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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 I've gone far enough I think it's fair to start an official BnC Hobby Thread! Without Further delay, it's obvious what this is for, so let's get into it: Links to Pictures: + The First 5 Plague Marines with my new scheme: +LINK+ + The next Batch of WIP's, including Typhus, and a couple of characters, also some vehicles in this picture: +LINK+ + Blight Haulers finished! +LINK+ + Poxwalkerd done, and some Blightlord WIP's: +LINK+ Links to Battle Reports in 8th Edition: + 2000 points of Death Guard featuring the new Myphitic Blight-Haulers going up against Tyranids in Maelstrom of War: +LINK+

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, 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!

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.

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 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.

Welcome to what I hope will be a long running thread. The WIP's and batreps for this army will be in a Chaos Forum Thread linked in my signature: Here comes the first batch.... please be patient but these date back to December. Please realize my main goal is to have good table top quality. The more time that passes, I prefer to get armies playable rather than spend gobs of time on a model and never have anything playable! So let's see how far I can get! Wish me luck as I head to 1850 and beyond... + I really don't like painting vehicles... So close to complete... let's just go with 'completed'. + An in game shot but what the heck, it's a cool mat right? + Another in game shot. Ahirman gets busy while an Exalted tries the old 'Look! a dead bird over there'; an ancient Prospero distraction technique. + Scarab Occult Terminators! Now with 33% less Dust!+ + Dust Bunnies in the flesh... err, whatever. Still terrible rules, but fantastic models!+ More to come.....! Thanks for checking this out, -Prot (Proteus of the Thousand Sons - free of dust, but slave to the paint brush, and exalted sorcerer of dust bunnies with bad attitudes.) +Place Holder + +Place Holder + +Place Holder +

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.

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

Hey Guys, Quick run down of the last DG game I had. This was with forewarning that I would be using Mortarion however these games are never paired up until the actual game making it pretty hard to list tailor. I ended up playing against Dark Angel plasma Fort. The game was Maelstrom (Kill confirmed?). The one where you can't discard any "Kill" type cards and you get a bonus VP for every unit killed on the board. This is one of my favorite Maelstroms as it seems to award killin' stuff as much as moving towards stuff. 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? ..... ++ The Game: - 2K per side, Maelstrom, Kill Confirmed. (We always have a 'free discard' on any card which could never (at any point during the game) be completed) - My army approx: - Mortarion - Typhus - DP. w/ Wings (supporating plate) - Plaguecaster - Plaguemarines (9 I think 2 blightlaunchers, fist, plasma, flail) -Poxwalkers - Cultists - 3 Deathshroud Termies (in reserves) - 2 x Plagueburst crawlers - Tallyman - Blightbringer Dark Angels approx: - Azrael - Ezekeil - Lt. - 2 x 10? Tacticals - Scouts - Dark Shroud Flyer - 2 shooty dreads (Las/auto cannons) - Las Pred - Las/Plas Dev Squad - Deathwing Termie squad (in reserves) - Techpriest - Deployment/First turn: - We roll off and get my least favorite... Hammer and Anvil. This means we're playing short edges (the long way) towards each other. The way the board was set up, it just happens that there are two large fire lances on either sides of the table. I'll have no easy path there, and the only substantial terrain runs up the middle. - I get the +1 to my roll for deploying first, and incredibly, this time it means something! Thanks to the plus 1, I roll a tie with the DA, then another tie, finally a 6+1=7 for first turn. How fitting! +++ The Dark Angels deployment. They are nestled deep in their zone. The Dreads (far right) have a bead on most my army and a Predator Annihilator is off to the right as well. The fire base of Helblasters, and Las Devs (on the factory ruins) have re-roll aura's galore. This will be bloody. Up a bit the scouts infiltrated). +++ +++ Death Guard deployment.Mortarion is out of lascanon range in case I don't get first turn. It might turn out t be too conservative a move. +++ Early Game: - Since the DA fail to seize and this results in an aggressive movement phase. I get some cards I can complete, but not much else. Most of my stuff is short range, so really it's about the Psychic phase. I fail EVERY test I take between Mort/DP/Typhus/Plaguecaster. Unbelievable. I have to use a command point to reroll the DP putting the -1 to hit power on Mortarion. I also use CP's for Walking Dead, and can't shoot at the Poxwalkers. ++ The Death Guard push up the left side. The Plagueburst Crawlers unleash what the can, and manage to take a chunk out of 2 dreads, but nothing big. On the Right side, Mortarion and the DP push forward and the Plague marines advance. ++ Dark Angels Turn 1: - They are planted deep in their zone anticpating Mortarion. I have an important objective that the Plague Marines are sitting on: Defend. Since I score this in my opponent's turn, he's going to put some heat on me with a Flyer and the Termies. Both come in hot, guns blazing. +++ Deathwing some down, and the flyer opens up.... this could get ugly. +++ - The flyer double taps the Hurricane Bolters on the Plague marines, and the Terminators unload too. With the S10 shots the flyer tries to take on Mortarion but he passes some Disgustingly resilient but still takes a wound. The Plague marines are not as fortunate. They are tagged hard with all those shots but still 4 out of the 9 remain. I gotta hold off for the Secure points. - Sure enough as luck would have it, the Deathwing pull off an assault and it hits the Plague marines hard. They kill all but one Plague marine, since he is ObSec, and the last survivor among the Plaguemarines, I blow 2 command points to score the two points. This puts me in a strong lead early. I felt I had to do this. It was starting to feel like he would win out numbers wise so I wanted to bank some points. - Some cultists are shot since they are getting close to scouts. They join the Poxwalker union as new inductees. The turn ends and I have a good, but short term lead. Death Guard Turn 2: - I have a few kill cards, and an objective on his end of the table. Points add up though for killing stuff but we still have First Blood to resolve! - His Terminators have a chance to make a real mess of me, but I can't let the Flyer get off that mortal Wound bomb. Mortarion decides to take on the Flyer, and unleashes Silence while the Daemon Prince moves to try to take down the Deathwing. This may be too much for the DP but apparently he wants to impress Mortarion! - Psychic wise I have another deplorable turn. I'm almost out of CP's, and I fail YET again to put the -1 to hit on Mortarion. So I know he's going to take it pretty hard. Still even with this pending danger, the Death Guard do what they do best and exercise patience as the Deathshroud bodyguard stay in reserves. I think at this point we counted about 7 failed psychic tests (one passed because of a CP in Turn 1). Luckily the DP passes a Smite and strikes down a termie as a result. The Warp is a fickle mistress... she apparently hates me today. +++ The Daemon Prince and Mortarion know the battle has to be fought in the Dark Angel's zone. These hooligans must be cleared out. +++ - Mortarion makes an 11" charge allowing him to catch the rear/side of the flyer. Silence dices it up which is expected. However at my eagerness to get Mortarion down field, I'm wondering if I put the Daemon Prince in a bad situation. - The Daemon Prince moves in, and with Death To the False Emperor, he gets 8 hits, and wounds on all. With 2 Damage a piece just enough is failed to kill the terimes. I got super lucky on this one. A few termies stuck back there would have wrecked my DP if they got to swing, and then the tanks would have went soon after. Very close... too close. Dark Angels Turn 2: - The Dark Angels need a real kill here, but they draw objectives that they have to get as well. The scouts are stuck in no man's land a bit and are dangerously close to Poxwalkers. The DA start firing away at cultists and Poxwalkers but the Poxwalkers absorb the numbers of cultists... now the Poxwalkers get to use those new models to creep a little closer to the scouts. - The true target is obviously Mortarion and without any Psychic help he is going to get pounded. Some lascannons and plasma cannons rip into him, and so does a dreadnaught and the Predator. The results are bad for Mortarion, he takes a lot of wounds and the FnP saves are mediocre at best leaving him half dead...... and just above half movement. One of the Plagueburst cannons takes shots as well, but it isn't in a damaged state yet. +++ The smoke clears and although he is clearly injured, Mortarion hovers onward. The Dark Angels smell burning garbage... Mortarion smells fear.... +++ Death Guard Turn 3: - The noose may be closing in.... while a lot of firepower was thrown at Mortarion, the left flank of Poxwalkers and a stumbling Typhus (his advance bonus rolls were just terrible this game) are getting very close. The Dark Angel scouts stand vigilantly but are consumed by the union of decay none the less. - The Psychic phase is better... finally, and Mort is at -1 to hit (just in time!), and the Plaguecaster gets off plaguewind with a very respectable roll killing 2 Tacticals. Eventually the Poxwalkers consolidate into the remaining tacticals.... one of them is sneezing. - The Devastator squad was pretty deadly so the Plagueburst crawlers unleash indirect cannon shots on them, killing 4. This is big because it leaves only a few lascannons there. One Dreadnaught finally goes down. The Dark Angel fire fort is showing its first signs of faltering....but it still holds the Helblasters, another Dread, some Devs, and the Predator is unharmed. +++ The Union of Decay greets the Tacticals with a warm, infectious, hug. +++ - The wait is over, the Deathshroud deploy 9+ inches away from the remaining tacticals in front of the Fire Fort; they try to guard Mortarion who only needs an 8 to get into the tacticals. +++ Mortarion down to half wounds is making the final push. The Poxwalkers have already started consuming Tacticals for breakfast. Azrael, Ezekiel and the LT. look on with the Helblasters at the ready. +++ - Mortarion and the Deathshroud make it into Close Combat with three Tactical Marines. We don't bother rolling it out, it's assumed Mortarion dices the 3 tacticals. Also Mortarion's ability in the fight phase renders some wounds on surrounding squads, including Ezekiel and Azrael. -Mortarion and the Deathshroud are unable to make contact with the commanding Dark Angels but get very close. +++ Mortarion is in, and easily slays the tacticals, but now he hangs in the open staring down a lot of firepower!+++ Dark Angels Turn 3: - With the clear threat of Mortarion and the Deathshroud, the Dark Angels turn every available weapon on him. Miraculously the Deathshroud intercept most of the lascannons, Somehow the Deathshroud enjoy outstanding saves as Nurgle smiles upon them and after all is said and done, only one Deathshroud dies. Mortarion however is not as fortunate.... with only 3 wounds left at this point the Deathshroud fail to intercept the remaining missiles/lascannons. 3 Shots make it through, Mortarion fails all Invulns, and does not pass enough FnP throws and dies unceremoniously. The Helblasters realize they are about to be swamped by a cloud of Poxwalkers and clear out as many as they can. End Game: - With Mortarion dead the Death Guard have to push the initiative home and pin the Dark Angels deep. A lot is dead now...on both sides. Against the odds the Plagueburst crawlers lash out at the Pred taking it down to half wounds. not a great turn of shooting. The Poxwalkers get in deep, but it is the Deathshroud that have their moment in their anger of having failed Mortarion..... +++ The Deathshroud take their anger out on the Dark Angels. Ezekiel, Azrael and the Lieutenant anticipate the charge.... this will be the last major clash of this battle... +++ - The Deathshroud come in shooting. The Daemon Prince is -1 to hit, and the Poxwalkers have caught up to the plasma base. The Dark Angels are effectively shut off from the rest of the firebase. The Smite and Plague wind hit the Helblasters but only one falls. - In the shooting phase the hand flamers of the Deathshroud hit Ezekiel and Azreal but they shrug most of it off. The charge ensues and the attacks are split between Ezekiel and Azrael. - The Deathshroud slice both of the leaders down, but in a last gasp effort, thanks to 2 command points, Azrael rises from the dead long enough to absolutely annihilate the Deathshroud. All 4 models are wiped from the game, but that gets the Death Guard a lot of points, killing a psyker, and warlord kill. - At this point the Dark Angels concede. The Poxwalkers run amok in their zone, and the Daemon Prince (my warlord) is free to do as he pleases, while Typhus finally waddles into the zone just in time for the end (as usual). - The score wasn't close... something like 18 to 6 for Death Guard, but I assure you both sides were thoroughly beaten. - For the record, Mortarion's Kill count: One Darkshroud Flyer, and 3 Tactical Marines. Until next time... I hope you enjoyed this. Thanks for reading!

This is because my WIP thread in the WIP forum has been pretty neglected. I simply forget to take pictures, so I'm keeping the 'hobby' thread in the Death Guard section and that way I can just throw some finished pics up here. So for a little started I'm going to just start spitting out the stuff I've completed! Starting off with the first Death Guard unit I completed post Codex: More views/Plague Marines:

Hey guys, I hope this one can be done a little more briefly than some of my longer reads as I have little time to do this.... I wanted to do a Battle Report on this game because it features an army that smoked me in T1/2 the last time I used Deathwatch against it. (Actually most ITC style lists have). And I knew I was up for a crazy test again. Once again, please be aware I don't know who my opponents are going to be beforehand. (no list tailoring) The Game: Maelstrom 1850pts My List: Basic CAD: Termie Captain Libbie lvl1 10 Vets/Frag/meltaguns/Shotguns/Pod 10 Vets/Frag/gravguns/Shotguns/Pod 5 Vets/Frag/Shotgun/stormshield/Pod 1 Terminator Assault cannon 1 Terminator Cyclone. Allies: Ultramarines Skyhammer: 5 Devs, 4 Grav cannon Pod 5 Devs, 4 Multimeltas, Pod 5 Assault Marines flamer 5 Assault Marines flamer/Eviscerator Smelly Fish: Drone'mander (Warlord) w/lots of drones Pathfinders + Some dude that has 3 wounds and lets all units within 12" get extra shots. Breacher squad (I can't believe I don't see more of these) in a Fish tank (can't remember the transport name) Stormsurge , fully loaded Riptide Wing : 2 Riptides Kroot infiltrating Stealth Cadre: Ghostkeel + 2 Units of Stealth teams with Fusion/Plasma. Game Type: Precious Cargo: + You can't discard "secure Objective X". Your opponent can steal any "secure Objective X" card from you. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Deployment + Opening Turns: + Looking at my opponent I roll on Telepathy simply for Psychic Shriek and on the outside hope that I get Invisibility. (ITC variant) I do not get Invis, and it was the regroup power. :/ So I pitch it and just stick with Shriek on my ML1 Libby. + Unfortunately he wins the roll for first turn. I decide to play the deny game, and hold back my entire army except for two solo Terminators who are completely hidden. + He infiltrates Kroot (which are a cheap throwaway for Objectives) right in the center of the table to slow me down. + Tau Turn 1: He is doing the ol' castle maneuver. Kroot are forced to lay down their lives for a shiny objective in the center. Off to the Eastern back fringe he has his entire Stealth Cadre + Early Turns: + He takes the early lead, but without me having anything he can see he simply charges his junk up with Invulns, etc. And earns an easy objective point but no First Blood yet.... + I declare Skyhammer coming in T1. He drew an objective that would force him to zoom a Stealth Team out from their hiding spot on the Eastern Flank towards a grey building. + I decide I must Steal this objective from him, and this is my first mistake..... I drop in one 5 man assault squad and I scatter off the objective a ton. So I am forced to dump a second Assault squad into this bad idea and they stick on the objective facing off against one Stealth suit who just finished short of the objective even after his Jet Pack Move. I fail to kill them with pistols/flamers, and fail to get the charge range. Note the amount of fail used in that turn. But at least I'm on the board with a Stolen objective. + Here's where all the fail took place. Again, sorry for all the proxies. These are assault marines. They don't assault, and they're hardly marines, but there you go. + + Meanwhile, at the same time in the Tau deployment zone, my Deathwatch HQ and 2 Pods come in along with the rest of Skyhammer: + Oh I love the taste of Interceptor in the morning. + +++ I apologize for all the proxies I'm still re-assembling my army +++ + The grey marines are supposed to be Grav Cannons. The Blue Marines are MultiMelta. In the middle my Captain, and Libbie strategically place around the pod, (*We are playing official FAQ Pod Rules). + This is a pretty big moment. I roll 5 dice on Psychic Shriek of course targeting the Storm Surge. This guy rolls high and he takes 3-4 wounds from Shriek. Even after FnP rolls. Wow. + But now it's time for everyone's favorite game: Interceptor! + A picture form the Tau edge of the table: Note the Interceptor annihilates most of Skyhammer before it gets to fire. Back to the Black Fortress for more anti-xenos tech??? While your there, somebody hand me that Ork Warboss lucky stick. I could use it right about now. + + So Grav Cannon squad takes an amazing amount of firepower. The pods to obscure some Riptides/etc from getting some primary targets, but the Wipe out of the Grav Cannon squad (his number 1 target priority of course) nets him FIRST BLOOD! + Nothing like relinquishing First Blood to your opponent on your own turn! So he knew the Grav Cannons were going to probably finish off the Stormsurge and once they were gone he picked off a few Deathwatch, but then focused REALLY hard on the Deathwatch HQ squad. + The Deathwatch HQ squad gets a few cover saves but not many. The squad is wiped until we get to the Libby. He takes one failed save, then Look out Sir's 6 remaining wounds onto the Termie Captain. Thank you Librarian. Middle management really is useless sometimes. The Head honcho takes 5 saves, before losing a wound. Not bad. He's still breathing. + Finally I get to shoot in my own turn! + The 10 man Deathwatch split into combat squads and hammer away at top targets starting with the Stormsurge. I keep using 12" Impact Frag Shots and lucky poison hits (basically NONE), but after 8 or so Frag Cannon/Melta/Multimelta shots, the Stormsurge goes down! Wow. + With what little I have left I take poison rounds at a Riptide, but 2+ then FnP is immensely hard for me to get through. I maybe put one or two wounds on a Riptide with the rest of my army. + The termies roll up on objectives, and I score 2 points and we're tied. Tau T2: + He takes some pot shots at my HQ, and isn't too worried about them, and tries to dilute my Frag Cannon count. Which he does. + He is trying to reinforce his Stealth cadre at Eastern / Mid, but has trouble killing all of my one squad there so my Assault Squad rushes him and loses Close Combat to a SINGLE STEALTH SUIT. This shall not be recorded back at the Black Fortress!!! + I drew an objective on his side last turn, and he steals it. He kills a squad off getting another point. For some reason his Riptide assaults my remaining Multi Melta team. I believe he was afraid of me assaulting his Drone Comander, which I would have tried, but probably died to the gobs of Overwatch. + His Riptides shot me up pretty badly and his Pathfinder squad with HQ had an amazing amount of shots. I knew they'd have to be widdled down. + Riptide assaults? Deathwatch T2: + He drew a card on my side of the table which I stole... + The Kroot are fried by Frag Cannons. Chicken for supper. + Another bolter squad concentrates heavily on the Pathfindes and kills half. + My libby takes another shot at Shriek. He almost denies it, but fails. I get 2-3 wounds on a Riptide, but none of my shooting can do anything else to it. The Termies try to help but no go. + Our 2 Turns of Close combat against the Riptide slowly kill off my Ultra Multi Melta's. + I take two more objectives. Turn 3 : + He realizes my Obsec has hurt him here. He hasn't killed me fast enough. The Stormsurge dying T1 is huge. But I threw everything at it. + The Ghost Keel moves out and my two assault squads are now down to one squad, and they kill the 1 dude he has left there. But it's a final 10 man Deathwatch Drop Pod that fries them with Frag Cannons (no 2+ Stealth for the Stealth Suits!) . + His Breacher squad steps into the Deathwatch that just killed his Kroot and he annhilates them with that High Strength /AP3 shooting. + I complete a few big objectives at this point and he's Rick Rolling my army to nothing at this point, but yet I scramble odd squads and try to maintain my army. + With the combination of Marker Drones, and Riptides he annihilates my Libby, Hq Termie and the squad they had just joined. + I am now forced to pick my next moves very carefully as my army is pretty beat up.... I grab another couple of objectives, while trying to find cover. + A remnant squad of Deathwatch have to kill a vehicle to net a point.... I destroy the Fish Tank, but the ensuing explosion kills two of my guys. OUCH. One is a frag Cannon. + Pointswise I take the lead in bottom of T3 with a 3 Point turn, but it is costly as I had to sacrifice a lot. Now to see if I can keep the lead and not get tabled at the same time... Turn 4: + Tau realize they have to be a bit bolder to 1) catch up in points, or 2) table me. + The Tau shooting is still devastating. He starts advancing a Riptide from deep in his lines, I still can't seem to kill these stupid things. They both have wounds but 2+/3++/5+ FnP is sick. I poison the crap out of one of them with my fragile line, but he still has one wound left. + Tau wipe out the Deathwatch squad that just killed a fish tank. Aside from Pods I have only 2 solo deathwatch marines left at mid table. + Tau wipe the rest of the assault squads which were largely doing nothing. Breachers wipe one out, the Ghost Keel wipes the other out. + By the end of his Turn 4, the table starts to look really bleak for me.... + Tau fire power has nearly eliminated anything I had in his zone. The Pods still block his passage though, and the pods have been plinking away at Pathfinders and drones. + Turn 5: + I lead the game, the Termies are being rushed by the Riptide still. +I manage to wipe the Pathfinders and their HQ for a point with Drop Pods and the Cyclone frag missile rounds. + For the sake of movement and in case we go to Turn 6 he starts shooting at Pods. He gets one down, the rest miraculously survive. He doesn't want to waste high volumes of shots at my solo guys running around. But he still manages to kill one with drones. now leaving me with ONE marine at mid. + I am retreating my last 4 marines on my side of the table with 2 Grav guns as I know his riptide is breaking for an important point which is being held by my Terminator! + Here the Riptide has one wound left! I throw poison at it with my last mid table marine. The Riptide destroys the Assault Cannon Terminator seen here protecting the edge of an Objective with is life on the line. + The Riptide ends up stealing this objective, but on the other side of this grey tower is 2 Grav guns and they destroy the Riptide, netting me a point. Turn 6: + The Tau destroy a pod, and my last mid table marine. But can only get a point, and I have 4 marines, and a Terminator left on the table. The destruction is immense on both sides but I'm hanging by a thread. + He finishes his top half of the turn and can only score one point. We add up the points to be certain and I have the lead 13-9 so he cannot come close to a tie at this point and he concedes to the Deathwatch. + Many fishsticks and rejoicing is had by the 5 surviving members of this game. Thanks for checking the batrep out!