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Ok, so GW might have devastated this project. I’ll have another entry on my thoughts about it later. Luckily I did have a few CPs that survived the purge and came out of the fire reforged. They did a semi-overhaul of the CPs. Secondaries are gone, Army Rule is the full rule now, and we now have unit enhancements as an option. Still had my weekly CP meetup on Thursday and my opponent was cool using the new 11th edition rules. I faced the same player from the last entry, they added some paint this time, but the dullehans return. This time facing the Vardenghast Swarm. This was a full game as well. They gave those CPs a Disposition. In the case of the Swarm this was Disruption, the Votann is Take and Hold. Using their new War Journal this gave me Death Trap and them Determine Acquisition. So how did I get this without a mission deck? Well I made a small force in Battleforge using Ambush Predators for the disruption disposition, then in Set up opponent’s army just selected Votann and a detachment that had a disposition of Take and hold. This gave us our missions and allowed us to track with the new app. I did send a request to have the option to select the CPs for this added if possible as well as wanting the other CPs added. I hope once enough make this request that they will in time. We used Map 3 seen here: They got first turn and just surged forward. Since I hid my force with positioning, he had 3 units I had 6 to deploy. Hearthkyn tried to run to one of the nearer and unclaimed objectives. Thunderers went center to get shots on my force next turn and the hearthguard moved down the edge. No shots available to them so passed turn. With a meal in the center I had the psychophage and winged prime move forward. Barbgaunts fired on the hearthguard to slow them, but they surged forward a bit anyway. Snack in the Center Preparing Traps Gaunts and leapers set their traps in the three terrain on my end while the duo charged into the thunderers. They did not survive. The hearthkyn moved into their targeted objective and the hearthguard closed on the duo in the center. The psychophage fired a snap shot and managed to take out a hearthguard, afterwards it popped smoke and between the smoke and the detachment’s natural stealth it was hard for the votann to gain a lock on the beast. However volume is it’s own bonus and it lost a wound to shooting. The hearthguard managed to make their charge and went into the psychophage only. Big bugs need big hammers. They managed to beat it down, crushing it under their hammers. They then consolidated into the Prime, who killed a hearthguard for their troubles. The prime fellback to my opponent’s home objective while I sent up the termagants and leapers to deal with the hearthguard. Barbgaunts drop a barrage on the hearthkyn killing nearly half the squad. The termagants do their best but fail to wound the hearthguard. One of the termagant swarms charge into the hearthguard as do the leapers. Leapers manage to drop the last of the standard hearthguard, leaving only the Hesyr and the champion left. The termagants don’t manage to wound them still. In a focused swing the Hesyr and Champion wipe out the leapers in single combat. One their turn I activated Shadows of the Warp and managed to battleshock the Hearthkyn, denying them the VP for holding. They did move forward and take some pot shots at the unengaged termagants, taking one out. The pair of heavily armed and armoured votann only managed to kill about half the termagants, which couldn’t get the votann’s armour in return. Going after VP i moved the other gaunt squad up and started lying my traps, same with the Prime in his terrain, moving back to help avoid detection. The barbgaunts continue to bombard the hearthkyn unit, this time dropping them below half. The other gaunts held the hearthguard at bay, or at least tried to. They were dropped to only one remaining gaunt by the end of the round. The Hearthkyn rallied and got a few more shots into the unengaged gaunts, dropping one to a well placed magna-rail shot. The last gaunt was taken out via a bolt round from the champion (strat that grants the unit [close-quarters]), they then charged the other gaunt unit and right thrashed it, but failed to kill all of them. Prime used his summon ability to bring back the destroyed gaunt unit, who then popped up behind the hearthkyn. Also healed back two gaunts into the still existing swarm. Since I only got two I fell them back to the other wall. The barbgaunts continued their barrage, dropping the hearthkyn to two models. The newly arrived gaunts held fire. I wanted to charge, which I failed. With one turn left and the score 30-13 we called it. Overall not bad. We actually encountered a 7 to hit scenario. Magna-rifle has a 5+ to hit. Moved, unit had cover (Psychophage smokescreen) and -1 to hit from detachment ability. I just told him a 6 always hit and roll. It missed, but that might be something to look into later. edit: Actually dug into the 7+ and per the standard rules, a unmodified 6 is a critical hit. So was right, you can't make it impossible to hit. Only armour save can be modified to that extent. Thanks for reading.

Well the rule books and cards are in my FLGS so I did what anyone would do and asked if anyone wanted a game :) Adam jumped in. Adam is a friend my son ( and the son of one of my friends) so while we have not played each other since covid we have known each other long time. He is just starting out with a new Tyranid army having been mostly a Guard player for a very long time. So we cut ourselves down to 1000 points. Which gave us more time to read the rules as we went. FLGS did a great job having 11th terrain already and a rulebook and card set out ready for us. He is playing Invasion Fleet Tyranids. Something like Hive Tyrant with Guard Tervigon Tyrannofex Zoanthropes 2 Big units of Termagants I cut my list down to 2 Lone Spears War shaper with 10 carnivores 2 x 10 carnivores Hounds Vespid Pirahna Farstalkers Pathfinders 2 x 3 Krootox riders We agreed to chill on the DP stuff so I took the additional AAC - but quietly decided not to use any of it strats or rules. It was just for the disposition as I wanted to practice the disposition that I have locked in on. T'au (Kroot) vs Tyranids. Recon Sweep vs Purge and Secure. Search and Destroy Turn 1 I rolled to go second so I scouted quite defensively. Farstalkers chilling in my natural expansion, hounds moving up ready to get into the far quarter The tyranids move up to touch the central objective while the Tyrannofex takes a long range shot at the only visible target - the hounds. It massively over-kills one hound On my turn 1 I move into all 4 table quarters and move up to touch the central objective to OC it with the unit of kroot with my war shaper in. The war shaper begins his run of really not doing much despite shooting into infanttry. I set up to grab some secondaries at the end of his turn and score 6 on my primary Turn 2 Adam is denied any primary, he pushes into my kroot to try to take the objective from me but finds himself falling short so I still hold it. He is spreading out and beginning to chip at my units I have a very big scoring turn, hold one plus maximum table quarters plus I max 15 on secondaries. I put wounds on things, kill models here and there but don't kill any units. Turn 3 Having set things up on the previous turn the tyranids begin to score, they swarm my kroot on one objective with termagants and OC me. My hounds finally die, he pushes me off the central objective. My krootox really underperformed in combat and at this point died to the hive tyrant and buddies. A better scoring turn for the tyranids as they get 10 on primary and 5 on secondary Facing the horror of Shadows in the Warp my shooting is hindered by my pathfinders not working. My war shaper snaps his own unit out of battleshock with his once per game ability. Even so things are a bit rough here. I do remove the Zoanthropes and cut through most of his guard but my last krootox dies in an ongoing combat with the Tervigon. I drop my Vespid into the backfield and don't do nearly as much to the termagants there as I hoped with the combined shooting of them and a lone spear. 10 primary score and 5 on secondary with the kill Turn 4 The tyranids are beginning to roll over me in the center and there is little I can do to their big high toughness bugs. I lose a lone spear and to my distress lose my entire unit of vespid from failing 5 4+ saves out of 7 even after trying a CP reroll. That was Beacon lost :( He finally finishes off the remaining kroot on his natural expansion - his ability to keep returning models to that unit eventually overwhelming the per-model superiority of the kroot. The piranha was grabbing a table quarter and took a real punching but survived on 1 wound. I pull a dead unit of kroot onto his back line and start work on the Termagants that the Vespid failed to kill. I badly need assassinate so my farstalkers are now not on the objective but are chasing the Hive Tyrant. They get in range and grenade it then take it down with lethal hits. The piranha flew away and hid, still holding table quarter. Only 7 on primary as I was running short of units but 7 on secondary helped. Turn 5 He has to cleanse with one unit of termagants and he shoots and charges my unit of kroot with his other termagants. 4 kroot die. They fight back and cut the termagants down to 6 models. 7 Primary, 7 secondary - I'm not repeating my mistake of letting him kill anything on an objective. I need to stop him getting Beacon so I push up the pathfinders, wounded piranha and my last Lone Spear - easily removing his Termagants. On the other flank my kroot remove his last termagants in melee. While the survivors of the far stalkers do a cleanse. 11 primary and 7 secondary scored. Kroot win 79 to 59 Playing at half the army size is interesting - we both felt that the mission stretches your forces a lot more at this points level and taking multiple units out for actions is harder to justify. I actually think this was pretty respectable scoring for having half as many units The pathfinders are a very solid piece to add and the Ion Rifles did kill 3 regular dudes but I think that was worth it, I need to be more careful with my targets - overcharging into the Tervigon was not worthwhile trade as it all bounced off the saves anyway Morale and Battleshock A lot happened with morale and battleshock The Shadows in the Warp did hinder my shooting and scoring for a turn, the only unit that took longer to recover was a lone spear and that hardly mattered. Being able to pull a unit out of battleshock with the War Shaper had a 7 point VP swing and in a closer game that would have been decisive. The piranha was in danger moving up on turn 5 but successfully hit the termagaunts with battleshock so they could not overwatch. I think with 3 of them this will be a more significant rule - but against Tyranids it struggles do do much until you kill most of their Synapse. Shadows in the Warp is pretty bad news for T'au in general and did really knock back my momentum. But its not entirely terrifying unless it has additional penalties, which tyranids can apply but I think they need a more mobile list if they want to apply that -1 penalty to a lot of my units. Thoughts on the mission I think this is a mission that very slightly gives the edge to Recon but not by much. The ability to get scoring early and deny scoring to your opponent early can apply pressure - but kroot are still paper-thin and don't last long. I had the chance to give up the central objective one round earlier and I should have taken it - that would have eventually awarded less VP to my opponent and forced him to either let my unit get away or find another unit to go camp that objective while he chased them down to kill them. Getting off objectives to cut down enemy scoring matters in this match and I was not paying attention that that enough. But also it was my first practice game in this mission, so lesson duly learned. A lot of this came down to me doing just enough scouting, getting just enough in place to stop him scoring any primary on turn 2 and still limiting it a bit on turn 3. My thinking here is that even if my opponent has an amazing go turn they might actually hit the 15 VP primary cap and not benefit enough to fully catch up.

Short update since work has been busy. Protectors of Aun'Shar So this time I got together the old Protectors of Aun’Shar CP, this week I was placed against another newbie. They were using Bane-Slayer’s Bulwark. For the game we did my usual modified Forward Position. They had the thunderers in the ruin on their home objective, champion was attached to the hearthguard and the warriors were split into two units, one with the melee weapons and the other with the heavy weapons. I infiltrated the stealth team, had the ghostkeel on one flank and the firewarriors with attached firecadre plus the ethereal (FNP enhancement) on my home objective. To keep this short, I tried to use the stealth suits as a forward observer and got them killed by the dakka-y hearthguard. Rest of the battle was the ghostkeel and firewarriors wiping out his units until I got him down to the champion with the ghostkeel getting lucky on it’s saves to hold the unit. Herthkyn Warriors move forward Surprise Ghostkeel Two tanks crash over an objective. Going full into the Ork CP this week with CtA now started. Hoping to have both the new SM and Ork CPs done by next month. Thanks for reading.

Got in two Combat Patrol games this week. Both against the Armigar Trailblazers. Now originally I thought the armigar one was one of the stronger ones, but after this bout, not so sure anymore. First game was Scorched Earth and I was using the Stormglaive Hunters. Subatan had the Master Rider Enhancement and selected the kill warlord secondary. Opponent got first turn but due to terrain didn’t have any shots. They did move the warglaive (warlord) forward to get ready to capture the Alpha objective. Subatan and the outriders blitz forward. The impulsor moved to take a mid objective and got a fire line to the warglaive in the process. Combined fire from both units managed to shave a few wounds off the warglaive and the outriders charged in. Using the Quarry of the Khan strat i managed to take out the warglaive in a single round. The combat was close enough to the helverin I just consolidated into the helverin. I didn’t manage to hurt any of the bikes. It then took two more rounds to take down the helverin with them backing out of melee on their turn and using the strat to fire after fall back. I lost two bikers to the shots by the end. While the bikers pushed the armigar off the objective, the impuslor and assault intercessors captured two other objectives and I just racked up VP. Game was called and it was so quick we re-racked and I had them roll a die to determine the CP I would use. Turned out to be Octavius. So I was ready for a challenge. New prey spotted Hunting party ready to pounce. Bikers corner their prey. Mission was Forward Positions and I took the Shock Tactics secondary. They got first turn, the warglaive moving forward to take a midfield objective with an advance. This gave me a turn of no fire as i marked the helverin for my oath and shifted the Infernus and Librarian to the opposite side, not managing to get in range of the objective. The armigars moved to focus on what models I had on the board. After their move I rapid ingressed the terminators with the captain into his back field. The emperor protected my guys from the knights’ shooting, passing all the 4+ saves from both of them. The terminators closed on the helverin. The assault cannon managed to score a wound on the helverin. The librarian took a shot at the helverin and managed a massive six wounds with his witchfire attack. The terminators assaulted the helverin and nearly brought it down. The warglaive moved to engage the rest of my force, It got up close and melted the psyker with it’s thermal spear. It then charged the Infernus squad. Opponent tried to battle shock the unit via Terrifying Charge, which i passed the leadcheck. Now this was another new player. Opted to remind them of Tank Shock being an option. I allowed him to roll, and lost two marines to the MWs. It only managed to score one more wound in combat, downing one more marine. The terminators took down the helverin and readied to move to take on the warglaive. Terminators surround and bring down their target. Warglaive tries to finish off it's target The warglaive managed to melt another terminator, this time the squad sgt, failed to hurt the infernus at it’s feet. After marking my opponent’s home objective the terminators moved in for the killl. Charging in with weapons blazing the terminators managed to score three wounds before charging into the warglaive. In a massive swing the powerfists managed to score several wounds (helped by Veteran Instinct re-rolls) and take down the warglaive. Terminators into the rescue. So after this I was surprised, but I was rolling hot saves and my opponent wasn’t doing too well. The surprise of the bikes in the first game caught him off guard, but with a 18” move there wasn’t much he could do to not get caught in turn one. During the second game at least he scored a good amount of points at the start. Just didn’t hold the lead as I got 10 VP from my secondary and locked his home objective quickly. There was a Combat Patrol Tournament over the weekend that I couldn’t attend due to family visiting. From what I heard the winner was Tau with the Sudden Dawn Cadre. Honestly with how well the Stormglaive did i would have ran that and might have done well. Maybe next time. I finished the Krieg HW squad (pict incoming later), been having issues getting the want to paint the Death Riders and orks. Got distracted by a few things for upcoming megabattles. Later i should try out a few xenos CPs. edit: Here's the pict. Thanks for reading.

My son - who talked me into this journey to Birmingham - is visiting and we have been talking a lot of warhammer. Meanwhile its a heatwave here in the UK So with getting the Aeldari preview yesterday and having seen the stream games we decided to test out a few ideas we have about how 11th will play. This was not going to be a real 11th game - we simply don't know all the rules - but the idea was to test out some thoughts we have had on the table with the information (and some educated guesses) we have. Its hot. So a few pieces of plywood and a G clamp turned the garden table into a warhammer table. My son cut out templates for the new terrain and off we go. We decided that using the mission they used in the reveal - Death Trap - would be a good enough test. Our best guess is that both our preferred detachments will be Disruption so its roughly the right sort of mission structure for us to practice even if this particular combo will never be an actual 11th mission pairing. Aeldari (Corsair Coterie & Twilight Flickers) vs T'au (Kroot Hunting Pack & Experimental Prototype Cadre) I will not do lists in detail as really that's not the point and we don't know the points so we used 10th ed for that! My list was similar to my usual but I decided to try out Farsight with some Sunforge as that is a fragile but powerful mech killer. Slightly less actual kroot as a result Pre-game We play an infiltrate play and counter-play game. Aeldari then redeploy the 2 units of rangers into safety against being eaten by onrushing kroot Aeldari win the roll to go first Minor Aeldari scouting on their right flank toward my natural expansion and they scout onto their natural expansion Kroot scout up close to the center objective and onto the natural expansion with multiple units of kroot, hounds and riders. The twin lance scout into the pocket behind the main push in the gap left by all the kroot scouting forwards but is well hidden. Turn 1 Aeldari push up and put a unit of flying corsairs in front of my natural expansion to try to jail me. They do movement trickery to grab and sticky objective the central objective. Shooting is largely ineffective - one Krootox rider dies. Harlequins charge some farstalkers and remove them Kroot keep pushing up but rather than doing a lot of shooting I do a lot of actions - using the booby trap action on 5 pieces of terrain 2 of which are objectives. Turns 2 - 3 We play a trading game. My first wave of kroot largely get lifted, my second wave comes forwards with my bigger units in support. Farsight and his crisis rapid ingress and pop Yriel and his unit out of their Falcon then charge one unit of Fire Dragons through a wall and leave only the Exarch. The Aeldari then mob Farsight with Howling Banshees, Harlequins and Yriel. The crisis go down but really compact a lot of Aeldari in one area to do it. Meanwhile elsewhere the Harlequins are beaten back by Krootox riders and the sudden arrival of the Twin Lance pushes back the Aeldari so they really have no way back onto the centre objective. The Twin Lance do their fall-back thing to shield a unit of vespid that deep-strike onto the Aeldari home objective and booby trap it. Turns 4 - 5 Its late and a nice cold cider calls so we talk these turns out - also its clear at this point that I will nearly max score The Aeldari clear out their home objective but Rejoin the Hunt kroot keep his backfield unsafe and with hounds and Lone Spears rushing up I can pick off secondaries. The Aeldari still are scoring but having lost their uppy-downy unit to the Twin Lance can't do a jump onto my home objective which frees up my Kroothawk Flock Lone Spear to join the fight and somewhat limits his scoring T'au win 95 - 83 There were definitely a couple of minor misplays but the overall flow of this was quite as we had discussed. These new missions are going to be very high scoring if you build your list with the tools to score them. Both of us had Sticky Objectives which is very strong in missions where being killed on objectives (not strictly true here but effectively true with the booby traps) earns your opponent VP. I lost 5 on scoring less than max on some secondaries - you need to average 4.5 per secondary and I averaged 4. My son fell 5 short on primary (purely because he could not copy my uppy-downy trick onto either my home or natural expansion objective) and a little more short on secondaries because I pinned him back a bit towards the end. As for the mission itself, we know you will never play this one symmetrically but there are still things to learn. Its very easy to max primary if you can afford to spam actions. If you booby trap early that makes the terrain a problem for your opponent as they give up VP should they be killed on that terrain. I am not sure this aspect will be important in a lot of games - you are likely to be capped on primary a lot of times if you have a list suited to the mission. We finished our ciders as we talked it over waiting for the heat to die down and the game really did reinforce to both of us that the game rules changes are largely QOL stuff each of which individually will not usually swing a game. A game might swing on one of the new rules interactions but also often it will not. But the mission changes are a really big deal and the use of terrain as objectives is a big deal. What is going to decide games will be the missions much more than - for example - the new rules on deep strike or precision. Also - that Corsair Coterie ability to sticky objectives then mortal wound anything that rushes onto the objective is really cool and quite effective against MSU. I can really see why my son thinks that might be good at messing with cheap action monkey builds.

While I was out of action as a player for family reasons a whole new game centre opened up nearby, so I decided to try them out and signed up for their regular Thursday evening session Turns out one of the players has been paired with a Kroot list for his first game of the Bristol Super-major. A match made in heaven. So I went for a practice game against Jason and his Tzeentch chaos daemons. His list is Scintillating Legion: Belakor, Kairos, a couple of lords of change with enhancements and then a scattering of minor units like flamers, screamers etc. Sweeping Engagement, Terraform, UKTC terrain Deployment was more or less as expected other than me putting one unit of vespid in reserve as I was going to run out of space in my deployment zone to hide things. We rolled to go first and I won. I would have rather gone second but such is the dice. I still take fixed cleanse and engage on all fronts Turn 1 I push up onto the right side objective in force, push up a few hounds with Rampager support on the left objective. I sit just short of the middle objective with the bulk of my infantry. I have most of my krootox on the right hand flank with Shadowsun to try to get a shooting lane. No shooting, he is hidden. Maximum secondaries His turn he pushes up onto my weak forces on my left flank and demonstrates the power of Sustained D3 into my rampagers. In the middle he only pushes out some Flamers. Turn 2 I hold my right hand objective and begin to push kroot into the middle, I have now terraformed all 3 objectives in the middle. Still very little killing going on as I plink off some flamers. With my hounds vanishing I drop some vespid into his backfield to collect table quarters and get maximum secondary again He still sits back using indirect to wear me down although its not that super-effective. Still he has it and is playing another cagey game. He holds the middle objective on my left and he shoots a load of stuff into my middle to stop me holding the middle objective Turn 3 I begin to push my 20-kroot unit and this is the first time I actually get to use that unit at all. I fail to get it onto the middle objective having left it too far back previously. I can no longer max out my secondaries, I only have 3 table quarters and can only cleanse once. Vespid shoot and whiff. Ghostkeel shoots and whiffs. Farstalkers appear in his backfield having Rejoined the Hunt but they do very little with their shooting into the unit he has camping his home objective. I do kill belakor and it was not as hard as I had expected. Now he begins to really push into me, although he is still careful to clean out my vespid and begins to pummel stuff. My ghostkeel goes the way of all things and while kroot are dying I still have plenty left. He pushes a lord of change into my deployment zone to score secondaries. His last unit of screamers come in and jointly with his other unit they kill my farstalkers. Turns 4 & 5 Leaving my big unit of kroot out of position really hurts me by this stage and with a failed charge of 7" on turn 5 they never make it. I do kill most of his stuff and by the end of my turn 5 he has 2 models really left (a slightly wounded lord of change and a single flamer camping an objective). But I am out of position to score and that is going to make the difference. He draws his secondaries, has to CP to redraw one and gets overwhelming force. For no good reason at all i had left a Lone Spear toe-in on my home objective. He kills that for enough VP to beat me by exactly one point Chaos win 67-66 A really enjoyable fun game. Also a real learning experience for me 1. UKTC terrain was new to me. I didn't get the shooting lanes right and I got things so my models got in the way of each other in the middle of the game due to congestion 2. I was far too cautious and too worried about all those big tough monsters. Turns out I can kill them better than I expected, if I push and throw the odd grenade I can (and did) kill 2 in a turn. Also he could not kill me as well as I feared. 3. Diverting onto the left hand objective was a mistake. It did help with my congestion problem in the middle but I should have danced around behind the terrain to avoid direct fire shooting and to hold onto that table quarter as long as possible. 4. I lapsed concentration on turn 5 and made a move (putting the lone spear touching the objective) for no reason at all. Not moving it would have won me the game 5. Fixed secondaries are too predictable for my opponent. Looks like I have to go back to tactical - but to be honest my play speed is coming along nicely and maybe this is not a compromise I need to take for play speed reasons. Behind some of this was the fact that I was not using the app to score myself (my opponent was) so I did not have the app to pressure me to keep up with my normal scoring pace. I fell a long way off my usual VP target. Feeling the pressure of the score by looking at the app might have brought me to my senses and got me to push more kroot onto the centre objective earlier and then I would have score more in the mid-to-high 80's that I really should be scoring in this game. List thoughts I will put the list below. The main tweak here was to take some more Vespid. I think Vespid are going to be good in 11th - or at least better than they are in 10th and they are pretty good. So this is an experiment I will continue The ghostkeel and shadowsun under-performed again. Inevitably into an army with 4++ and ample rerolls they would always struggle but they basically did nothing. Krootox Riders on the other hand buried those demons in dice and got the job done. Also I assaulted one demon prince and deleted it in melee with them. Much as I like the idea of the lone op effect with my list it does not really work with the ghostkeel - it simply does not have the range to attack and then stay out of danger against opposition with Fly keyword. By turn 3 or so I just can't afford to flood just one part of the table that much. Looking ahead to 11th the changed cover rules really hurt the ghostkeel - it becomes highly dependent on markerlights and squeezing those into my list for it feels like throwing more points after points which are already poorly spent. Time to put on my thinking cap That big unit of 20 kroot is off-putting for many opponents. I rather think I want another of those. Meanwhile yet again I barely got any value out of the Trail shaper. I think that guy is going to be swapped out for another war shaper - once again looking ahead to 11th rules and the greater importance of being able to remove battle shock. + DETACHMENT: Kroot Hunting Pack (Hunter's Instincts) + TOTAL ARMY POINTS: 1990pts Commander Shadowsun (100 pts): Warlord Kroot Lone-spear (80 pts): Blast javelin, Hunting javelin Kroot Lone-spear (80 pts): Blast javelin, Hunting javelin Kroot Lone-spear (90 pts): Blast javelin, Hunting javelin, Enhancement: Kroothawk Flock (+10 pts) Kroot Trail Shaper (55 pts): Kroot rifle, Shaper's blade Kroot War Shaper (60 pts): Dart-bow and tri-blade, Enhancement: Root-carved Weapons (+10 pts) The Twin Lance (185 pts) 20x Kroot Carnivores (140 pts) 10x Kroot Carnivores (65 pts) 10x Kroot Carnivores (65 pts) 10x Kroot Carnivores (65 pts) 10x Kroot Carnivores (65 pts) 10x Kroot Carnivores (65 pts) 1x Ghostkeel Battlesuit (160 pts): Battlesuit support system, Ghostkeel fists, Fusion collider, Twin fusion blaster 12x Kroot Farstalkers (85 pts) 5x Kroot Hounds (40 pts): 5 with Ripping fangs 5x Kroot Hounds (40 pts): 5 with Ripping fangs 3x Krootox Rampagers (85 pts): 3 with Hunting blades, Kroot pistol and hunting javelins, Rampager fists 3x Krootox Riders (90 pts): 3 with Close combat weapon, Krootox fists, Repeater cannon 3x Krootox Riders (90 pts): 3 with Close combat weapon, Krootox fists, Repeater cannon 3x Krootox Riders (90 pts): 3 with Close combat weapon, Krootox fists, Repeater cannon 5x Vespid Stingwings (65 pts) 5x Vespid Stingwings (65 pts) 5x Vespid Stingwings (65 pts)

Having shared in my WIP log for the Sons of the Condor, I thought this might also be of interest to the wider KT subforum. Hope that's OK. This frames an upcoming narrative campaign me and some of my local group are going to play at some point - a prelude to the main action where the Tyranid Hive Fleets arrive near the Attilan Gate, Ultima Segmentum. Our main challenge at the minute is figuring out the rules; Kill Team has a lot of great nuance and flavour, but can get very bogged down in its own rules, to the extent that it's turning some of our group off. Anyway, on to the report - we'll see what happens :)

So due to a burst of ‘inspiration’ and some time off I managed to get the Stormglaive Hunters pretty much done. I say pretty much cause I realized a bit after I took the group shot that I had not actually painted the Outrider Sgt chainsword and in the few days lost it…. Well they are pretty much done and we got into a battle. Stormglaive Hunters (Storm Warriors) So there is a FLGS like a few blocks from my house that has their 40k day on Thursday. I have been teaching a few newbies how to play (if your new to this blog). Well one of my early students returned, this time with a built CP of Morgrim’s Butchas. They were still a little green on the game mechanics. So we did my simple Take and Hold mission but added some strats, namely the ones in the CPs and Command reroll. Keeping it light, but still adding. Anyway, mine was an easy setup of having the khan lead the outriders on the flank, which the hogboys were set up across the field and the impulsor on my home objective in case I was on the defensive. They had both boyz units near their home objective. I got first turn and it was off to the races. Now I was a little worried as I was out-numbered and the beast snagga CP has stuff for anti-vehicle. Not to realize that the dice had other plans. Subatan rushed forward and advanced to close the gap to the hogboys, only a minor wound from the guns before they made their near point blank charge. The Implusor shifted to another mid board objective and had line on one of the boyz units. They were set up on the line so I had pistol/rapid fire range and in a hail of fire dropped most of the boys in a single volley. The khan and his escort managed to drop half the hogs in melee and only took two wounds in return. Charging ahead. That was a full unit of orks... Orks called the WAAUGH like immediately as the marines had dug in already. While the wounded boys failed their battleshock. They still headed to help the hogs. The second unit lead by Morgrim advanced forward to engage the Impulsor. Nothing came of the orks light amount of shooting. Both units managed to made their respected charges. The Emperor was protecting that round as the small reinforcing orks didn’t manage to crack the bikers’ armour and just scratched the paint on the impulsor. The bikers focused on the hogs, but only managed to take down one more and leave the other heavily wounded. The impulsor failed to bonk any of it’s assailants. No Vp scored as the orks were overriding the objective the impulsor was on. Time to fix that as the assault squad disembarked and set up their own charge. Subatan Khan had his bikers fall back to the ork’s home objective. The assault unit split fire, the sgt taking a shot at finishing the hogs, but the WAAUGH protected him, while the bolt rounds failed to hurt the brutes. The khan finished the last hog with a single Devestating shot and his squad charged into the boys with the assault squad charging into Morgrim’s unit. The WAAUGH held firm as only the last two of the normal boys were dropped and the nob managed to crush a biker. The assault squad had issues wounding the tough orks, but still dropped the squad to almost half, the Impulsor managed to crush two boyz into the ruin walls while Morgrim continued to tear into it. Orks ready their charge. Storm Warriors preop their counter charge Surrounded, Morgrim’s unit broke but fought on. The last nob was speared by Subatan and the bikers fell back to the objective. The boys all failed to do any damage that round and his boys were taken out, leaving only Morgrim left to face the near full might of the marines. Game was called at that point. Ok, so Subatan Khan's movement ability is nuts on the small board. Being able to shoot and charge after advance and fallback means you can’t pin the unit down. Especially with the Master Rider enhancement which allows your bikers to just ignore terrain. It is an alpha strike force as it needs to get in the first kills to lower the return fire. Storm Riders helps as it drops wound rolls from 3s to 4s which helps whether that return. I can see Quarry of the Khan helping with larger targets of the older CPs. Also the Impuslor has a decent amount of firepower at close range. At 12” it’s throwing 14 shots at S4 1Dmg. So honestly this thing can hit hard, especially if Quarry is attached to it (more so if the squad is embarked so you get the five pistol shots as well). Overall not bad, but going to try and get in another game or two before I put these away for a while. Nice bonus is that the whole thing fits on a single mag-tray. Thanks for reading.

"Hate your enemy. There is no room for compassion in the prosecution of the enemy's destruction. Strive with every iota of your will and strength to see him destroyed. Slay him and cast down his works without mercy. Only when every corrupt work is destroyed and the ashes of his body float on the wind, only then can there be compassion. Hate the enemy who yet lives. Reserve your pity for the dead." - Chaplain Ur'Venn, attached to the Salamanders 4th Company, Purging of Clovis' World - + + + Sergeant Torek inserted a fresh prometheum canister into his pyreblaster with a practiced motion. The fuel indicator dial switched to full and he lowered the weapon to check his tactical display. An enemy convoy was approaching fast, intent on disrupting the Imperial supply drop. The Salamanders needed those supplies. Weapons, ammunition, fuel and tools, all would be needed to finish the campaign and cleanse the forge city of taint. His warriors voxed in, one after another, a litany of names sounding in his ears as the squad confirmed readiness. “Forgefather,” he said, the word an acknowledgement and a question all in one. Vulcan He'stan rested the butt of his spear on the cracked red earth. The relic weapon, crafted by Vulkan’s own hand, exuded a presence all its own. Though he wore his helm, the Forgefather’s eyes seemed to bore into each of Torek’s squad in turn before turning his gaze on the distant enemy. “Brothers. Too long have these blood mad Chaos scum ravaged this city. Too long have they profaned the shrines of the Mechanicus on this world. Ready yourselves, Sons of Vulkan! Destroy them, that we may destroy their brethren utterly!” The Seeker of the Nine raised his great spear and pointed it at the for. “For Vulkan and the Emperor!” “For Vulkan and the Emperor!” Torek bellowed with the rest, and the Salamanders began their advance. + + + The Salamanders saw action against World Eaters the other day. I like a nice casual game any day, and met up with a fella at the flgs to close out the month of March with a bang. It's been a while since I could play regularly, what with school and all, so it was so fun to get in a game at last. Here's a battle report, along with some 1-draft bits of fiction inspired by in-game moments (who doesn't like a bit of narrative?). The lists: I ran my usual. I describe this as a balanced-side-of-casual list. It doesn't do so well against the more competitive players in my area, but has been racking up a lot a victories against casual companions. For my Salamanders I prefer to field an army that'll win a decent number of games, but specific unit choices are generally limited by collection size, what grabs my eye, and which units I had the most fun building/painting or just want to show off My opponent ran a cool Berzerker-heavy list with tons of melee (Blood for the Blood God!) and some big 'ol melee monsters. I'd never faced a Maulerfiend before. It's a cool model and pretty scary fighter! List's from memory so hopefully right... The mission was Supply Drop. Objectives were gonna disappear, first the one on my left at the top of BR4, then the center objective in BR5. I got lucky as I deployed mostly on the right. I had first turn. We were both really cautious in BR1, mostly moving up only a little. My Vindi blew up the spawn, who'd moved out in their scout move, and my Repulsor took a pot shot at some Eightbound, managing to kill 2. The remaining 1 moved to control the bottom objective (my left flank) though he was, alas, never to score on that one. End of BR1 + + + A scream of bending metal reverberated through the hold as the transport halted abruptly. Sergeant Amfell was slammed against his restraints, snarling as he activated his commbead. “Eksor, what was that?” he hissed. Already the Land Raider’s hull was booming with the sound of impacts. The vehicle's pilot replied. “They've charged us! The cursed fools! Mountainfire is disabled and Brother Umaroth is not showing on my tactical display.” “What's on us now?” Around him, Amfell's squad was preparing to disembark, readying chainswords and heavy bolt pistols. Eksor sounded incredulous. “The cursed Daemon. Maulerfiend. There's a Helbrute out there too. Targeting now.” The smell of cordite and blazing prometheum filtered in through a gap somewhere in the hull as the Land Raider's flamestorm cannons discharged. “We're disembarking,” Amfell said, exchanging a look with Chaplain Ur’Venn. “Good luck, brother.” The pilot’s voice sounded strained now, Amfell wondered if he'd been wounded in the initial clash. Exit ports thumped open on the transport’s side and rear, revealing a cratered street, the Helbrute’s burning corpse, and a mob of screaming heretic Astartes charging toward them. The Chaplain led the way, chanting a litany of purgation, and Amfell followed, howling his challenge to the traitors ahead. + + + BR2-3 saw some more action. Adrax & his Bladeguard took the bottom objective and slew the lone Eightbound while across the field, my Vindicator took out another unit of the same. In the center, my Land Raider kept its load of marines & set up on the center objective. But in a massive flank attack, the Lord "Avocado" & his minions landed in my rear and took out the Repulsor, who's wreck claimed an Infernus Marine. RIP brother. And at the same time, the Maulerfiend made for the center, the Helbrute barely pushing through the Land Raider's overwatch attack to join in the melee. Berserkers in the Backfield! World Eaters strike! Vulkan & co. managed to drive off the Maulerfiend while my Assault Intercessors took care of the rest, but wave of Eightbound and a Rhino kept melee going for a while. Meanwhile Khârn led his band to the center to take on the rest of my army, finally falling to the flames in the final turn of the game, BR5. At that point it was just him, a couple Eightbound, and a Rhino. I removed most of what remained in shooting and then sent the Vindi in to tank shock. Because bulldozer tank. The Imperial Forces consolidate their gains (BR4) World Eaters perform a final charge A hasty shot of Khârn battling the Salamanders Commanders Kind of a bummer this one turned out so blurry. I kind of just slipped my phone down into a gap to capture a quick shot. Must've messed up the focus a bit. Still, a very cinematic moment in-game. 3 wounded heroes, their bodyguards slain, meet in battle in the eye of the storm. Khârn rose again to take down Adrax in epic slaughter, the Spear of Vulkan still embedded in his side... then I treacherously crisped him with a nearby blob of pyreblaster-wielders. Sorry Khorne... Final score 50-21. It was a super fun game and a great victory. I did feel a little bad though - he never scored on primary. It's just that what the Vindicator looks at, dies, and overall I think my go-to list is just really well attuned to World Eaters. Nevertheless, we both had a good time chatting Warhammer, throwing dice, and discussing some of the other games we're getting into of late. Very nice way to close out March & get some gaming in before school starts again. And so I leave you with a last piece, inspired by the moment Kareldek's Inceptors dropped into the rear and blew away a pack of Jakhals. Zharni crouched beneath the ruined shell of a building. Beyond its cracked and pockmarked walls, bolters boomed and engines rumbled. Around him, Zharni's compatriots lurked. There, Tek, clutching his rough-hewn blade. There, Olg, pacing and showing bloody teeth to anyone who looked his way. There, Anja, peering through the haze as though to see the blood being spilled scant dozens of meters away. The rest occupied themselves similarly, each engrossed in their own little rituals, staring at nothing and twitching at every sound. They could not join this fight. The red Giants said to hold this building, and this building they must hold. When a Red One told you to do something you did it, or your blood would paint his axe before you could cry “Blood for the Blood God.” “Shut up, Zharni,” one of the others grunted. He hadn't realized he'd spoken aloud. Zharni made an effort to calm himself. It was hard. The fighting was so close he could hear it, and he swore he could smell fresh blood in the air. But yes! The sounds of battle were getting closer. Perhaps Zharni would be able to fight today after all. He could hear the sound of blade on armor, the sound of fist on flesh. He could hear the screams of the enemy, and the warcry of the red Giants. “Blood for the Blood God.” “Shut up, Zharni.” He ignored the comment. He listened to the battle. He could hear the buzzing of chainblades, the roar of powerful beasts. He could hear- what was that? Zharni looked up as a keening noise cut through the battlefield clamor. Bulky shapes dropped from the sky spitting fire. Around him, Zharni's companions burst apart in sprays of gore, painting the rubble a beautiful, beautiful crimson. His eyes widened as the falling shapes landed with earth-shattering force, resolving into green-armored figures like the red warriors who commanded Zharni and brought him the blood. But something was off about them. These warriors bore none of the trappings of the Red Ones. Their armor was smooth, its plate unadorned save for numerals and markings like twisting flames. Zharni screamed his hate and charged toward the imposters, whipping the blades attached to his arms through the air in his eagerness to take their skulls. Their firing continued unabated. He felt his midsection come apart and he arced through the air as if in slow motion, slamming to the ground with a dizzying shock. At the edge of vision, the green-armored figures bounded away on plumes of flame, spitting death at a new target. Zharni was denied his prey. Yet he smiled. For Zharni could still hear the sounds of battle. He could hear the screams of the wounded, the moans of the dying. He could hear the boom of bolter and the whistle of spinning blade. He could hear the patter of his own blood falling to the earth beneath him, a sweet music, a worthy sacrifice. And above it all, Zharni began to perceive a new sound, the laughter of a thirsting god.

Was able to make it to the CP league at my local GW and got in some Combat Patroi over the weekend. Got in two games, one against a veteran and the second was a training game versus a new player. Both games I rolled a die to decide which CP I would use of the three I had with me. First up was a nid on nid bout. Insidious Infiltrators vs my Assault Brood. My opponent set up on three of the objective points due to their force all having Infiltrate. I put the parasite in reserve and the other three units on my home objective, ready to surge forward as needed. The Infiltrators got first turn and my line was assaulted by two units of leapers. They had pharmoned one objective to hold it and the third unit of leapers moved to hold the other. They kept the lictor on their home objective. The neurolictor was mid field at this point. Used the defensive strat to try and keep my stealers alive, but still lost a few. The rest of the game was a simple grind on my home objective. While I managed to kill all the leapers, it cost me the stealers and all but one of the Tyrant guard by turn four and the neurolictor was still in my homefield. I did manage to knock out the pheromone sticky with the parasite, it survived a turn against the lictor. My opponent was too ahead in primary for me to catch up, holding most of them for the game. The biovore managed like one wound a turn due to all the opponent units having Stealth and/or Lone Op. Honestly the Vedenghast swarm would have performed better. If anything it has more shooting, the leapers’ main bit is that they have Fights First, so melee is not the best place to fight them. The psychophage is also a little bit more tankier then the Tyrant guard due to it’s FNP. So the second game was against a new player that had picked up the Beast Snagga CP as their start into the hobby. Had them roll for my CP and they got… Armigar Trailblazers. So this was an interesting match up cause the beast snagga units do have anti-vehicle/monster abilities. The riders have anti-monster/vehicle weapons as does the boss. The beast boyz get hit rerolls against vehicles so more of their many attacks will hit. Basically death by a thousand cuts. Had the helverin on the home objective, the warglaive on the line and was my warlord for this. Orks were placed basically in the middle of his deployment zone, the boss attaching to one of the beast boy units. He moved all the units forward, his centrical boyz unit holding a few back on his home objective. They didn’t have charge range yet, nor weapons range. So went to my turn and I had a mission, take out the riders. Warglaive moved forward to a mid-field objective and the helverin shifted up to get line on the riders. The stubbers fired on the beast boys killing a few. Between the autocannon and thermal spear the riders were slagged. The warglaive then charged into the closest unit of boys, killing a few more and taking a wound in the return. During their turn the orks fired at the warglaive but failed to hit and/or wound. The other unit of boyz charged in, got in way of the boss so he wasn’t involved in that round of combat. Those charging boyz shaved a few more wounds off the warglaive but it managed to nearly wipe out the first boyz unit before they struck. Used the Gait strat to get the warglaie out of the melee and onto the other objective. The helverin gave some fire support and missed wildly. Did manage to get one of the larger squad. The orks ran after the the warglaive, once again the helverin opening up on the unit via overwatch and failed to hit anything. The orks barreled into the warglaive and only due to the steed’s high toughness and some (un)lucky rolls the warglaive took minimal damage but managed to kill a few boys for their troubles. The helverin moved up to grab the other mid-field objective and gun down the last of the first boyz unit. The warglaive pumped fire into the unit engaged with his and got a few more kills. The remaining boyz did a few more wounds, getting the warglaive down to half wounds. It then wiped out the remaining boyz and glanced the boss. At that point we called it, he had just the boss and I was well over on points. The two mid field objectives were my gather points. So I was netting 25 VP a round. Overall not bad, I do like that CP is a quick game. I want to use some others in time. Speaking of that I did get pictures of three of the Combat Patrols I had with me. The Vanderghast Swarm The Insidious Infiltrators The Armigar Trailblazers I had completely forgotten to get a picture of the Assault brood either before or after the game. I’ll have those next week along with picts of the Death Riders I finished for the DKoK CP. Then for that I just need to paint up the heavy weapon squad and I can either build/paint the command unit or just grab some models to use instead. checks the weapons of the 10 man squad oh lovely I have to make a flamer trooper.