Medusa IV Campaign- Turn 5, Battle Phase 1 moves

The campaign moves are in for the first battle phase of turn 5. The map in the Medusa IV campaign is really starting to fill up.

 

There was another surge of Manufactorums being built this turn, with 6 players constructing them at the start of turn 5.

 

I will have my own campaign game to play again this phase, with my shield generator coming under attack from Armel's Eldar. The players will have two weeks to get their games played. 

Medusa IV Campaign- Turn 4, Battle Phase 2 Results

The results for turn 4, battle phase 2 are in. The map now looks like this:

Battle Report 44- 1500 pts Astra Militarum vs Orks

This week's battle report features a set game in my Medusa IV campaign, where Seb's Orks attacked one the power plants guarded by my Astra Militarum army. The battle was to be 1500 pts and I was curious to see what Seb would bring. He has such an extensive collection of Orks that you are never quite sure what he will be fielding; will it be an all walker army? A green horde? Biker heavy? Or a combination of everything.

I also wanted to go for an infantry heavy force for my Guard. I like the nature of the Astra Militarum fielding hordes of infantry, backed up by a few tanks.

 

My army consisted of:
 

COMBINED ARMS DETACHMENT

Tank Commander Pask- 2 Punisher tanks with heavy bolter sponsons. (PCT and P)

Company Command Squad- 2 Plasma guns, Regimental standard, Vox caster (CS)

Priest- Autogun (with S1A)

 

Infantry Platoon 1

Platoon Command- 2 Flamers, vox caster (PC1)

Infantry Squad- Grenade launcher, vox caster (S1A)

Infantry Squad- Grenade launcher, vox caster (S1A)

Infantry Squad- Grenade launcher (S1B)

Heavy Weapons Team- Missile Launchers (HWT)

Infantry Platoon 2

Platoon Command- 2 Flamers, vox caster (PC2)

Infantry Squad- Autocannon, vox caster (S2A)

Infantry Squad- Autocannon, vox caster (S2A)

Infantry Squad- Autocannon (S2B)

Infantry Squad- Heavy Bolter (S2C)

Infantry Squad (S2D)

Chimera- Multilaser, Heavy Bolter, Extra Armour, Dozer Blades (C1)

 

Veteran Squad- 3 Meltaguns (V)

Chimera- Multilaser, Heavy Bolter, Extra Armour, Dozer Blades (C2)

 

Wyvern (W)

 

I went for Tank Commander Pask with an additional Punisher. With two Punisher tanks, I should be able to put out a lot of firepower to suit whatever Seb brought along (the rending from Pask's punisher cannon may help with any Deff Dreads). I also brought a command squad to issue orders to my infantry units and a Priest to keep them in check.

I then took two large infantry platoons. One with grenade launchers, so that they could move and fire to full effect, the other with Autocannons to provide some mid-strength firepower to the army. I was able to add a chimera infantry squad and heavy bolter squad to the platoons as well. The addition of some missile launchers would give me some variety if facing armour or mobs of boyz. Both platoon command squads got dual flamers for when the Orks got in close.

 

In order to help target armour, I took a unit of Veterans with 3 meltaguns in a chimera. Both transports got dozer blades and extra armour to keep them moving. Finally, I rounded the list off with a wyvern. These are pretty much essential in a guard army, providing some serious firepower to my list.

Pask was my warlord and got Old Grudges (preferred enemy) for his warlord trait. I decided to combine two of the grenade launcher infantry squads into one unit and two of the Autocannon squads into one unit.

Doubles Tournament- Armies on Display

Before the doubles tournament started, I managed to get quite a few photos of the store and some of the display cases. Here are those photos.

 

First up, some of the display of the old game boxes at 6s2Hit.

Doubles Tournament- White Scars Army Review

As is customary for any of the tournaments that I have attended, I will now review my army for the doubles tournament, how it performed on the tabletop and how it could be improved. For some context for the review, you can find the battle reports for Game 1, Game 2 and Game 3 on the links shown. As a reminder, my 1000 pts army for the doubles tournament was:

 

Combined Arms Detachment

Kor'sarro Khan- Moondakken

Librarian- Mastery level 1, Bike, Meltabombs, Hunter's Eye

5 Command Squad- 4 Grav guns, Apothecary, Storm Shield

5 Bikers- 2 Grav guns, sergeant has meltabombs

5 Bikers- 2 Grav guns, sergeant has meltabombs

5 Scouts- Bolt pistols, combat weapons, Sergeant has Meltabombs

Landspeeder Storm- Cerberus launcher, Heavy bolter

Drop Pod- Storm Bolter

Stormtalon- TL assault cannons, Skyhammer missile launcher

Kor'sarro Khan
My usual warlord for my White Scars, generally Khan provides some great bonuses for my army. Giving the bikers Scout and getting a morale check re-roll came in very handy during my games.

The Scout ability only came in useful in game 3, allowing me to Scout forward and grab an extra objective for the maelstrom card. I did not Scout in game 1 as we were unlikely to get first turn and I wanted to keep out of range of the Y'vahra and other Tau units. In the second game, it was probably a mistake to Scout forward for two of my biker units. This allowed the units to be charged by a Knight in the first turn and the other unit to be wiped out by the firepower of the Mechanicus Vanguard. Even though I did not utilise the ability too much, it is one that I would rather have and not use than need to use it and not have it.

Khan did ok in combat in the first game, only managing to take out some Kabalite warriors and surviving the game. He was wiped out in a Stomp attack in game 2 and did some damage in game 3 against his fellow space marines.

I would include Khan again in a tournament army, he provides a lot of bonuses to a White Scars army for his points cost and can sometimes do well in combat against 3+ armour saves.

Rhino Cake!

A while ago, I wrote a random post on different cakes that I had made over the years. I really enjoy baking and wondered if I could combine my hobbies of baking and 40k. I decided to have a go at an ambitious project of making a Rhino in cake form. So, this weekend I decided to give it a go as I had bought the icing fondant a while back and it was quickly going out of date. Below are the photos of my weekend baking.

 

Hobby Sunday 14/02/16- Objectives and White Scars

A happy valentines day to one and all! As my love for you all knows no bounds, I thought I would provide you with the gift of another hobby Sunday (what lucky people you are).

 

Anyways, moving on. After lasts week's foray into actually doing some hobby work, I continued with some painting that I had not got round to finishing. Back in September last year, I put together some objective markers and got a little bit of paint on them. I finally got back round to finishing them off this week. I didn't go too extravagant with them, just some quick drybrushing and washes to pick out the details. I finally added some transfer numbers so that they could be used in maelstrom missions. I now have two sets complete to donate to the local club to hopefully encourage people to play more maelstrom missions.

Doubles Tournament Game 3- White Scars/Mechanicus vs Space Marines/Chaos Space Marines

Welcome to the final battle report of the Doubles Tournament that Innes and I attended at 6s2Hit in Edinburgh. We had won our first game and lost our second game, so went into the final game hoping for a win to have succeeded in over half our games. Our opponents for the third game were Page and Fowler, commanding an army of Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines (what a heretical alliance!).

I've been asked to try and make the pictures larger for my battle reports, so have tried to do so. What do you think of the new ones? Too big or just the right size now?

As a reminder, our armies were:

 

Combined Arms Detachment

Kor'sarro Khan- Moondakken (with CS)

Librarian- Mastery level 1, Bike, Meltabombs, Hunter's Eye (with CS or L)

5 Command Squad- 4 Grav guns, Apothecary, Storm Shield (CS)

5 Bikers- 2 Grav guns, sergeant has meltabombs (B1)

5 Bikers- 2 Grav guns, sergeant has meltabombs (B2)

5 Scouts- Bolt pistols, combat weapons, Sergeant has Meltabombs (S)

Landspeeder Storm- Cerberus launcher, Heavy bolter (LS)

Drop Pod- Storm Bolter (DP)

Stormtalon- TL assault cannons, Skyhammer missile launcher (ST)

 

Dominus Maniple

Tech Priest Dominus- Raiment of the Technomartyr, Volkite Blaster, Macrostubber, Conversion Field (with V)

5 Skitarri Vanguard- 2 Plasma Calivers, Omnispex, Vanguard Alpha with Red Carbine. (V)

2 Onager Dunecrawlers- Neutron Laser and Cognis Heavy Stubber, Cognis Manipulator (D)

 

Oathsworn Detachment

Mechanicum Cerastus Knight Atropos- Occular Augmetics. (K)

Our supreme warlord was Khan, while in this game Innes' warlord trait gave his warlord haywire. My Librarian got Mental Fortitude and Psychic Shriek.

Doubles Tournament Game 2- White Scars/Mechanicus vs Space Marines/Mechanicus

Game 2 of the 6s2Hit double tournament saw our combined White Scars/Mechanicus army take on a Space Marine/Mechanicus army, with not one, but two Imperial Knights in the force! Our opponents for game 2 were Cameron and Aaron, who had also won their first game.

As a reminder, our armies were:

 

Combined Arms Detachment

Kor'sarro Khan- Moondakken (with CS)

Librarian- Mastery level 1, Bike, Meltabombs, Hunter's Eye (with CS or L)

5 Command Squad- 4 Grav guns, Apothecary, Storm Shield (CS)

5 Bikers- 2 Grav guns, sergeant has meltabombs (B1)

5 Bikers- 2 Grav guns, sergeant has meltabombs (B2)

5 Scouts- Bolt pistols, combat weapons, Sergeant has Meltabombs (S)

Landspeeder Storm- Cerberus launcher, Heavy bolter (LS)

Drop Pod- Storm Bolter (DP)

Stormtalon- TL assault cannons, Skyhammer missile launcher (ST)

 

Dominus Maniple

Tech Priest Dominus- Raiment of the Technomartyr, Volkite Blaster, Macrostubber, Conversion Field (with V)

5 Skitarri Vanguard- 2 Plasma Calivers, Omnispex, Vanguard Alpha with Red Carbine. (V)

2 Onager Dunecrawlers- Neutron Laser and Cognis Heavy Stubber, Cognis Manipulator (D)

 

Oathsworn Detachment

Mechanicum Cerastus Knight Atropos- Occular Augmetics. (K)

Our supreme warlord was Khan, while in this game Innes' warlord trait allowed him to choose the mysterious objective when it was revealed. My Librarian got Dominate and Psychic Shriek.

Doubles Tournament Game 1- White Scars/Mechanicus vs Dark Eldar/Tau

Welcome to my first battle report from a recent doubles tournament held at 6s2Hit in Edinburgh. Innes and I travelled through on a rather cold and windy Sunday morning with our armies to see how we would fare against the competition.

I had never been to the store before, but really enjoyed the experience. One half of the store has six 6x4 gaming tables, the other half has the café area where you can get hot food and drinks (I had an awesome coronation chicken Panini and chocolate brownie for lunch). They also have display cases with painted armies and the retail area, where you can pick stuff up for a variety of different game systems. They also had an awesome display on one of the walls with a bunch of different boxed sets from various editions of 40k and fantasy, as well as some other games. It was a really nice store, I will be keeping an eye out for any more events and recommend you take a look if you are ever in the Edinburgh area.

On to the tournament itself: Teams were comprised of 2 players, each with 1000 pts to spend on their army. Other than that, there were no restrictions. Armies could be bound, unbound or made up of formations, and Forgeworld units were allowed. The missions would be maelstrom, determined at each round by rolling in the book (the same mission for all games that turn). Each player would have their own warlord with warlord traits, but would need to choose a Supreme warlord for each game (who would give up Slay the Warlord when killed). Each player would also draw from their own maelstrom deck and could only score their own cards (e.g. you would only score Secure Objective 6 if your own units held it, not if your partner's units held the objective only). Impossible cards had to be kept and you could discard one card each turn.

With no restrictions in place other than the points limit, we did not know what to expect in all three games.

 

My army consisted of:

Combined Arms Detachment

Kor'sarro Khan- Moondakken (with CS)

Librarian- Mastery level 1, Bike, Meltabombs, Hunter's Eye (with CS or L)

5 Command Squad- 4 Grav guns, Apothecary, Storm Shield (CS)

5 Bikers- 2 Grav guns, sergeant has meltabombs (B1)

5 Bikers- 2 Grav guns, sergeant has meltabombs (B2)

5 Scouts- Bolt pistols, combat weapons, Sergeant has Meltabombs (S)

Landspeeder Storm- Cerberus launcher, Heavy bolter (LS)

Drop Pod- Storm Bolter (DP)

Stormtalon- TL assault cannons, Skyhammer missile launcher (ST)

 

Innes' 1000 points army consisted of:
 

Dominus Maniple

Tech Priest Dominus- Raiment of the Technomartyr, Volkite Blaster, Macrostubber, Conversion Field (TD)

5 Skitarri Vanguard- 2 Plasma Calivers, Omnispex, Vanguard Alpha with Red Carbine. (V)

2 Onager Dunecrawlers- Neutron Laser and Cognis Heavy Stubber, Cognis Manipulator (D)

 

Oathsworn Detachment

Mechanicum Cerastus Knight Atropos- Occular Augmetics. (K)

My army was designed to be very fast for grabbing maelstrom objectives, plus armed to the teeth with grav weaponry for taking on any tough units such as Wraithknights, Riptides, etc. The only change to the Mechanicus army was reducing the Vanguard squad from 10 to 5 (to utilise the drop pod) and the addition of another Dunecrawler. Innes' army had the hard hitters with the Imperial Knight (armed with D weapons) and the Dunecrawlers.

For the first game, our supreme warlord was Khan. My Librarian got Hallucination and Psychic Shriek for his powers. Innes' Dominus got to make one weapon master-crafted as his warlord trait.

Hobby Sunday 06/02/16- Scars and Trees

Well, it's been a long, long time since I did one of these. My last hobby Sunday post was back at the beginning of October 2015 when I started making and painting my White Scars Command Squad for Rapid Fire 2015. I never posted the finished models on the blog, but with the exception of these 5 models, I don't think I have done any hobbying for those 4 months.

 

That needed to change and I decided to do more work on my White Scars. I purchased a set of Scout Bikers at Blog Wars 10 to use in the new White Scars formations. I finally got round to building them (arming one with a grenade launcher). Hopefully, I can try out some of the new formations in a game soon. If nothing else, I may actually get to pass some Hit and Run tests thanks to the formation re-rolls.

Hero for a Day- Charity Gaming Event

You may have noticed a small change to the top right of the blog. There is now an advert for "Hero for a Day"- a 24 hour charity gaming event.

 

This is a charity event being run by Nick from The Burning Eye in aid of the Childhood Cancer and Leukemia Group (CCLG). This looks to be a very interesting event. less of a normal tournament and more of a "campaign day" (in my words) that will see each battle having a direct effect on the battles that come after it.

 

I hope that the event is a huge success and I hope to be able to attend myself. If you want any more information, check out the page on Nick's blog here.

 

If you are not able to attend, but still want to support the cause, you can donate here. It is a great cause to support and I know that many other people (and fellow bloggers) have already been in touch with Nick to offer painted raffle prizes and other such goods. Check out his page for full details. 

Battle Report 40- 2000 pts White Scars/Mechanicus vs Tau

This week's battle report features a combined army of my White Scars and Innes' Mechanicus taking on Shaun's Tau (complete with Stormsurge!). Innes and I were practicing for an upcoming doubles tournament (the reports for which will be coming soon) and wanted to test our army against a tough force. Enter Shaun's Tau, who have been racking up a string of victories in the Medusa IV campaign.

We would be playing a maelstrom mission at 2000 pts, in what promised to be a hyper competitive game. Those with an aversion to cheese should look away now.

 

My 1000 points army consisted of:

Kor'sarro Khan- Moondakken (with CS)

Librarian- Mastery level 1, Bike, Meltabombs, Hunter's Eye (with CS or L)

5 Command Squad- 4 Grav guns, Apothecary, Storm Shield (CS)

5 Bikers- 2 Grav guns, sergeant has meltabombs (B1)

5 Bikers- 2 Grav guns, sergeant has meltabombs (B2)

5 Scouts- Bolt pistols, combat weapons, Sergeant has Meltabombs (S)

Landspeeder Storm- Cerberus launcher, Heavy bolter (LS)

Drop Pod- Storm Bolter (DP)

Stormtalon- TL assault cannons, Skyhammer missile launcher (ST)

 

Innes' 1000 points army consisted of:
 

Dominus Maniple

Tech Priest Dominus- Raiment of the Technomartyr, Volkite Blaster, Macrostubber, Conversion Field, Infoslave skull (TD)

10 Skitarri Vanguard- 3 Plasma Calivers, Omnispex, Vanguard Alpha with Arc Pistol and Arc Maul, Conversion Field and Radium. (V)

Onager Dunecrawler- Neutron Laser and Cognis Heavy Stubber, Cognis Manipulator (D)

 

Oathsworn Detachment

Mechanicum Cerastus Knight Atropos- Occular Augmetics. (K)

Khan was the warlord to give me Scout and the Librarian rolled on Telepathy, actually managing to get Invisibilty, along with Psychic Shriek.
 

My army was designed to be fast and hard hitting. Khan was there to provide Scout to the army, as well as a leadership buff thanks to his Warlord Trait. The Librarian was there to take the Hunter's Eye to give me some Ignores Cover shooting and the +1 BS should help out with the psychic shriek. He was also fortunate enough to get Invisibility.

Medusa IV Campaign- Turn 4, Battle Phase 2 Moves

The players have made their moves for battle phase 2 of turn 4 in the Medusa IV map campaign.

 

Medusa IV Campaign- Turn 4, Battle Phase 1 results

The results are in, the first battle phase of 2016 in the Medusa IV map campaign has come to a close. The map now looks like this:

 

The forces of Chaos clashed with the loyalist White Scars on two separate fronts. The first was fought to a stalemate, neither side giving up any ground despite heavy losses. The second battle was more favourable for the Sons of Khan, granting them more territory in their vast empire (Iain and Thomas both attacked Allan's territory, while Allan attacked Iain's base. The draw against Iain and Allan was a draw, while Allan managed to secure victory against Thomas' army).