I had to be within 3 inches. So the Tzaangors and remaining Rubrics took a horrendous beating from a semi-circle of Tau fire lines... fire warriors in the back, shielded by drones, and suits on the outskirts. - This would be as far as I get. Somehow as it turned back to my turn I had Tzaangors punch through the middle (green) and I made some juicy 5 up Invuln saves. - The Exalted Sorc perils'd again... I ran out of command points doing this it was horrible. The whole Psychic phase was actually quite horrible. It did almost nothing. Since powers are unique, Ahriman always used Prescience on the Forgefiend, and Warp Time on the Rubrics which were loaded but too slow against Tau..... far too slow. - Back to this assault above, I killed a few drones, but that's because as the 'weakest' unit in the melee they are still T4. The suits couldn't hit back very hard, but moral isn't what it used to be for Tau. They have no trouble staying in, and the T5 battle suits laughed at my Goat attacks. - The Ghostkeel is ridiculously resilient. At times between various models he kept throwing Drones in front of Smite making Smite almost useless. So I tried to target softer units with smite but nerfed smite just can't make up for not having a punishing shooting phase. - Back on the right side of the table the Riptide would get assault by Scarabs, and the Rubrics were very, very slowly make it upwards to try and pitch in but again... wounding on 5's just kills the army's the ability to deal relevant damage. - Then things went from bad to worse.... The Rubric Sorc cast his mini Smite, Perils'd again... died, and he took 3 Mortal wounds from Perils, however I did not know if these perils wounds were supposed to spill over? Regardless I removed him from play, and took D3 wounds to the other Rubrics... killing 3 more. Ahriman took 2 wounds, and cultists took 3 wounds! And that was the most damage my psychic phase would ever do.... kill a Sorc, hurt Ahriman, kill 6 other models in my army. But there's more.... Ahriman would cast Prescience and Perils as well. And he would take 3 wounds bringing him down to 1 wound. (he never received a shot all game... so all his wounds were from some form of perils or another.) - Well now that we got all that perils out the way we can get back to the game... wait... one more..... the Scarab Occult Sorc perils'd on his baby Smite, he took only a single wound. I was actually happy.... lol - BTW: The real crappy sidenote in the Scarab taking a wound is for the rest of the game every time that squad took a wound, it always had to be allocated to him first which really, really stinks. - The army tries to recover from such horrible psychic phases and just collapses under weight of fire.... although the self wounded Scarab Sorc would guide the squad into CC with the retreating riptide (above). - Scarab occult lay down a few more wounds, but in assault things aren't very good. The Swords can't wound, and the Staff can wound but typically he saving on a 3 up, and then a 6 up (which he made a few of) FnP kind of mechanism. - The amazing thing about the T'au is I would enjoy getting in CC with the Riptides because a few wounds and they can run... but now nothing... no moral to take, so they just walk away from you and this army simply can't be tied down. - The Tau sacrificed drones as long as they could... and although marker lights aren't what they used to be, they do last the entire phase so at this point the assault element of my army was destroyed by a continuous "white scars" move of hit and run, and dakka the goats. - FINALLY in Turn 4 I have my first killed unit of Tau... the Riptide. It was a slow beating from the Scarabs who finally took him down but it took 4 turns of nearly my whole army shooting and scarabs shooting/assaulting him to kill it. So my 'first blood' would come in the last game turn. - His breacher squad which really had nothing to do all game were bored, so he got them out of the transport in turn 3-4 and the dakka'd up the rest of the cultists, and killed most of the rubrics. - By turn 4 I knew it was over. But with his one wound remaining I thought I would see what happens if I take Ahriman into the transport.... with the remaining Rubrics. Smite does 2 wounds, and Ahriman gave it one wound as well... and that was it. The scarab swords couldn't do anything, and the transport attacked Ahriman back and almost killed him! That would have been just an added touch of embarrassment! - I called it here as I had about 5 models on the table, and his army was only one unit down. Conclusions: - Lots of good T'au tips here: - Let Drones absorb critical wounds. - Let Drones layer in front of soft targets and absorb assaults. More good T'au stuff: - Battlesuits are ballersuits... Just keep to the perimeter with your suits, as drones absorb hits, come in with your suits and focus fire, let them assault you with combined overwatch, and just "Fly" away. Rinse and repeat. T-5 Suits, 3+ saves, 3 wounds... these guys are really good now. Something I said from the earliest leaks of the toughness system is I felt T5 was going to be huge and it is. The majority of 'infantry' firepower is always going to have difficulty with T5. People complained about the Riptide in 8th and I understand he had to get more expensive... when every ITC event has lists in 7th that started with "This is my Army "X", it has a Riptide wall as well". The Riptide is actually very survivable. Thousand Sons lessons of the Planet o' Perils! - I suffered 5 perils. Sure that's pretty high, but this is exactly why I thought the psychic phase would be a nightmare for me. I understand not having as much 'power' in the Psychic phase... heck I was happy to see that, but I fail t understand how it can be that soft, and potentially rip a chunk out of your army as well. That lack of mitigation from 7th was keenly felt. Keep in mind there is no possibility of a 'good' result anymore from Perils. - The Exalted Sorc felt lost. With Ahriman calling the shots, I have to confess the Aura is barely noticeable. I think you can get more mileage from other HQ's for a Battalion if you're running Ahriman as the main dude. (unique powers mean the Exalted is just Smiting.) - Forgefiend. That was the first and last game for him. The best Daemon unit I think right now is the Baledrake but I didn't want to default to him right off the bat. But I'll take that for essentially the same price over a Forgefiend any day. - Tzaangors are easily the best unit I had. It's unfortunate I went against an army that is basically T5, and can't be held in. They are so much better than cultists and the CC weapons combined with Instrument make for a great, great cheap troop. - Rubrics.... they had literally zero effect on the game. Rolling 5's to wound all game killed their overall effectiveness. And they are slow compared to Tau, so to get in 'good' range also meant subjecting yourself to a torrent of very high AP firepower that was much more potent than Warp Flamage/bolters. - Warpflame squad... no opinion they never lived to get in within range. - Scarab Occult. This is feeling a lot like 7th. I can see myself dumping Rubes for Tzaangors, and going pure Scarab Occult... feels a lot like 7th. They last longer, they have more varied loadouts, and don't have 10 man tax issues to get it. They are tough, and can also assault... and don't rely on a transport. - All is Dust. This was really hard for me to accept, but in my opinion it is nowhere near as effective as our old buff to a invuln 3+ Invuln. Not even close. I got hit continuously with Fusion and Plasma. I almost never got to use all is dust, and had to rely on 5++ way too often. Unfortunately our aura 'buff' never came in to play for me once. - Melta, and Plasma is incredibly punishing to us. As I said many times I play in a meta where there is a crapload of high AP armies. I already miss the 3++ and it was a hard reminder when I watched my Rhino go up and the squad inside with just a couple of shots. (D6 wounds is killer). - Overall this is the worst game I've ever had against Tau with my Thousand Sons. I never felt I had a chance. It felt like the Tau were playing a different game. I definitely took some lessons from the game though. Probably my biggest handicap was the Psychic phase is super fickle now. there is no way to stack it in your favour really. No way to mitigate its negatives either. The second biggest handicap I had was easily the Forgefiend. Something that has to walk and hit on 5's... is just not worth those points the odd time I could mitigate that penalty the damage/hits just didn't feel good enough at that point level.

So I just had a horrid game. Probably my worst beating in 8th edition. But what I'm trying to figure out is if the Landraider or the Corvus is the 'go to' in the codex.... but I do believe it has to be one of those options because otherwise we have a very, very vanilla looking army. (just thinking of the constraint issues GW have given us with transport options for "Kill Teams".) I'm not going to do a full run down of the game and bore you to tears with it. Basically I had two very beefy Kill teams and they were both deployed in Corvus Blackstars. One had the Watchmaster, and a Termie + Vanguard vet + Black shield a few dudes with Frag Cannons. This loaded it up. The second Blackstar was deployed on the very opposite corner of the table. It had the second most kitted out Kill team. Similar to above, but a little less expensive and it was lead by Artemis and his super bomb. I had a third kill team which was fairly average, but flexible in a Razorback with twin- Assault Cannons. Then I had 5 bikes with a few good hth weapons for flexibility. The plan was to use the biker's TP homer to pull back the KT's with Termies if I needed it for objectives (This was a Maelsrtom game). So I had turn 1 and just to give some perspective how it went I deployed my first Corvus in the corner like so: That's a homing device, the Razorback is full, but it was hard getting full cover so it is definitely not 'center' of table.... The bikes are hidden in the middle... and the other Corvus is at the very far left, but you get the idea. I had such a small army that I of course am going first.... BUT Chaos steals the initiative, and this was a sign of things to come. The Chaos player had a well rounded army. Nothing over the top, probably most of his list was just adjusted with some recommendations I actually made including Abaddon and a 5 man Black Legion-esque Combi weapon Termie squad, and a lot of marines/cultists/Decimator dread/Defiler/Predator, Oblits. Well after stealing the initiative I tell him which Corvus has the Watchmaster/Librarian in it, and he unloads the Predator annihilator at it, needing 4's to hit because of Supersonic... he takes all the wounds off of it... the Corvus goes down, I lose 2 Kill team dudes. I basically end up with this. The Kill team is engaged by the defiler, 10 marines, shot up by a ton of stuff, the bikers hold their own and the other Corvus does surprisingly little in the air. This forces me to get the contents of it out, and assault the Decimator dread which heavy flames a good portion of the squad out of close combat and Artemis does 1 Mortal wound to the Decimator with his bomb, I re-roll it with a CP and it turns into a 2. Deep in my zone my large kill team did make an assault on a Rhino, but ... and this is a really, really goofy mechanism of 8th, the Watchmaster and Librarian FAIL their independent charge rolls. This leaves them alone, as the rest of the kill team has advanced beyond them. Of course Abe comes in with 5 Termies on my back row and the Combi weapons annihilate the Watchmaster (Slay the Warlord) and the Librarian is the recipient of everything else. The only thing I can hope to do to retaliate is the Razorback mini-Kill team pours out, the Bikers join in and shoot everything at the Termies. with only one Frag cannon, and higher AP SIA rounds, I manage to kill a whooping 2 termies (4 unsaved wounds). I won't have a chance in close combat so in T2 I call the game. perhaps the worst game I've had in 8th. I've already played a lot of armies, against a lot of very different opponents and this was one game that was very difficult to figure out what the appropriate changes would be. This is why I started thinking of the Corvus. It was so dehabilitating to lose one Corvus in the top of T1. Sure it was a bit of luck, but it's quite plausible to happen against a few opponents. But the result was so bad I knew I could not come back using a super slow army, with super small numbers. The opponent could circle me at will and throw rocks at my head until it was safe to come in for the kill. That weird mechanic of the HQs not making the charge has happened to me in other games and I find it one of the more awkward things in 8th where this results in squads 'abandoning' their HQ's, but it's super dangerous, and it can be incredibly self destructive because the HQ's become very exposed, and in some cases you're losing the 'aura/buff' which you heavily rely on. This made me think about the Landraider. I have a love/hate with it. I've used it in several games and it's finally become something that kind of plays like it is written. It can take a good beating, and it does perhaps have the best delivery system out of the codex in terms of reliability. BUT it is so incredibly expensive it takes a small army, and makes it smaller. One complaint about the Corvus I have is the Cluster Launcher bombs are kind of crappy... compared to the 2 Ork Bomber ones, and the Tau one (I've seen these so I don't know about other flyers.) But at 250-260 points each, the Corvus bombs give up to 10 D6 attempts at hitting units with Mortal wounds on a roll of a "6". Orks (!) and Tau seem to have better bombs, resulting in mortal wounds on a 4+. The Flyer is expensive, but still much cheaper than a landraider. So I'm starting to think of just using one flyer, even though the load out and speed is pretty impressive on paper.

So a super fast run down of a game I just had with metalica. The game was 2k, Maelstrom Deadlock (start with 6 cards, discard one a turn.) . I had first turn with Metalica. My List looked like this: +++ Unfortunately it's obviously not entirely WYSIWYG. The Scouts represent Fulgurite Priests. Eight of them. And I'm proxying a tech priest - The idea of my list was to utilize the Metalica Dogma and the WL trait to move around the board quickly, and be able to disengage from CC and still shoot. - His Dark Angel list was unusual, and did have a huge slant on Deathwing Terminators. Basically 3 full Tact squads, and 3 Terminator squads with Belial (the guy is a beast for his points). And that eats up a ton of points, but he still had the Ravenwing Bikers.... with Plasma talons and a Libby/Chappy on bike. - I take the high ground with Rangers, everything else is in the middle, and the Rangers spread out as far as humanly (inhumanly?) possible to prevent Deep Strike. + The Rangers did squat all this game. Their role was to pick off HQ's and only hit and wounded one out of 4-6 shots (lost track). Abysmal as usual. But they did prevent deep strike on the flank I guess... - My first turn is stellar... I mean I've never had a first turn this big in 8th edition Maelstrom. I score 7 points on 6 cards. Plus First Blood. His troops were spread out, and I really didn't know what to target. We have a house rule that no more than 2 points can be scored PER CARD to prevent runaways. I was glad we had that house rule or I very well could have ran off with it worse. I got a few objectives drawn in my zone which was darn lucky. The rest were 'kills'. - I zap one squad of Tacticals down to zero, and target the Ravenwing bikers with their speed. I barely manage to get all of those bikers, because I did not want to advance any Vanguard yet because his sizable Deathwing Termie star would rip me a new one if I wasn't defensive. - His turn the Termies come in. My opponent was good about it, but he did keep noting the way I deployed prevented him from getting the Termies anywhere he really wanted to go... so he took a far right table side and opened up on some Ironstrider Ballistarius' and they were easily over run, and the Vanguard took a bit of a beating. One thing I'm not sure about is he took shots at my Onager Dunecrawlers, but just piecemeal. In his defense he really hadn't played against Admech. I let him know these were repairable. MID GAME: - With his Termies in, I could move about the map and do what had to be done. He had scored a point or two and I was less concerned about scoring at this point and more concerned about testing some theories. - I moved Vanguard aggressively. The Priests moved up to cover them. The Vanguard shooting was fantastic with the Plasma but that S3 Radium Carbines on Termies was doing absolutely nothing... I knew I was going to take a blunt of a massive charge soon. - I realized through my 2nd/3rd turn that this many Terminators was a serious problem. I know he had beaten a pretty tough Ork opponent with this list (he had 120 Orks) and it was the 2+ save that was too much to get through.... Sure enough I'm seeing even with Dunecrawlers a lot of it was luck based. - I used the Strategem to get to +2 BS on the Vanguard with Plasma. This did good, but not great! Sure enough the inevitable charge happens. + Here it comes.... - I barely remove any models, I don't score a point. Sure enough he's slowly gaining in points on me but the Deadlock scenario is hard if you can't empty your first turn hand and he has a few tough cards he can't get out of his hand.... - The Termies make it in, but somehow I hold the line. I think I actually made 2 x 6 up Invulns! - My army positions for the counter strike, I have my Infiltrators come in..... and The Termies have to be dealt with..... + the Infiltrators bounce really hard on these marines.... I wanted to stop them from scoring a few points on this objective. And I needed it as well, but it went pretty badly... - Back at the close combat, I didn't lose any to battle shock, so I retreat, and move my Warlord up high enough to 'rally' the Vanguard, and they shoot at -1 back into the Termies. This was huge. - All resources I have hit those termies to free up my lines. This is enough to bring them down but I am shocked how much trouble I am having dropping them. The Kastelans really don't do a heck of a lot.... so he was ignoring them and focusing on the volume / plasma fire of the Vanguard. - The termies in cc with the vanguard are all shot up. So the Priests need a new task, I advance them to where the Infiltrators were destroyed. - My opponent gets another point... I COULD get one myself but I'm more curious about the assault in the corner and now I see the remaining 7-10 Termies as a challenge to get rid of.... - - The last of the Vanguard retreat while the bulk of the army unloads. - So the priests get into CC and they do very well delivering Mortal Wounds on the way in..... And since the Dragoons lead the charge, they took the overwatch. Sure enough his Chappy and Libby hit back (on Bikes) and slap a few Priests around. In his turn I manage to finally kill the remaining Tacticals with the Priests bringing their Invuln up to 3++ and they were ready to take on the Chappy and Libby next. - Much closer to my zone, he moved his termies up as much as he could but with only 5" he really couldn't catch me as I knew I had to kite him... I did so with the Dunecrawlers and I advanced my last, full Vanguard Squad up to get into rapid with him... I got a 6 allowing me a 12" move with no penalty, used the Strategem again and unloaded overcharged Plasma re-rolling 1's.... only the Plasma really did much though, but it was a high volume of stuff... combined with the rest of my army firepower, it finally took down theTermies. He had to concede with only a Sarge and Belial left. - He was a good sport after a tough first turn for sure. And as down on termies as some people are... I was shocked how much trouble I had getting rid of them.

From 775 to 777.M41 the Segmentum Solar was beset by wars and insurrection. Renegades and aliens took advantage, contributing to the rising anarchy. As part of the force sent to end the so-called Fourth Quadrant Rebellion, the Dark Angels were one of four chapters that deployed their full might. The industrial colonies on Derren's World suffered an unusually high frequency of psychic phenomena, witchcraft and sporadic demonic incursion. For eighteen months the forces of the XVIIth Grensvan Dragoons, Ordo Hereticus, Ordo Malleus and the Dark Angels fought shoulder to shoulder against the most insidious enemies of mankind. The official records remain sealed by the Ordo Malleus, existing only in a securely warded vault on Titan. But even they do not tell the whole story. Other tales have been suppressed by other authorities. This is one of them. My friend Robin and I have been meaning to have a large-ish (ie more than 2000 points) game between my Dark Angels and his Imperial Guard for some time. When our schedules aligned and we set the date I hinted that I'd bought the Cypher dataslate and could provide the model too. We agreed to bring 2500 point forces and randomly select one of Cypher's Altar of War missions on the day. The Hunt was on! http://i1205.photobucket.com/albums/bb440/Cactus-/Turn the Tide/SAM_1001_zpsae78506c.jpg Supreme Grand Master Azrael Techmarine Mendeas with servo-harness 5 Deathwing Knights Venerable dreadnought Varon with multi-melta, power fist and heavy flamer Drop pod Squad Shael: 5 Deathwing terminators with heavy flamer, pair of lightning claws, chainfist, thunder hammer and storm shield Squad Matthias: 7 Deathwing terminators with cyclone missile launcher, chainfist, pair of lightning claws, thunder hammer and storm shield Squad Jericho: 6 Ravenwing bikes with 2 meltaguns, veteran sergeant with power maul; land speeder with heavy bolter, typhoon missile launcher; attack bike with multi-melta Land raider with dozer blade, multi-melta, Deathwing vehicle Land raider with multi-melta, Deathwing vehicle Land raider crusader with multi-melta, Deathwing vehicle We rolled mission 1, Turn the Tide. This required Robin to split his army in two. One contingent, of my choosing, would be deployed with Cypher. The second contingent would arrive from reserve at the start of turn 4. Each side would earn one victory point per enemy unit destroyed . I would earn six VPs for wiping out the first contingent by the end of the game or Robin would earn six VPs if I did not. Cypher's special rules also offered up to three VPs to either side so there was a lot to play for. Night fighting would be in effect for the first turn. The sentinel was switched from one group to the other at the last minute, which is why it's in the wrong photo. http://i1205.photobucket.com/albums/bb440/Cactus-/Turn the Tide/SAM_1002_zps34009237.jpg Imperial Guard main force Company command squad in a chimera 5 stormtroopers with 2 plasma guns Platoon command squad and two infantry squads, in chimeras Heavy weapon squad with 3 lascannon weapon teams Veteran squad with meltaguns, in a chimera [these seem to be missing from the photo] Leman Russ executioner with all the plasma http://i1205.photobucket.com/albums/bb440/Cactus-/Turn the Tide/SAM_1003_zps4a391e2b.jpg Imperial Guard reinforcements Allied Ordo Malleus Inquisitor with power armour and a force sword 5 stormtroopers with 2 meltaguns Platoon command squad and two infantry squads, in chimeras Heavy weapon squad with 3 autocannon weapon teams Veteran squad with some plasma guns, in a chimera Allied Grey Knights, in a land raider Scout sentinel with lascannon I chose the contingent containing the leman russ executioner and lascannon heavy weapon squad to be deployed, reasoning that I could get the drop on one or both of these and neutralise them early. Robin sensibly castled up behind the tower in his corner and Cypher joined the company command squad in their chimera. The lascannon teams occupied the top floor of the tower and the storm-troopers with plasma guns held the bridge to their left. http://i1205.photobucket.com/albums/bb440/Cactus-/Turn the Tide/SAM_1006_zpsf80c1bfe.jpg Let's call the top of this photo north, which means I'm advancing from the south-east. Dark Angels turn 1 The Consecrators' land raider and the crusader carrying Azrael, squad Matthias and techmarine Mendeas moved north up the road. The Deathwing knights in their land raider, unwilling to queue, swung to the west side of the large ruin in the centre of the table. With the roar of retro-thrusters a drop pod slammed down behind the leman russ and venerable dreadnought Varon stepped out. Firing his multimelta at the tank's rear he succeeded only in immobilising it. http://i1205.photobucket.com/albums/bb440/Cactus-/Turn the Tide/SAM_1007_zps8669542c.jpg http://i1205.photobucket.com/albums/bb440/Cactus-/Turn the Tide/SAM_1011_zpsf542c120.jpg Imperial Guard turn 1 Company command issued an order to bring down the lead land raider and three searing beams flared in the darkness, followed by the longer-lived illumination of an explosion as the lead land raider was destroyed. As the dust settled the scene was lit for a third time as the Leman Russ executioner eliminated all but one of the terminators it had carried. Cypher and the company command squad poured fire into Varon and wrecked the ancient chassis. http://i1205.photobucket.com/albums/bb440/Cactus-/Turn the Tide/SAM_1012_zps697eb8a2.jpg Dark Angels turn 2 The lone terminator hefted his heavy flamer and began his solitary walk towards enemy lines. The crusader passed him, guns blazing at the storm-troopers and causing the two survivors to break and run. Lascannon fire from the last land raider slew two of the lascannon weapon-teams and the survivor also fled. Squad Jericho arrived from the north to finish what the dreadnought had started, their two meltaguns wrecking the leman russ. Meanwhile the attack bike moved as swiftly as possible from the south and the land speeder typhoon dropped in to the east, trying to line up flanking shots on the line of chimeras. http://i1205.photobucket.com/albums/bb440/Cactus-/Turn the Tide/SAM_1014_zps98a79004.jpg http://i1205.photobucket.com/albums/bb440/Cactus-/Turn the Tide/SAM_1013_zpsa92d313b.jpg Imperial Guard turn 2 The heavy weapon team rallied and moved back up the tower. Disgracefully the storm-troopers did not and retreated further. Cypher continued to direct a stream of fire from the command squad, this time at the Ravenwing. The nearby infantry squads and their transports added their own shots and the six bikes fell. http://i1205.photobucket.com/albums/bb440/Cactus-/Turn the Tide/SAM_1016_zpsaeea2ceb.jpg Dark Angels turn 3 The front ramp of the crusader hit the ground with a bang and Azrael led the charge, leaving techmarine Mendeas behind to continue repairs. Azrael and squad Matthias destroyed a chimera and the squad inside before consolidating towards Cypher. The surviving marine from squad Shael saw a way to avoid being shot with many multilasers and embarked on the crusader through the side door. On the western flank the Deathwing knights advanced in their land raider, the attack bike just behind. The bike lost a wound to a dangerous terrain test here which, in hindsight, I didn't have to take. After turbo-boosting the 4+ jink is as good as the 4+ cover save from the ruins. This mistake would cost me later. Another chimera exploded under a fusillade of laser and melta fire, only the missile team surviving the inferno. http://i1205.photobucket.com/albums/bb440/Cactus-/Turn the Tide/SAM_1018_zps4d94b29b.jpg Imperial Guard turn 3 The missile team fell back to the table edge and regrouped - in this scenario models in Cypher's army cannot fall back off the table before turn 4. Responding to the land raider, a veteran squad equipped with meltaguns disembarked from their chimera. They disabled the tank's right sponson but did nothing to delay the knights. Both surviving chimeras and Cypher's unit poured everything they could into Azrael and squad Matthias on their left, downing three. http://i1205.photobucket.com/albums/bb440/Cactus-/Turn the Tide/SAM_1019_zpsa8354a8f.jpg Dark Angels turn 4 The Deathwing knights charged from their land raider. The overwatching meltaguns hit home but the energy was dissipated by the knights' shields and they unsurprisingly crushed the veteran soldiers. One of the land raiders finally finished off the lascannon weapon team in the tower while the attack bike failed to hit Cypher's chimera. Azrael and squad Matthias wrecked the empty chimera in assault but made slow progress towards Cypher. http://i1205.photobucket.com/albums/bb440/Cactus-/Turn the Tide/SAM_1020_zps44f01bad.jpg Imperial Guard turn 4 Reinforcements arrive, including four chimeras, a sentinel and a land raider carrying a Grey Knights strike squad and Ordo Xenos inquisitor! A squad of storm-troopers dropped in behind my crusader, two meltaguns were trained on the engine block and another tank exploded. The techmarine and terminator inside were unscathed but the two storm-troopers who had succeeded so well were immolated in the fireball! Cypher's tank backed into the north west corner while the newly arrived chimeras focussed their fire, reducing Azrael's unit to one marine with lightning claws. The Deathwing knights also came under intense fire but none fell. The attack bike was not so fortunate and suffered one wound. After taking one from the dangerous terrain test in turn 3 this was enough to remove my most threatening anti-tank unit. We appear to have made a mistake here and allowed the Grey Knights to charge after arriving from reserve. I only noticed when I couldn't make sense of the photos! It didn't help them however as I was able to precision strike the one model with an AP2 demon hammer before he could attack. None of the Deathwing knights failed an armour save. http://i1205.photobucket.com/albums/bb440/Cactus-/Turn the Tide/SAM_1021_zps6c7789ee.jpg Dark Angels turn 5 Azrael and friend joined the Deathwing knights and swiftly silenced the agents of the Inquisition, while my land raider immobilised theirs. The lone terminator with the heavy flamer finally got to unleash it on the storm-troopers in the centre of the battlefield, despatching the last one with his power fist in the assault phase. The techmarine assaulted a chimera and methodically wrecked it with his two servo arms, the platoon command squad tumbling from the back. http://i1205.photobucket.com/albums/bb440/Cactus-/Turn the Tide/20140201_173131_zpsba38e42d.jpg Imperial Guard turn 5 Once again the Imperial Guard trained their guns on Azrael, killing the marine with him and leaving the Supreme Grand Master on one wound. The now de-mechanised command squad fired their grenade launchers at the land speeder to no effect. http://i1205.photobucket.com/albums/bb440/Cactus-/Turn the Tide/20140201_174219_zps2006ff4d.jpg Dark Angels turn 6 Azrael joined the Deathwing knights and they surged forwards, wrecking another chimera in close combat. The techmarine unleashed his flamer and boltgun on the exposed command squad but the officer survived. http://i1205.photobucket.com/albums/bb440/Cactus-/Turn the Tide/20140201_180019_zpsa1833301.jpg Imperial Guard turn 6 Robin fired everything he had at my dwindling force: one land speeder, one techmarine, one terminator, one land raider, Azrael on one wound and one unwounded Deathwing knight unit. Lots of opportunities to focus fire and pick up some VPs! One of the knights fell but bad dice ensured that the easy victory points remained out of reach. The officer on his own just ran as far from the techmarine as he could. http://i1205.photobucket.com/albums/bb440/Cactus-/Turn the Tide/20140201_180308_zpsf6a8d787.jpg Dark Angels turn 7 Techmarine Mendeas moved behind a chimera and played his plasma cutter beam across its rear. The tank exploded and between that and the terminator's heavy flamer nobody survived. Azrael and the knights declared a multi-charge against the disembarked infantry squad and Cypher's chimera. The infantry squad was wiped out but two knights failed to even glance the chimera's armour! Imperial Guard turn 7 The lone terminator from squad Shael was brought down by the scout sentinel. Autocannon fire from the heavy weapons teams wrecked the land speeder. Azrael and the knights continued to resist all Cypher's firepower. http://i1205.photobucket.com/albums/bb440/Cactus-/Turn the Tide/20140201_182953_zps7317ab09.jpg Cypher remained at large and a bloody toll had been paid by the Imperium for the Unforgiven's grim quest, but who had won? I had destroyed 6 chimeras, one heavy weapon squad, two storm-trooper squads, one platoon command squad, two veteran squads, two infantry squads and a leman russ for a total of 15 VPs. I had lost two land raiders, two Deathwing squads, one dreadnought, one land speeder, one attack bike and a Ravenwing squadron, giving Robin 8 VPs. He earned another 6 because I had not destroyed all of the first contingent. Cypher still being active was worth D3 VPs and Robin rolled... 1. After seven turns and more exploding tanks than I can count we had drawn with 15 victory points each. [Edit] Included details of the opposing army! With thanks to Alan Bligh for the Fourth Quadrant Rebellion.

I just played a 2k game against Black Templar with Imperial Fist allies. His was more of a test for IF allies, mine was a test for DA allies. My list: HQs Shrike Sammael(Corvex) Elites Vanguard Vet Squad - x10 Jump packs, 4x PWs, Sarge with P Axe and SS (RG) Venerable Dread - Drop Pod, MM Troops Sniper Scout Squad (DA) Tactical Marines - x10, Meltagun (RG) Scouts in LSS, Bolters (RG) Fast Attack Assault Marine Squad - x10 men, Meltabomb, CS, PW Ravenwing Black Knights x5 (DA) Heavy Stormraven - TLMM, TLPC(RG) Thunderfire ADL/Quadgun His list(Best I can recall): Emperors Champion IF Captain with PF Master of the Forge Conversion Beamer Command Squad with Apothecary Drop Pod x5 Man Crusader Squad x5 Man Sniper Scouts x10 Man IF Tac Heavy Bolter x10 Man IF Tac Heavy Bolter x9 Man Sternguard x5 Combi-melta x4 combi-plas Drop Pod x10 Man Vanguard with a large assortment of PW and SS loaded for bear ADL/Quadgun Mission: The Scouring Deployment: Dawn of War Deployment He won the roll off, he deployed first. There were a lot of ruins and some mysterious terrain. The objectives were almost perfectly divided. His ADL/QG were front on center with an objective behind it and a tall ruin. He put both Tac squads on either side of the QG behind the ADL with the MotF above and behind them in the ruin. The crusader squad was on my left in a ruin towards the left midfield objective. I deployed my TFC on my right flank in a ruin and the ADL/QG on my left using the ruin to box in an objective and put my AMs in it at the edge of my deployment. The BK/Sammael were outflanking. My Tac squad was in the 'Raven. I won the roll off for infiltrators. I put my Sniper Scouts in the ruin above the objective. Shrike on the VV infiltrated into a body of water 12" (LoS blocked by a ruin) from his right Tac squad, near the edge of my right and center tile edge. I put my LSS right next to them for the jamming beacon on the tile edge and behind another ruin. He put his Sniper Scouts in a ruin to my far right next to the board edge and an objective. I did not try to seize. The hunt had begun. Turn 1 Night-fighting in effect. The objective next to his IF tacs was worth 4 points, mine was worth 3, the one on the left was worth 1 and the center-ish one was worth 3 and the one near my TFC was worth 2 and the one near his snipers was worth 2. His objective was a grav-wave generator. The others were too far away. He was going to drop his Stern/IF Cap next to Shrike but he realized my LSS had a jamming beacon(He had fallen for it a few games back already) so he tried to drop it exactly 12" away almost in the exact center of the board. It scatted 10" in front of his QG. Bonus! He disembarked them on the opposite side of my VV/Shrike towards his ADL. He shuffled his eft IF Tac into the ruin to join with the MotF. His snipers took a wound off my TFC. His Conversion Beamer wounded some AMs but I saved them all. I was too far away/out of LoS for anything else. My QG intercepted his stern and killed 1. My objective was also a grav-wave. Ven Dread came down right next to his DP and in front of the ADL. The Dread disembarked with his DP between it and the QG. My AMs jumped up towards his Stern. VV/Shrike jumped over the ruin and were right in front of the right IF Tac squad. LSS followed the VVs. Snipers killed 2 Sterns. TFC whiffed. Dread ate his DP. First Blood to me. AMs tried to assault his stern but were short, even with WD. I shouldn't have shot at the stern. Their casualties made me fail the charge. VVs easily got into CC with his IF Tac squad. My VV Sarg with PA/SS challened his IF sarge. I lost 1 plain VV and he lost all 9 tac marines. 4 from Shrike alone and the rest from PWs. My sarge died in the challenge. He tried to break but I caught him and we were locked in CC. WHich was good. Turn 2 None of his reserves came in. He moved his stern towards my AMs. He killed off my TFC and killed 3 AMs from everything that could shoot them. Sterns only used bolt pistols. Shrike watched while the VVs killed the IF tac sarge and consolidated 5" towards the ruin with the MotF/IF Tac squad in it. The sterns assaulted my AM's and we tied combat. His captain broke off to fight my dread but a failed invul ID'd him. My 'Raven and BKs came in. I moved the 'Raven up about 20" where a DP blocked LoS from his QG. The BKs came in from the left side, which is where I wanted them. I knew he would send his Champ after Shrike so I wanted to set up Sammael to intercept. Shrike and crew hopped into the ruin with the IF Tacs. My lonely Tech ran towards the snipers. The Snipers/BKs/'Raven killed the crusader squad on the left. PotMS missile took a wound off the QG. Shrike assaulted the Tacs and refused the challenge. His sarg had a PF and I wanted to take no risks with Shrike. the VVs killed all but the MotF and a random Tac. He tried to break but I caught him. My dread charged in with the Stern and my AMs and won 3-1 wounds. He passed morale. Turn 3 His VV and CS/Champ came in. He planted his CS/CHamp right next to the ruin with Shrike. Just as planned. his VV landed next to my Tech. No idea why he did that. My QG intercepted them and killed one. His snipers headshot my Tech. Shrike maimed the MotF and the VV killed the last Tac. I consolidated 5" out of the ruin away from is CHamp. Dread/AM lost combat 2-0 due to the Dread whiffing but didn't break. His VV ran towards the 2 point objective and it was sabotaged and exploded killing none. Sammael and crew moved up next to his ADL and CS/Champ and unloaded killing 2. 'Raven flew up and unloaded killing 2 more. Tacs stayed inside. LSS moved up, scouts jumped out and killed the QG. Shrike and crew joined my Dread/AMs and slaughtered the stern. Sammael made the charge into the Champ and the last Vet. The BKs killed the Vet and Sammael and the Champ did no wounds. Turn 4 My Tacs jumped out and grabbed the 4 pointer. My SNipers huddled around the 3 pointer. His snipers grabbed the 2 pointer and the VVs made a break for my snipers. They were over 48" away so I wasnt worried. At this point he knew it was over so we just did Sammael vs Emperors Champion. Sammael won. Eternal Warrior was key here. Victory 10-3 me. 7 Objective Points, 1 Slay the Warlord, 1 First Blood, 1 Line-breaker. He got 2 Objective Points and Line-breaker. Over all it was fun. I expected his Stormtalon but was surprised he didnt bring it. Shrike/VV and Sammael/BK were two unstoppable pain trains. The support from my 'Raven and Snipers were perfect. Going second with SHrike/VV infiltrating so close was great. My LSS jamming beacon probably won me the game as SHrike/VV got in CC without a single casualty and I only lost 4 VV the whole game as they were in CC every turn they made their points back and more. Sammael is the perfect HQ hunter and Shrike is the perfect assassin. Winged Deliverance did a bunch of wounds but he saved them all. The re-rolls for charge range didnt really affect the game but were a nice back up.

Greetings, fellow Sons of Titan! Every week I share another battle report with you all, so I figured I'd just make an ur-thread rather than posting a new topic every week. My name is Icosiel and I make videos about Grey Knights! I focus on battle reports, but I also do some list pondering and hobby stuff on occasion. Here's a link to my channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCud2nvtJBLCnYxLSpV-pjPA I'm fighting against Imperial Knights this weekend, so I made a video about my thoughts on exactly how I am going to beat them. I don't have a lot of anti-tank! Any input would be appreciated!