Battle Report 93- 1500 pts Deathwatch vs Emperor's Children

This week's battle report sees my Deathwatch army take on some 30k Emperor's Children, commanded by Ed at the EDGE gaming club. We were playing the Crusade Eternal War mission with 5 objectives. 

My army consisted of:

Combined Arms Detachment

Watch Captain Artemis (with V1)

Librarian- Mastery Level 2, Force Sword, Meltabombs (with V1)

5 Veterans- Heavy Thunder Hammer, 2 Deathwatch Shotguns, 2 Storm Shields, Power Maul, Power Sword (V1)

Drop Pod (DP2)

5 Veterans- 4 Frag Cannons, Auspex, Storm Shield (V2)

Drop Pod (DP1)

10 Veterans- 2 Infernus Heavy Bolters (V3 and V4)

Rhino (R)

5 Veterans- Stalker Pattern Boltguns (V5)

4 Bikers- 3 Power Swords, 1 Power Axe (B1)

4 Biker- 3 Power Swords, 1 Power Maul (B2)

Garran Branatar- Terminator Armour, Heavy Flamer, Power Fist with Auxiliary Meltagun (T)

My warlord trait for Artemis was Vigilance Incarnate, allowing me to change the Mission Tactics one more time (so two times in total). My Librarian rolled on Biomancy, getting Warp Speed, Life Leech, Smite and Force.

Battle Report 89- 1850 pts Deathwatch vs Iron Warriors

This week's battle report sees my Deathwatch take on Gareth's 30k Iron Warriors in the Cloak and Dagger maelstrom mission. 

My 1850 pts Deathwatch army consisted of:

Black Spear Strike Force

Watch Master- Guardian Spear, Beacon Angelis (with V1)

5 Veterans- 2 Heavy Thunder Hammers, Blackshield with Power Sword, Power Maul and Storm Shield (V1)

10 Veterans- 4 Frag Cannons, 2 Storm Shields (V2a and V2b)

Drop Pod- Locator Beacon (DP)

Corvus Blackstar- Hurricane Bolter, Auspex Array (CB)

Aquila Kill Team

5 Veterans- Frag Cannon (AKT)

Terminator- Heavy Flamer, Auxiliary Meltagun
Librarian- Level 2 Psyker, Meltabombs, Force Sword

Unbound

4 Bikers- 4 Power Swords, Meltabombs (B1)

4 Bikers- 3 Power Swords, Power Axe, Meltabombs (B2)

6 Vanguard Veterans- Hand Flamer, 2 Heavy Thunder Hammers, 3 Pairs Lightning Claws (VV)

I decided to mix up my army from its first iteration to change up the army. Only on writing this and double checking the codex, I realised that the army was not legal. Apologies to Gareth for the incorrect list. I had planned to put the whole army in the Black Spear Strike Force, thinking all the codex options could be taken as individual units, but this was not the case. Instead, I took an unbound section with the Bikers and Vanguard Veterans, neither of which used the benefits of the Black Spear anyway, but most people don't like playing against unbound without knowing.

My Warlord Trait was Master of the Void Hunt, giving my warlord (Watch Master) a special shooting attack each turn, which of course, I completely forgot about during the game. The Librarian rolled on Biomancy, getting Smite, Enfeeble and Warp Speed.

For the army, I decided to test out the Black Spear Strike Force. Given the mobility issues I had in my last games, I decided that deep striking with some of the army would be useful to counter this. I took the Watch Master and an Aquila Kill Team, as well as the Corvus Blackstar.
I also took a CAD, led by a Librarian. I was keen to see if the Biomancy powers could boost the survivability of my units. I didn't get Endurance, but Enfeeble could be useful and swing some combats for me. I took a unit of Veterans with 4 Frag Cannons and two storm shields in a drop pod. This would allow me to deploy at least one unit on my first turn. I also took a Locator Beacon to help with my deep striking. I planned to combat squad the 10 Veterans and put two Frag Cannons in each. This would hopefully allow me to keep some of the Frag Cannons alive, my opponent having to take out two units instead of one. I took another combat unit of Veterans that would join the Watch Master once more. I also took two units of Bikers and a combat unit of Vanguard Veterans.

This force would allow me to Deep Strike several units, as well as changing my Mission Tactics twice.

Medusa IV Campaign- Turn 1 results and Turn 2 moves

So, the first turn of my campaign has come to an end. The players had a month in which to fight battles and seize new territory. At the end of turn 1, the map now looks like this:

Medusa IV Campaign- Turn 1, Battle Phase 1 results and Battle Phase 2 Moves

The first battle phase of the campaign has come to an end. The players got their first games played and the results are in. The map now looks like this after the first battle phase:

Medusa IV Campaign- Turn 1, Battle Phase 1 moves

Last week, the campaign to control the Kharysian sector of Medusa IV began in earnest. I emailed all the players that had signed up for the campaign with the rules, starting map positions and their very own, personal secret objective to complete during the campaign.

 

On Thursday night, the first games of the campaign kicked off as the players had sent me their map moves for the first turn.

Battle Report 18- 1750 pts Dark Angels vs Sons of Horus

This weeks battle report was 1750 pts of Dark Angels vs Josh's Sons of Horus army. We have played a game in a previous battle report, so Josh was keen for a rematch against the Unforgiven. For this game, I decided to change up my army. I have mostly been playing with an all Ravenwing or Ravenwing-heavy force recently, but this time I decided to try out the Lion's Blade strike force. I wanted to see if the full BS overwatch was worth something.

 

My army consisted of:

 

BATTLE DEMI-COMPANY

Chaplain- Mace of Absolution, Meltabombs, Jump Pack (C)

10 Tactical Marines (TS1)- Flamer, mounted in Rhino (R)

5 Tactical Marines (TS2)- Plasma Cannon

5 Tactical Marines (TS3)- Plasma Gun

5 Assault Marines (AM)- Sergeant with power fist and meltabombs

5 Devastators (D2)- Lascannon, 3 Missile Launchers

Dreadnought (D1)- Assault Cannon, Storm Bolter, Extra Armour

 

RAVENWING ATTACK SQUADRON

5 Ravenwing Bikers- Sergeant with meltabombs, 2 Grav guns (RB1)

Ravenwing Landspeeder- Assault Cannon, Heavy Bolter (L1)

 

RAVENWING ATTACK SQUADRON

5 Ravenwing Bikers- Sergeant with meltabombs, 2 Meltaguns (RB2)

Ravenwing Landspeeder- Multimelta, Typhoon Missile Launcher (L2)

 

INNER CIRCLE

Sammael (S)

I wanted my demi-company led by the Chaplain, so that the Assault marines could benefit from his Zealot re-rolls. One tactical squad was mounted in a Rhino for objective seizing, while the other two were there to provide fire support. The Devastators had their standard weapons of lascannon and three missile launchers, useful for cracking armour or anti-infantry frag missiles. A dreadnought was also added to the demi-company, I hoped the lack of heavy weapons in the Sons of Horus would help keep him alive and possibly allow him to hold an objective. I added Sammael to the army as I love the model and think he has some pretty solid rules to back it up. Also, I'm sure Abaddon was keen for a rematch against him.
The army was finished off with two Ravenwing attack squadrons. The first bike squad is armed with grav guns and the landspeeder support has a heavy bolter and assault cannon. These should be useful for taking out marines and the bonus to the grav guns in the squadron should hopefully provide a few more casualties each turn. The other squadron has meltaguns and a landspeeder equipped for tank hunting.
Sammael is my warlord and has a fixed trait that gives a bonus to turboboost and charge moves. My plan is to use my mobility to tackle the threats in the enemy army, the improved accuracy of the Ravenwing special weapons should let me deal with most threats. The rest of the army can be used to provide covering fire and to grab objectives.

Medusa IV 40k map campaign- alliances and starting positions

In my last post on my 40k map-based campaign, I wrote about the campaign rules pack that I was sending to the players. After a few weeks of advertising the campaign, I was amazed to have 14 players sign up to participate. I had originally planned for 6-8 players signing up, so I had to make some changes to my rules (the map I was using was far too small for starters).

 

The major changes were that I essentially doubled the map, increasing it to 126 tiles. With 14 players (plus my own tiles), that works out to just over 8 tiles per player which I thought was a decent number.

The other idea that I implemented was to form the players into different alliances. This would allow players from an alliance to fight games for their allies if they were unable to attend the club on a certain night or if they end up with too many games to play. I have had campaigns stall before when players are simply unable to attend to fight battles (it can happen, I'm sure we are all interesting and exciting people whose lives sometimes get in the way of rolling dice), so it helps to provide as many options as possible for getting games played.

 

 

Medusa IV Campaign- map-based 40k campaign

Stand to attention, dust off those Bolters and re-fill the cheese tanks on your Wave Serpent, it's campaign time!

As part of my hobby goals for the coming year, I was wanting to run a 40k map-based campaign. I have run a couple of these in the past, the first was the old Vogen cityfight campaign from the pages of White Dwarf, the second was a slightly smaller version of the campaign I am currently going to describe. We never got to finish this campaign due to problems with gaming space and time constraints, so I was keen to see if I could run it again.

 

I advertised the campaign at Dundee Wargames club and got a fantastic response from the guys there with 14 players signing up to take part (no doubt due to my constant pestering). This was way more than I was expecting, so I had to modify things slightly to fit with so many players. My campaign rules were based on the Planetary Empires campaign book, as well as some modified rules I had found online from "The Siege of Exodus Prime" (apologies to the creator of this campaign, I could not find the original source to credit them). The map was a modified version of the one found here.

 

What was a bit different about this campaign for me was that this time I would be active as a campaign overlord (essentially a Dungeon Master), so I would be fighting battles in the campaign, but could not actually win it. By doing this, I will be able to give the players secret objectives to achieve during the campaign and come up with some unusual scenarios for them without any bias as I would not have a direct stake in winning.

 

The rules for the campaign were as follows:

 

The Medusa IV Campaign

Medusa IV was your standard Imperial world, raising tithes for the Imperium and supplying able bodied men to bolster the ranks of the Imperial Guard. All that changed when the Ork rok emerged from the warp. On their way to a distant Waaagh, the gargantuan vessel crashed out of the warp and headed straight for the planet. The planetary defence batteries opened fire on the approaching vessel, splintering it into dozens of fragments. Though the bulk of the invading army was annihilated in the vacuum of space, enough fragments reached the planet’s surface to cause chaos.

After a decade of brutal fighting, the planetary defence forces, with the aid of their Astartes allies had come close to wiping out the Ork menace from the planet. The surviving greenskins had been force back to the embattled Kharisyian sector. As they prepared to deliver the decisive blow, the planet was suddenly invaded for a second time. Sinister forces appeared, each with their own agenda to once again sow havoc on the inhabitants of Medusa…….
 

The Campaign

The map attached shows the dispensation of the various forces in the Kharisyian sector.

The map the players will be fighting over.

Each campaign turn (approx. 1 month) will be split into two phases; The Resource Phase and the Battle Phase.

Battle Report 15- 1500 pts Dark Angels Ravenwing vs Mechanium

This week, I had arranged a game against Steve's 30k mechanium army. We had agreed to play 1500 pts on a 6x4 board using a maelstrom mission. As I have talked about previously, I am a big fan of maelstrom missions and I was happy to get another game in.

I continued my forays into the new Dark Angels codex and decided to yet again field a Ravenwing army. My army consisted of:

 

RAVENWING STRIKE FORCE

Interrogator-Chaplain- Crozius Arcanum, Rosarius, Bike, Mace of Redemption, Meltabombs (IC)

Librarian- Level 2 psyker, Bike, Conversion Field, Meltabombs (L)

5 Ravenwing Command- Champion, Apothecary, Ravenwing Standard (CS)

5 Black Knights- Huntsman has Meltabombs (BK)

5 Ravenwing Bikers- 2 Grav guns, sergeant has Meltabombs (RB1)

5 Ravenwing Bikers- 2 Meltaguns, sergeant has Meltabombs (RB2)

5 Ravenwing Bikers- 2 Plasmaguns, sergeant has Meltabombs (RB3)

Darkshroud- Assault Cannon (D)

Landspeeder- Heavy Bolter, Assault Cannon (RL1)

Landspeeder- Heavy Bolter, Assault Cannon (RL2)

I wanted to try the Interrogator Chaplain in this game and he took to the field as my warlord. I think his Zealot ability will give a big boost to the Command squad and make them more effective in combat. I gave him the Mace of Redemption for the strength increase and AP3. I have never played mechanium, but had heard that some units can have high toughness, so hoped this would be a nice counter. I rounded out the HQ choices with a Librarian, I am still wanting to try the Dark Angels Interromancy powers to see if I can use them effectively. He was given a conversion field to boost his survivability and will be deployed with the Black Knights.

I took three units of Ravenwing bikers armed with grav guns, meltaguns and Plasmaguns for some variety to take on whatever I may come up against. I rounded out the list with three Landspeeders; the ever useful Darkshroud and two ravenwing landspeeders with heavy bolters and assault cannons.

 

I had a lot of manoeuvrability, which should help with objective seizing and had a fair amount of firepower and combat potential to deal with the enemy.  

My warlord trait was The Hunt; potentially useful, but not great. The Librarian got Mind Worm, Righteous Repugnance and Maelstrom of Misery. Giving a unit such as the Black Knights rage will always be effective and I had not yet tried Maelstrom of Misery, but it should be powerful against any high toughness Mechanium units.

Battle Report 12- 2000 pts Dark Angels vs Sons of Horus

This week's fully written battle report is 2000 pts between my Dark Angels and Josh's Sons of Horus army. The battle was The Crusade with 3 objectives on a 6'x4' board.

This was my first battle with the new Dark Angels Codex and I was looking forward to testing it out.

 

My initial plan was to take an all Ravenwing force, but when I totalled up my army, I couldn't quite stretch to 2000 pts, so I decided to incorporate some Deathwing and other units. My army consisted of:

 

RAVENWING STRIKE FORCE:

Sammael (in command squad)

6 Ravenwing Command- Ravenwing Banner, Apothecary, Champion, Grenade launcher (CS)

6 Black Knights- Grenade launcher, Meltabombs (BK)

6 Ravenwing Bikers- Sergeant with power sword and meltabombs, 2 grav guns (RB1)

5 Ravenwing Bikers- Veteran sergeant with power fist and meltabombs (RB2)

5 Ravenwing Bikers- Sergeant with meltabombs, 2 meltaguns (RB3)

Landspeeder- Heavy Bolter, Assault Cannon (L1)

Landspeeder Darkshroud- Assault Cannon (D)

 

COMBINED ARMS DETACHMENT:

Librarian- Mastery level 2, Bike, Auspex, Conversion Field (L2)

5 Tactical Marines- Lascannon (TS1), with Rhino (R)

5 Tactical Marines- Plasma Cannon (TS2)

5 Deathwing Knights (DK)

 

Sammael was the warlord, so got Rapid Manoeuvre as his trait. The Librarian got Mind Worm, Mind Wipe and Seed of Fear. A nice batch of powers to try out.

The army had a strong Ravenwing component and I was keen to see how the Black knights would perform. The Darkshroud was there to provide a buff to the Black Knights (2+ re-rollable cover save!). The combined arms detachment was taken as I wanted access to a Librarian on a bike. I took the minimum tactical squads with a heavy weapon each. I also wanted to take some Deathwing Knights to take on any power armour in the enemy army.

My army arrayed for battle (almost made an all Ravenwing force)

Battle Report 3- 1850 pts White Scars vs Death Guard/Imperial Knight

Last weekend I managed to get in a couple of practice games with my White Scars army for blog wars. The game was against Jamie from Warsoc (St Andrews wargaming club) and he was bringing his 30k Death Guard army with allied Imperial Knight. I asked him to bring the knight along as he is the only player in our club with one and I wanted to see how well my army might handle one.

Jamie has a really nice looking heresy army and I was fighting along with it at our apocalypse battle last month. I knew it was a tough army, but wanted to see how my white scars would go up against it.

The battle in full swing.