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Ravendove

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hello again,

 

This post isn't an army update - so if that's what you want to see, skip this post!

 

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Life stuff, blah blah

 

Now that things are starting to settle down a little, I thought it might be time to update you all on how it's going for me. The move went really well and I started working full time again a few days after returning to the UK. I was able to stay with some family for a few weeks while I was getting my feet back on the ground. Finding somewhere to live on a modest budget proved a little more challenging! I eventually spotted a nice little one-bedroom house, signed all the paperwork and took out a hefty loan to pay for it, finally moving in last week.

 

Since then it's been nothing except decorating, unpacking and crap like that. Luckily my girlfriend is boss at cleaning and organising, so with her help I am finally at the point where I'm able to start up the hobby machine again! I should be getting internet hooked up late next week so that's when I will start posting regularly once more.

 

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Thoughts on the army, first test drive

 

So the first thing I wanted to get out of the way: taking my brand spanking new painted army out for a test drive. Got myself down to the local GW (Basingstoke) and organised a friendly game with one of the young-ish teenagers there. At this point, I hadn't played a game of 40k in about a year so was understandably a little rusty, but my opponent was nice enough to allow for a few mistakes.

 

We played on a 4'x4' table with a couple of hills and some small ruins. He fielded a Blood Angels army (yes - it was Red Marines vs Red Marines!) consisting of something like 2 x Sanguinary Guard, 2 x 10-man Assault Squads, Lascannon Dreadnought, Captain with Lightning Claws and some sprinkled plasma weapons in the squads. I fielded my standard 1000pt list of Librarian, 2 x Tacticals in Rhinos, 2 x Typhoons and 2 x Predators with the Autocannon Dreadnought.

 

Setup was Dawn of War and mission was Kill Points. He got first turn and elected to reserve everything except the Lascannon Dreadnought. I won't bore you with a written battle report without pictures, but suffice to say the result was something like 8 KPs to him and 3 to me.

 

What went wrong?

 

- I was playing too reservedly. Having a relatively enemy-free first turn I should have pushed everything forwards and consolidated my position in the centre, giving Predators maximum fields of fire and setting up counter-assaults. Instead, I deployed in a gunline behind poor cover near my board edge. I also combat-squadded my Tactical Squads, which enabled my opponent to tear them to pieces for easy kill points.

 

- I disembarked too early. With my opponent's anti-tank weaponry limited to one Lascannon and a handful of Plasma Pistols, I should have stayed in my Rhinos as long as possible. Instead, I disembarked Tactical marines several times to attempt to down the Sanguinary Guard with rapid fire. Predictably, this didn't really work and only resulted in them getting cut down with power weapons.

 

- The Dreadnought was useless. I deployed him in a ruin to provide Autocannon support, too far away from the rest of the army. He was isolated and wasn't able to provide the counter-assault necessary to scare away the Assault Squads with his Fist and Heavy Flamer. Instead, he was assaulted on Turn 2 and kept locked in combat all game.

 

- Typhoons performed admirably, disabling the enemy Dreadnought almost immediately. But then they spent the rest of the game trying to down Sanguinary Guard with Krak Missiles, when they should have concentrated on using Frag Missiles to thin out infantry ranks.

 

- Predators did basically nothing useful all game. I kept having to move them around to stop my rear armour getting pummeled by S5 close combat attacks, which didn't really work that well, due to the mobility of a jump-pack army. They should have parked up and sat there shooting all game instead.

 

- I am extremely vulnerable to close combat. The Librarian got cut down almost immediately by Sanguinary Guard and the rest of the Marines didn't fare much better. When I up-size to 1500pts, I need to strongly consider if I need an effective counter-assault unit to complement all the shooty elements of the list.

 

- 2+ saves are tough to crack. I need weight of light arms fire or heavier AP2 weapons, right now I don't really have either.

 

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So what comes next, hobby-wise?

 

Now that I've manged to get all my hobby stuff out of storage and sorted through, I have several options. I'll try to grab some pictures tonight and share them with you tomorrow. I've ordered a huge number of bits and pieces online, ranging from Grey Knight weapons to plenty of Forgeworld armour.

 

I also have roughly the following which I'm able to make use of, all either just basecoated or assembled:

20 Tactical Marines, 15 Assault Marines, 25 Scouts with various equipment, 2 Land Speeder Storms, 1 Land Speeder, 6 Bikers, 2 Attack Bikes, 12 Space Hulk Terminators, 8 Terminators with various equiment, 2 Razorback/Rhino/Predators, 2 Drop Pods. I have enough available to me in sprue or bits-box form to build around 20 additional Space Marine infantry in any guise. So either Tactical, Assault, Devastator, Sternguard, Vanguard, Command, etc with pretty much any weapons you can think of.

 

Yes, I have a lot of bits. I would love to hear your suggestions on what you would like to see me add to the army next.

 

I also have a full set of CNC Workshop's Urban Grounds, which I'm planning to build a city board out of. I have a ton of scratch-built plasticard buildings already which, if you want, I could also get some photos of. Would this gaming-board project be something you would like to see added to the blog, or kept separate?

 

Finally:

hope all is well-quick question-where did you get the scout sergeants powerfist from? :D

It's from the regular Space Marine Terminator boxed set. It's this piece.

I also have a full set of CNC Workshop's Urban Grounds, which I'm planning to build a city board out of. I have a ton of scratch-built plasticard buildings already which, if you want, I could also get some photos of. Would this gaming-board project be something you would like to see added to the blog, or kept separate?

If it's for the army, then keep it here, it'll save me having to find and subscribe to another thread :D

 

Looking forward to seeing what comes off the table next...(Sternguard with lots of FW armour!)

Definitely go for some Sternguard, I'd love to see what you do with them. Also, I remember earlier in the thread that you mentioned some plans for Assault Terminators, those would help a lot for close-combat (at least, in my experience anyway). And hell yes I'd love to see a city board, but wouldn't that clash with your basing theme?

Never commented on this thread before but have followed it with interest.

 

Sternguard are one of my favourite units in the game are are normally quite effective either in a drop pod or razorback.

 

Fit them all out with a few combi-weapons and boom, got yourself a killer unit.

 

Think they'd all look pretty cool with white helmets.

 

 

Also on a side note, pretty cool that you've settled in Basingstoke. Although I haven't been to Basingstoke GW for a while now, not even sure when to go...

Glad to hear the move went well. I bet it's a pain to move all those boxes around, eh? ^_^

 

I'd hate to sound like a herd-follower but I concur with these esteemable gentlemen - Sternguard sound like a reasonable solution.

 

(Plus, I wanna see you paint some sternguard. :D)

As for what to add next, I'd go with some Bikers or some Sternguard [...]
Sternguard with lots of FW armour!
I agree with SCC and Jimmy - get some Sternguard in to dish out the pain. ;)
Yep Sternguard get my vote as well.
Definitely go for some Sternguard, I'd love to see what you do with them. And hell yes I'd love to see a city board, but wouldn't that clash with your basing theme?
...some SOO sternguard would look ace!
Sternguard sound like a reasonable solution.

 

So, it seems Sternguard are the popular choice! :D I've got some ideas for them which I'll show you in a moment...

 

@Dark Link: Well, sort of. The RoB gaming board my friend and I use here is painted up in desert colours. The idea was to build a bunch of city tiles we could use with this board. So it would be an urban environment yes, but there would be dusty sand in the streets, and so on. It's bit tricky to explain, but hopefully I can show you later when building it how I plan to tie the two together.

 

Also on a side note, pretty cool that you've settled in Basingstoke. Although I haven't been to Basingstoke GW for a while now, not even sure when to go...
Woah, woah, you live in Basingstoke? [...] Would love to play against your army some time. (Though don't expect a competitive game! I'm rubbish.)

 

I do indeed live in Basingstoke. Are you guys both local? Would love to find a couple more opponents to play against. Don't worry, I'm not exactly competitive either.

 

Pictures incoming this afternoon!

 

Anyway, congrats on the moving. Did you leave any models behind?

 

Hell no! Who would do a thing like that? ;)

@Dark Link: Well, sort of. The RoB gaming board my friend and I use here is painted up in desert colours. The idea was to build a bunch of city tiles we could use with this board. So it would be an urban environment yes, but there would be dusty sand in the streets, and so on. It's bit tricky to explain, but hopefully I can show you later when building it how I plan to tie the two together.

 

Sounds interesting, are you going for a ruined city being reclaimed by the desert look, or more a working city in a desert environment?

 

 

Anyway, congrats on the moving. Did you leave any models behind?

 

Hell no! Who would do a thing like that? :D

 

The poor bugger who realises on unpacking that there is still a case in the loft. Goodbye my old Star Wars figures, I shall miss you.

Sounds interesting, are you going for a ruined city being reclaimed by the desert look, or more a working city in a desert environment?

The latter, except a clean modern look, but with obvious signs of some warfare going on. Think Dubai or Cairo. At least, that's the idea. We'll see how it works out once I start on it properly.

 

Picture time!

 

Still no new army photos obviously, but there are a few pictures of plans and future ideas I would like to share with you. First of all, the most important part of the new house: hobby area! But since I don't actually have one set up yet, you'll have to settle for the next best thing. My awesome new display cabinet!

 

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/29108822/B&C/2011-05-19%2018.46.25.jpg

 

Proudly showing off my only two fully painted armies in eleven years of hobby. Yes, that's a Necron army!

 

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/29108822/B&C/2011-05-19%2018.46.57.jpg

 

So getting back to the business of the Imperium, here's all the assembled Space Marines models I managed to dig out of old boxes. You'll notice a fairly hefty old Raven Guard army there, as well as the start of a White Scars biker army that I never got around to finishing. Then we have my two 'sorted' bits boxes. Finally I have roughly all those bits again but in sprue-form. Which I haven't taken a picture of. Pictures of a mountain of sprue aren't terribly interesting.

 

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/29108822/B&C/2011-05-19%2019.06.14.jpg

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/29108822/B&C/2011-05-19%2019.08.18.jpg

 

Ideas for Sternguard

 

So my current plan for the Sternguard is to use the following bits to distinguish them. Those are the bodies from Sevrin Loth's bodyguard, some Phobos-pattern bolters and the arched Mk3-pattern shoulder pads. I'll use a variety of 'embellished' helmeted heads with some Mk4 thrown in. Each Sternguard marine would get one Mk3 shoulder pad on the left arm and one regular shoulder pad on the right. I imagine them relentlessly advancing towards the enemy using the heavier shoulder guard in front while firing their bolters. Input and feedback welcome!

 

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/29108822/B&C/2011-05-19%2019.15.14.jpg

 

Ideas for Command Squad

 

I'm really keen to push the Roman/Greek imagery a little more with some of the elite units. That's why my Sternguard would all have the pteruges (studded leather skirt) and I was floating the idea of my Command Squad being equipped like Hoplites in Mk3. I'm thinking of using a set of Scibor rounded shields and the Grey Knight halberds. Thoughts?

 

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/29108822/B&C/2011-05-19%2019.12.38.jpg

 

Gaming board

 

If you haven't seen the CNC Urban Grounds up close, they are basically pieces of wood on 'sprues'. You clean the individual pieces up and layer them to create tiles of city streets. It's a great (if expensive) detailed kit. Here's a before and after picture with some models for scale. You get 21 tiles, enough to cover a roughly 4' x 4'area. With the 6' x 4' Realm of Battle board to combine it with, there are dozens of interesting possible layouts.

 

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/29108822/B&C/2011-05-19%2019.16.22.jpg

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/29108822/B&C/2011-05-19%2019.19.29.jpg

 

I've also invested in quite a lot of added little bits and pieces to decorate it with. I'm going for a more run-down 'modern' environment rather than the heavily archaic and gothic Cities of Death look. Partly because I wanted to play Infinity on this board, but also because I felt like putting together something more interesting. The civilian vehicles are by Old Crow. I've also got plenty of other little bits and pieces for decoration. I'll try and get some snaps of the buildings I've made already some time this weekend.

 

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/29108822/B&C/2011-05-19%2019.21.06.jpg

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/29108822/B&C/2011-05-19%2019.23.45.jpg

Your Sternguard and Command Squad concepts sound solid. Really playing up the Greco-Roman cultural feel of the Ultramarines and their early successors. My only suggestion would be to try and get some combi-bolters in there for the added flexability and anti armour capability.

 

The City sounds like it is going to be an interesting set, you going to have any servitors for sweeping the sand off the streets? :)

Oh there will be combi-bolters alright, just wanted a nice base to work from. Different-pattern bolters reinforces the idea of special ammunition. I'm currently leaning towards something like 2 x Combi-Melta and a Heavy Flamer per five. Nothing looks more badass than a Marine with a Heavy Flamer.
Oh there will be combi-bolters alright, just wanted a nice base to work from. Different-pattern bolters reinforces the idea of special ammunition. I'm currently leaning towards something like 2 x Combi-Melta and a Heavy Flamer per five. Nothing looks more badass than a Marine with a Heavy Flamer.

Especially that LotD one! But I'm sure you will surpas it! ;)

 

Sorry for not commenting on this before... It is Amazing! :D

 

GRN

 

PS. Post Move good luck ;)

Ah, I get where you're going with the board now, and it sounds like a great idea. The tiles look really nice, I'd get a set for myself if it wasn't for a lack of space and money :D

 

Your Sternguard and Command Squad ideas sound really good, can't wait to see them built and painted.

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