Battle Report 46- 1500 pts Astra Militarum vs Eldar

This week's battle report was one of my campaign games from my Medusa IV map campaign. Armel's Eldar (a powerful faction in the campaign) had decided to try and usurp the Shield Generator tile from my Planetary defence force, so we found ourselves in conflict for the first time during the campaign. I know how strong the Eldar are at the moment and was interested to see how the game would turn out.

 

Thanks to the campaign rules, I would have a 50 pts bonus to my army, hopefully it would make all the difference. My army consisted of:

COMBINED ARMS DETACHMENT

Company Command Squad- Vox, 2 plasma guns, Company Standard, Laurels of Command (CC)
Priest (with S1A)
Priest (with S2C)
Commissar (with LT)
Commissar (with MLT)
Primaris Psyker- Level 1 psyker (with S1A)

Platoon Command 1- 2 Flamers, Vox (PC1)
Infantry Squad 1A- Autocannon, Vox (S1A)
Infantry Squad 1A- Autocannon (S2A)
Infantry Squad 1B- Autocannon, Vox (S1B)
Heavy Weapons Team 1- Lascannons (LT)
Heavy Weapons Team 2- Heavy Bolters (HBT)

Platoon Command 2- 2 Flamers, Vox (PC2)
Chimera- Multilaser, Heavy Bolter, Extra Armour, Dozer blades (C1)
Infantry Squad 2A- Grenade Launcher, vox (S2A)
Infantry Squad 2B- Grenade Launcher, vox (S2B)
Infantry Squad 2C- Grenade Launcher (S2C)
Heavy Weapons Team 3- Missile Launchers (MLT)

Veterans- 3 Meltaguns (V)
Chimera- Multilaser, Heavy Bolter, Extra Armour, Dozer blades (C2)

Wyvern 1 (W1)
Wyvern 2 (W2)
Aegis Defence Line

Culexus Assassin (A)

For my army, I decided to focus on an infantry heavy force backed up by two Wyverns. The army was led by a company command squad with a Regimental standard to help keep my units in check and the Laurels of Command to give me more control over the closer units. I then took two large infantry platoons- one armed with Autocannons and the other with grenade launchers. Three heavy weapons teams were also added to the platoons; lascannons and missile launchers to deal with a Wraithknight or any vehicles, and heavy bolters to deal with jetbikes or fragile Eldar bodies.
A unit of veterans with meltaguns in a Chimera would be there to grab objectives and deal with any armoured threats. I also took 2 wyverns as these should hopefully make a mess of any jetbikes or foot units and an Aegis line to keep the bulk of my army safe.

I decided not to take any battle tanks in the army. Between D weapons and Bright Lances, I did not think that any tanks would survive long enough to be useful.

I also decided to take a Culexus assassin to try and shut down any Eldar psykers that Armel decided to field. I bought the Assassins game in order to get all 4 assassin models and this is the first time that I would be using any of them in a game.

My plan was to swamp the objectives with masses of Guardsmen to win the game through a war of attrition- hopefully I had more bodies than Armel could kill in a game.

My warlord trait was Draconian Disciplinarian. This would be useful, allowing me to ignore morale checks caused by the Eldar shooting within range of the Warlord. My Primaris got Prescience and Foreboding.

Ork Army Showcase Part 2- Kult of Speed (Pic Heavy)

Welcome to part 2 of my Ork army showcase. Yesterday, I showed the foot slogging portions of my army, today I will look at the vehicles that are in the army.

 

As I said yesterday, my army is from the Deathskull lootas clan. I really like the contrast between the green of the Ork skin and the blue colour scheme of the clan. I think that this blue helps give the vehicles in the army some colour.

 

I have a small unit of warbikers, led by a Nob with a Power Claw. I only have three of these painted up at the moment, but have another 3 that have been waiting a while to get painted.

Ork Army Showcase Part 1- The Green Tide (Pic Heavy)

Given that I had most of my Ork collection out of the case for last week's large battle report, I thought it was about time to finally showcase my final army- my Deathskull themed Ork army. As I have a fairly large horde of Orks, I split the showcase into 2 parts. Part 1 will cover most of the foot troops that I have in the army, whereas tomorrow, Part 2 will look at all the vehicles that make up my army.

 

My Ork army got started when I friend of mine decided that he wanted to get rid of his collection and I ended up buying them off of him (he was just starting uni and decided that he might want to focus more on girls than playing warhammer, what a fool!). This was not long after the release of the 3rd edition codex, so my army started with a Warboss (the excellent metal 3rd edition model), a couple of units of boyz and some trukks.

 

I have always liked Orks. My first taste of their playing style was from GorkaMorka. I got a copy of the game for Christmas one year and my friend and I had a blast playing our own little campaign with our competing mobs.

 

I decided that I wanted my army to be a typical footslogging mob, with lots of large units of boyz backed up by a few vehicles and faster elements. The idea of hordes of boyz tearing across the battlefield to get to grips with the enemy really appealed to me.

 

For the style of my army, I settled on the Deathskulls as my clan of choice. I really like the contrast between the green of the Orks' skin and the blue of the Lootas. In addition to looking good, taking Deathskulls would give me plenty of opportunity for conversions and weapon swaps.

Old Stuff Day- Blog round up

On Wednesday, I posted my own entry for Old Stuff Day- a holiday promoted by Warhammer 39999 where you can highlight older content in your blog. Part of the idea was to showcase older material that you think did not get enough attention or would like to revisit. Another part was to highlight some of the articles from other blogs that were reposted on the day.

With that in mind, here is a selection of some of the articles that I came across on Wednesday that I would like to share.

First up is the founder of Old Stuff Day, Warhammer 39,999 who posted an awesome birthday cake with pictures from his blog. In addition, he showcased a couple of older posts on his amazing painted buildings and templates for 40k-themed Stained Glass windows. If you haven't checked these out already, they are well worth a look.

NafNaf from Objective Secured posted the first Dark Eldar from his blog, the beginnings of the amazing La Danse Macabre. If you haven't caught his circus-themed Dark Eldar army yet, get yourself over to the blog and be amazed. The skill at the conversions and amazing paint jobs are just fantastic and will blow you away.

Marc from Old School Gaming posted an awesome Interrogator-Chaplain Dreadnought that deserves its own rules on the tabletop. He was also brave enough to provide photographic evidence of his first discovery of 40k, a braver man than I.

Dave from Confessions of a 40k addict showcased his free STC terrain downloads and highlighted his Old Stuff Day blog posts from years past. These are some brilliant templates for making 40k terrain easily. I need to finally get on with trying some of these out, as Dave is currently running a competition to win an Imperial Knight. Part of the competition is to submit a picture using some of the templates and I have a month to try and get some done.

Finally, we have a really interesting post from Nick at The Burning Eye on Perception of threats in 40k. It's quite a thought provoking piece on how your first experiences against a new unit or wargear will colour your opinions on them in the future. It got me thinking about the newest hotness- grav guns. My Space Marines love and hate these weapons; love that I can take them and hate playing against them. My Guard and Orks just laugh them off most of the time.

So, that's my round up for this year. Hopefully you will check them out and give some of these older posts some love. 

Battle Report 45- 2500 pts Orks vs Astra Militarum

A couple of weeks ago, my Astra Militarum took on Seb's Orks in the maelstrom mission, Spoils of War. This week's battle report is a switch around, as my Orks take on Adam's Astra Militarum at Spoils of War. We were playing the game at my house, so decided to up the points level to 2500 as we had no time restrictions on the game. We would both be using race specific maelstrom decks, me with the Ork deck and Adam with the new Cadian deck.

My army consisted of two Combined Arms Detachments, featuring:
 

Warboss- Power Claw, Eavy Armour, Shoota, Bosspole, Da Lucky Stikk (with SB2)

Weirdboy- Level 2 psyker (with SB1)

Big Mek- Eavy Armour, Kustom Force Field (with SB1)

Painboy (with SB2)

30 Boyz- Nob with power claw and bosspole, sluggas, choppas (SB1)

30 Boyz- Nob with Uge Choppa and bosspole, Shootas, 3 Big Shootas (Sh)

18 Boyz- Nob with power claw and bosspole, sluggas, choppas, Eavy Armour (SB2)

30 Gretchin- 3 Runtherds, squighound (G)

12 Tankbustas (T)

Trukk- Armour plates (Tr2)

5 Meganobz- TL shootas (M)

Trukk- Armour plates (Tr1)

16 Stormboyz- Nob with power claw and bosspole (St)

Wartrakk- Scorcha (W1)

Wartrakk- Scorcha (W2)

6 Warbikers (WB)

3 Bubblechukkas- 6 extra crew, Mek (BC)

Deff Dread- 3 Power claws, Scorcha (DD)

3 Killa Kans- Grotzookas (KK)

Battlewagon- Armour plates, 3 Big Shootas (B)

I decided to split my army in two. One part would feature large mobs with the supports of a Dread and Kans to move towards the main force of the guard army, the other featured faster moving elements to swamp the enemy army at speed and take out the biggest threats first. The faster units would also help with the maelstrom objectives that came up.

I started the force with the HQ units; Warboss with power claw, Big Mek with Kustom Force Field, Weirdboy and Painboy. One of each of the big hitters should provide some variety in the army. I then took two large mobs of boyz, one of slugga boyz and one of shoota boyz and a large mob of gretchin. For some firepower, I took three Bubblechukkas. This artillery uses a large blast and variable strength and AP and should be able to damage the guard lines no matter how poorly I roll. The Tankbustas were there to hopefully take care of any of Adam's tanks, while the meganobz should hopefully draw a fair amount of firepower.

My warlord trait was Prophet of the Waaagh, while the Weirdboy got Eadbanger, Warpath and Frazzle.

Old Stuff Day- Blogging Necromancy

I saw this post from Confessions of a 40k addict pop up last week in my blogroll and was intrigued as to what it alluded to. After checking it out, I found out that March 2nd is Old Stuff Day- a holiday started at Warhammer 39999 (another great blog you should check out) where you get to highlight some of your older content that perhaps you felt did not get much attention first time round.

 

Now, as the blog is soon coming up to its first year birthday (Yay!), it might be a bit cheeky to highlight some of my older work as "Old Stuff", but I thought I would join in anyway. I'll be checking out what other bloggers are posting tomorrow and hopefully sharing some links with you on more interesting, older content.

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.