Corvus's Blood Angels - Command Squad WiP

[Corvus_Danseur]

Cheers dude! Duly edited and larger pictures in :)

[librisrouge]

That and him taking a chainsword to the face..,

 

...good times.

[Corvus_Danseur]

Game 2 - Blood Angels vs Necrons

Having slain a Wraith Lord at a crucial point last game and taken out multiple Wraith Guard I've decided that he deserves a name, so meet Epistolary Nanael .

Opponent: a Necron force that included two Annihilation Barges, a flying croissant, Deathmarks, Warriors x2, Immortals, Wraiths, Scarabs, a Ghost ark and three Lords with War Scythes. Owch. Yet another very nice opponent who was a pleasure to play against. Cheerful throughout what turned into yet another very close game that swung at vital stages.

Mission: quarters deployment, with 5vp for holding enemeny quarter, 3vp for holding your own and 2 for no-mans land plus Slay the Warlord. Scoring units and your Warlord only count for controlling and contesting quarters. Slay the Warlord is the only other victory condition in effect.

Deployment

Photo taken just after deployment when he had started to move his forces. I am rolling with basically the same plan as Game 1. But this time I'm deep striking (mistake 1) the ASM as two combat squads. I deployed second and hid my tac squad with Librarian Warlord behind and on the big rocky mesa in the centre of my deployment zone. He pushes all of his forces up against the deployment zone

edge and has his croissant in reserve. Deathmarks have infiltrated into the ruin. Using the same powers on my Librarian as last time, Shield and Sword of Sanguinius. Warlord trait is another useless one.

Turn 1

Necrons: push up the centre of board and dominate it. The un-painted barge sweeps round the tac-squad's right flank to get LoS on them. The Wraiths power forward. Only the barge has LoS on me, killing one tac marine (this time not a plasma, hurray for learning!).

Blood Angels:

The Dreadnought lands without scattering and lines up on the second Warrior squad (the one without the Ghost Ark). The tac-squad try to move up on top of the mesa to get LoS on the advancing wall of living metal. But roll a double 1 so instead decide that discretion is the better part of valour and stay hiding... Epistolary Nanael is secretly very pleased with this result and uses the 1" of movement to put another tactical marine between him and the Barge.

The dread opens up on the Warriors, good template coverage and AP4 producing a satisfying ~splat~ noise as the Warriors are wiped from existence. Preventing any of the pesky buggers getting back up. Already things are going better than last time! The missile

launcher fires at the Barge and... misses. No surprise there.

Turn 2

Necrons: the painted Barge (behind the pipe..) and the Immortals combine to destroy both the dread and its drop pod. The exploding dread takes one wound off a nearby scarab swarm as it goes. Various other units shuffle and the Wraiths move forwards once more. Once again only his unpainted Barge has LoS on my tac-squad, and kills one more marine. Shield of Sanguinius cast the previous turn again proving to be very useful at preserving life and limb.

Blood Angels: I roll for reserves, getting them all in... clearly the boys don't want to hang around and miss out on any of the action! The Raven zooms in from my far right corner in order to get a good strafing run across the table. Meanwhile the two ASM squads deep strike into the nearside no-mans land with a view to popping the Ghost Ark and then taking on the Warrior squad...

The Raven open fires on the Wraiths in the centre of the table, the shooting is however not that effective and only one Wraith goes down and one wound on another... two Blood Strike missiles not adding to the casualty count. The tac-squad missile marine does his usual excellent job and hits a nearby innocent tree... The ASM metla's open up, scoring two hits! And two pens! However they only manage destroys the nearest set of Gauss guns and immobilise it... good but not perfect.

Turn 3

Necrons: The Lord and the unpainted barge continue to move in on my tac-squad. But again I only lose one marine. Cover save +Shield of Sanguinius proving to be invaluable. The remaining Warrior unit picks out the ASM squad with the Sanguinary Priest through the gap between the Ghost Ark and the pipe work terrain, but their xenos weapons are ineffectual against the blessings of Sanguinius. Both the Immortals and the painted Barge fire on the Raven hoping to get lucky, however no hits are scored (AHHH so THAT'S why flyers are good .) Frustrated by the uselessness of their compatriots ranged efforts the Wraiths charge the ASM squad with Sanguinary Priest.... Once the dust has settled only the Priest remains! He passes his leadership test however and ties up the Wraiths, I'm pretty pleased with this as the Raven full of DC is just behind...

Also fortunately my opponent is consistently forgetting that he has Deathmarks...

Blood Angels: The remaining ASM squad shuffles round behind the large silo feature, leaving just the melta armed marine in range and view of the Ghost Ark (and therefore Warriors behind it). The tac-squad shuffle round the mesa so that only the missile launcher marine is in view of the Barge on their right flank. Not that the Blood Angels are hiding or anything *ahem*. I bank that the guns of the Raven can take out the only real threat to it in the form of the painted Barge right in front. The DC deploy from the Raven using the Skies of Blood/Fury, rolling a direct hit and making a spectacular landing just behind the Wraiths... oh hello boys... However at this point I make a mistake that I didn't realise until the next game when double checking the rule. You can't assault when using Skies of Blood despite the Raven being an assault vehicle. Neither I nor or my opponent realise this. So retrospective apologies to my opponent on this one, I feel bad!

Shooting-wise the missile marine snap-shots and misses (don't even know why I am bothering to record his actions by now!). The ASM melta misses the Ghost Ark. The Raven machine spirits its rapid firing Hurricane Bolter's into the Wraiths, killing two and knocking one wound off. However the shooting at the barge is less efficient. Shaking the crew, immobilising it, and taking off two hull points... its heavily rocked... but not out!

The DC then (illegally) roar into action, ploughing into the Wraiths with zealous fury. In short order the Wraiths are a smoking memory, and as seen at the end of turn photo at the start of this section, consolidate towards the Ghost Ark and the Warriors. This saves the life of the Sanguinary Priest who is understandably grateful and promises to buy the Chaplain a beer back on the barge.

Turn 4

Necrons: Incensed by the destruction of the Wraiths the Necrons turn the majority of their firepower at the Raven and DC who had brought about their doom. The Necron flyer entering play at this point as well. The Raven soaks the fire of both the Barges and the flyer, taking three hull points of damage in the process from three glancing hits but avoiding anything worse due to taking evasive action. The Warriors fail to kill a single DC due to the combination of some awful rolls to hit and some excellent FnP. Finally remembering that they exist the Deathmark's open fire on the DC... at the rear of whom I have deliberately placed Corbulo to soak this eventuality. In the event he decides to put all his sniper hits onto poor ole' Corbs anyway and he must make 8 FnP-Corb saves... Clearly the Emperor looks out for him as he passes all but one! My opponent is less than impressed at the Red Grail bearer's tenacity.

Blood Angels: The tac-squad move fully round the mesa away from the in-tact Barge and his rapidly encroaching Lords/Immortals combo. Having moved into place they manage to put two wounds on the scarab swarms, marking their first real contribution to the game! The DC move forward with a view to getting a charge in on the Warriors behind the Ghost Ark. The ASM squad stays safely hidden behind the silo structure. The Raven makes a 90deg turn and zooms towards the intact Barge- but as it is only firing snap shots this turn from its evasive manoeuvres, putting any damage on it will be a problem. The Sanguinary Priest who survived the Wraith massacre eyes up the Deathmarks... (my thinking is to tie them up for at least one turn to stop them shooting at my now out of cover tac-squad), and successfully makes the jump into the ruins just behind them, surprise! Shooting from all is whole-lotta-nothing as everything misses and the DC want to make it to the Warriors in close combat.

Assault time! The DC make their charge into the Warriors, the Chaplain reaping a bloody toll ably backed up by the frothing maniacs. The Warrior unit is torn to shreds, not a single one remaining. The Death Company (DC) consolidate towards the middle of the table round behind the pipe. Now. The Sanguinary Priest. Charging in he swings his chain-sword and manages to slay a single Deathmark. However in retaliation the Deathmarks put three wounds on him in return... but his armour holds and he wins the combat. Needing a 8+ (or something like that) my opponent confidently rolls, and it comes up 10 (I had no idea Necrons where not fearless)! Initiative is rolled, and I beat it by 2! My god!!!! The Sanguinary Priest has single handedly wiped an entire unit of Deathmarks out! What a hero!

Turn 5

*Sorry forgot to take a photo for this turn*

Necrons: with over half the force dead or immobilised, things are looking shaky for the Necron's. The Immortal's are holding one no-mans land and the Lord is contesting my deployment zone against my tac-squad and Epistolary Nanael. Whilst I have the ASM holding his deployment zone and contesting my own. The painted Barge powers into my deployment zone and out of the firing arcs of my Raven. However this is proved irrelevant when the Barge tesla's the last hull point off the flyer and it crashes and burns.

His flyer zooms forwards and fires on the tac-squad, killing two marines, including my plasma gun. The lords and immortals shuffle forwards, desperately trying to get into sight of my tac-squad, but fail to make it. The scarab swarms, incensed by the temerity of the Sanguinary Priest charge him and bury him under their filthy metallic bodies. Not even FnP can cope with the number of attacks put out and he falls.

Blood Angels: at this points I make what is probably only my second mistake of the game, that I noticed at any rate. But boy oh boy is it massive mistake... I move the tac-squad back round the mesa to get a snap shot missile off at the barge. Why? I have no idea... overconfidence and a desire to make definitely sure that the scarab swarm couldn't assault me if the game continued maybe. However this put me back into assault range of his Lord's should the game continue...

The DC move back towards my deployment zone in a vain hope to get in contact with the remaining Necron forces. The ASM move deeper into his deployment zone.

Shooting- the ASM finally kill the Ghost Ark and the Infernus pistol of the passing by DC finishes off the painted Barge. The missile of course misses the barge... and we roll for turn 6...

Oh god. The game continues. This is not good. At this point I really should have remembered that I still had Corbs re-roll and forced a re-roll to try and end it. However I forgot (mistake 3).

Turn 6

As can just about be seen in the photo above, the inevitable happens in turn 6. None of my units can get back to deal with the Immortals or Lords. And the tac-squad along with Epistolary Nanael are cut to pieces by the War Scythes. Not a good day at the office for Nanael! With that the game ends. Resulting in a 9-5 loss for the Blood Angels and after the composition penalty, tournament points of Necrons = 9 and Blood Angels = 3.

Final Thoughts

It was all going so well! Eh, well it was going better than last time anyway. I was set for a narrow win along the same lines as I lost the previous game, with 1 point in it. Then I moved the tac-squad... in retrospect it is much more likely that they would have survived the Scarab Swarm attack than that of the Lords, but lesson learn't! Don't switch off at the end of a game when it is so close.

Overall really enjoyed this again. Top moment was the Sanguinary Priest taking out a whole unit of Deathmarks on his own... I feel another name coming on. Top unit is a tie between the DC and the Raven. The DC caused a horrendous amount of damage and with Corbs buffing/protecting them my opponent struggled to have anything that could take them on. The Raven caused much less damage, but soaked up at least two turns of the fire from the majority of the Necron force. Allowing the DC to go about its work relatively unmolested.

Until the next and final battle! /salute

[Corvus_Danseur]

Game 3- Blood Angels vs Chaos Marines

The Sanguinary Priest being such a hero last game means he deserves a name as well... so meet Sanguinary Priest Zazriel .

Opponent: Choas marines. Lots of Choas Marines. Warlord is Khârn the Betrayer backed up by a 9 man squad of Kornflake Bezerkers all in a Rhino. Vindicator, hellbrute with multi-melta, 15(ish) man marine squad with Chaos Sorcerer, 5 plague marines, 8 man marine squad, 5 raptors with two meltas in reserve and a large squad of cultists with a heavy stubber. So not a power list by any means, but pretty cool and fluffy with lots of scoring troops! Opponent was another excellent chap who had a great sense of humour, particularly considering what the dice where about to do to him...

Mission: timed objectives. Three objectives, one placed in the centre (we used my Sanguinary Guard models again) one placed each along the diagonal corner to corner line that also de-marked the deployment zones. Every player turn after turn 3 you gain 1VP for each objective held. Slay the Warlord is the only other victory condition in place.

Deployment

I was to go first this time and therefore deployed first. Tac-squad and Epistolary Nanael swiftly claimed the ruins with a view of the centre objective. Nanael placing the largest chunk of rock he could find between himself and the enemy. Useless missile marine taking up a position with a view of the objective and the left flank approach. Taking a new approach I kept the combat-squadded ASM on the table, and deployed them either side of the central bastion in forward positions. Aiming to keep the opponent guessing which way I would send them and make him split his deployment. Sanguinary Priest Zazriel joining the right flank sub-squad with the power-fist wielding veteran sergeant. Whilst the two meltas went in the second sub-squad on the left flank (just thinking now, is the two specialist weapons in one squad actually allowed??). As per usual the rest of the crew arrive from reserve.

Turn 1

TBC... #Tired

[Natanael]

Oooh. Cliffhanger!!!

=)

I flatter myself by thinking that your librarian is named after me :P But good reading your reports. I look forward to seeing the last game as well. The double meltas are allowed in a single combat squad if they are legal in the 10-man squad in the codex. When you split them you pick whatever models you want in either combat squad.

I'll see you next week. You'll get to try your luck against my Space Wolves.

Cheers,
 

[Polythemus]

Great looking armies you got there. Quite a slew of awesome batreps! 

[Natanael]

Too bad the last part of game 3 died with the reboot of the board. You better play some more and add more bat reps to cover for it ;) 

[Corvus_Danseur]

Indeed! I will bring along my camera to the next one to document it properly!

[Corvus_Danseur]

A Stern Look

As part of ETL2014 I have painted up my Sternguard. This unit came about due to weaknesses I found in the first few games I played. These guys have taken the place of the Furioso dread in the pod. Usually accompanied by Corbs they have been a pretty good success. First game in which they played the destroyed an entire unit of Long fangs, including a missile Wolf Guard on turn 1. Subsequently they have not been quite so effective. But have still accounted for three Tyranid warriors and two of their bombardment bugs in one game. And then a Wraith Lord and half a unit of Wraith Guard in another. They have rapidly become a favourite of mine. Currently kitted out with four combi plasma's I have just added a combi melta dude (to played as a straight up melta most often)- and have plans to add another two combi plasma's and a heavy flamer to round out the squad to ten and allow some list tailoring if need be. Although I may also stick another melta in... decisions decisions! Anyway, below are some close up pictures of the finished squad. Mainly kitbashed from Sang Guard, Death Coy and random marine bits. I have modelled them with close combat weapons as dammit despite being Sternguard they are still Blood Angels!!

/Salute

[Shaezus]

Those wings on the backpack of the first guy, that's the most awesome conversion I have seen. Just goes to show sometimes simple ideas are the best. Loving the green on the blood drops too.

 

/salute back at ya good sir

[Corvus_Danseur]

Wow! Quite the compliment Thanks :)

 

I agree, the wings on backpack is my favourite as well. Although I am also a fan of the combat shield and knife ;). 

[marine7312000]

I love the combat shield/ knife conversion.

[Corvus_Danseur]

Death Company Dread

This was a project that I had been gathering bits for, for a long time. And finally completed it as my last contribution to ETL2014! Pictures below. Pretty happy with how it turned out!

/Salute

[Remtek]

Good writing on the batraps, and some nice painting :)

[Corvus_Danseur]

Having a Scout Around

Finished up a sniper scout squad. And then promptly went and lost a kill team game in two turns with them! The tactia cogitators have been given a good kicking!

On the other hand despite these boys probably not featuring in any of my battle plans (bought back when first got into this as an idea to have units deep striking around them, nah), I am a fan of the urban camo that I did on them. It may well feature on some incoming ++]I[REDACTED ]I[++. ;)

[Corvus_Danseur]

Just a quick post. Finished my first ever HH model this evening. An Apothecary/Sanguinary Priest. Just the standard Forge World Model with a BA shoulder pad. Really like the model! And moderately pleased with the paint job, except for the rather plain green vials :/.

/Salute

[marine7312000]

Excellent apothecary.

[Corvus_Danseur]

Mammoth Update

Bit of a huge update splurge here sorry. Got a fair bit done over past few month and as about to leave for two weeks fieldwork thought I would put up where my forces currently are. So without further ado...

Fort: Had a burst of inspiration last night over some thick cardboard corner bracer that I had sitting next to my desk. Two evenings later we have the start of an Aegis Defence line/my first major bit of terrain. Wall height is just over that of a marine, with firing step covering up to about 75% of body.

Heavy Flamer Veteran: does what it says on the tin...

Baal Predator: my first serious bit of land-bound armour.

Dante and Vanguard Veterans: another burst of inspiration/plastic crack fever. Had had the two resin ASM sitting around for a while with an idea of making VV with them someday. A box of Death Company and a box of Sanguinary Guard later we have ten VV in two squads. One squad of which makes perfect BA Hours Heresy veterans as well. Wings make great storm shields it turns out. With the spare parts left over I also kit-bashed a Dante. Pretty pleased with him- think the wings and normal pack combo is effective at making him stand out. Only question is should I paint him red or gold? Currently tending towards red. (Still playing around with new camera to get good photos... I need a better background...).

Termie: one space hulk terminator... painted by the girlfriend! Having seen me playing around with plastic soldiers recently she decided that wanted in on the fun. End result rather awesome for someone who has never picked up a model and paint brush before. Looks like I may have a painting assistant :).

The Inquisition: and finally we have Inquisitorial aid. As a break from painting red started this little war-band a while back. Pretty pleased with my Inquisitor in particular. Their ride is still a work in progress and have plans to add gun servitors based on the Thallax from forgeworld (big models but I like how they will dwarf the rest of the group) when the wallet allows.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand now I am off to go dig a hole for two weeks (geology....).

/Salute

[marine7312000]

Looks pretty good. I like the Dante conversion especially.

[Corvus_Danseur]

@marine7312000 thanks! The Sanguinary Guard kit is perfect for making him :)

[Corvus_Danseur]

Fire Support

Just a quick WiP update. With the start of the new term things have got a little hectic and not so much time! Below are some WiP images of a kit-bashed techmarine, my Fire Raptor and a Death Company Land Raider Redeemer/Crusader.

The Raptor has started to have its gaps green-stuff filled, but a way to go yet. I made a major boo-boo with the rear ramp as failed to put it in before the top went on. Woops. Much cursing later it went in, but I am most fortunate that you cannot see the rear end from above... The Land Raider is about to be primed as this goes up- pretty happy with how the addition of bling went... only question is should there have been mooaaaaarrrrr skulls! Treading the chaotic line a little here I feel maybe ;). The side/sponsoons are of course magnetized so I can swap it out to more sensible but less fun, Crusader mode.

Tech-Marine:

Fire Raptor:

Death Company Land Raider:

Thanks for looking! :)

[marine7312000]

I think you could fit a few more skulls on there.

[Orogen]

Ooh, for the skulls on the exhausts can you find open-mouthed ones??  Then they would look like gargoyles belching out exhaust.  That would be hot, and would look pretty sweet painted up.

 

Cheers!

[Corvus_Danseur]

@marine7312000: hehehehe, I actually took some off... it was starting to look at bit khorny.... (pun intended).

 

@Orogen: sadly in the sack-o-skulls that I bought there are no open mouth ones :(. But I agree that would look awesome, I will try and see if I can source some!

[Angelus Mortifer]

This is quite the model factory. Some excellent posing, cool paintjobs and conversions, and really liking the batreps. Keep it up