Battle Report 119- 2000 pts White Scars vs Eldar

Today's battle report sees my White Scars army take on Luke's Aeldari force comprised of Eldar and Harlequins. 

I played this game at Battle Bunker in Sunderland. The mission was the Cloak and Shadows  (3 cards per turn, hidden from your opponent) maelstrom mission using table quarters deployment. 

My army consisted of:

Battalion Detachment

Captain- Bike, Teeth of Terra (C)

Lieutenant- Master-crafted Bolter (L)

10 Tactical Marines- Bolters, Meltagun (TS1)

Rhino- Storm Bolter (R)

6 Tactical Marines- Bolters, Flamer (TS2)

5 Scouts- Sniper Rifles, Camo Cloaks (S1)

Razorback- Twin Assault Cannon (Rb)

10 Sternguard Veterans- Special Issue Bolters (S2)

Drop Pod- Storm Bolter (DP)

5 Vanguard Veterans- 3 pairs Lightning Claws, 2 Thunder Hammers and Storm Shields (VV)

Outrider Detachment
Chaplain- Jump Pack (Ch)

5 Bikers- 2 Grav Guns, Power Fist (B1)

5 Bikers- 2 Meltaguns, Power Axe (B2)

6 Scout Bikers (SB)

2 Attack Bikes- Multi-meltas (AB)

7 Command Points

My warlord was the Captain and he took the White Scars Deadly Hunter Warlord trait.

I decided to mix up my army from their last outing. I added a second detachment, led by a Chaplain with a Jump Pack. To support him, I took a unit of Vanguard Veterans with various combat weapons. Other than that, my list was quite similar to last time. 

How to use Battle Chronicler: Part 2- Importing your own terrain

Yesterday, I took you through the process of creating your own battle report maps using Battle Chronicler. Today, I will take you through the process of importing your own terrain into the maps to make them a bit more accurate. 

Creating the PNG

In order to use your terrain images in Battle Chronicler, you must first take some photos of your terrain. The best way to do this is to take an overhead image of each terrain piece. 

The easiest way to do this is to take a photo on a black background from above (the underside of a gaming mat is perfect for this). This is not ideal in every situation, especially at games at tournaments or other gaming stores. 

For example, here are some images of terrain from a recent game I played. 

With the images in hand, you are now ready to create the PNG image. For this, I use Photoshop, so will take you through the process that I use. 

Open Photoshop and open the file with your terrain image. 

Click on the "Select and Mask..." button shown below. 

How to use Battle Chronicler: Part 1- The Basics

Want to know how I make the maps for my battle reports? Check out this tutorial and you will be able to make your own awesome maps to illustrate your battle reports.

A few people have asked recently for a tutorial on how to use Battle Chronicler, so I finally put something together while working on my recent battle reports. This was how I put together the maps for my first game at the recent North West Open tournament. 

Battle Chronicler is a great, free online program that I use for making my the maps for my battle reports on the blog. It takes a little bit of effort to use and draw the maps, but I think it is completely worthwhile and really adds to the reports. 

This first part of the tutorial will take you through the basics of creating your maps for a battle report, along with some tips that I have picked up over the years. Part 2 will show you how to input your own battlefield images to create more realistic maps of your games. Hopefully, these might encourage you to use the program yourself for your own battle reports, or simply be an interesting read to see how I go about making the maps for my own battle reports. 

You can download Battle Chronicler from their website. You can also download the components to give you some terrain images to use in your own maps from the start. 

Defining the Game

When you first open Battle Chronicler for the first time, it will ask you what kind of system you will be using your maps for. You can select either ranked square bases or round skirmish bases. Even though 40k is a round, skirmish game, I prefer to use the square ranked up representation. I think this looks neater on the maps, but you can choose whichever you wish. 

With Battle Chronicler open, go to File and select New. This box should appear:

Battle Report 118- 2000 pts White Scars vs Crimson Fists

This week's battle report is the first outing for my White Scars in 8th edition, where they would be facing off against Maurice's Crimson Fists. I had played Maurice's great looking Crimson Fists army with my Deathwatch, but have not tried them with my Scars yet, so was really looking forward to seeing how they would perform with the new codex. 

My army consisted of:

Battalion Detachment

Captain- Bike, Teeth of Terra, Master-crafted Boltgun (C)
Librarian- Force Sword (L1)
10 Tactical Marines- Bolters, Meltagun (TS1)
Rhino- Storm Bolter (R)
5 Scouts- Camo Cloaks, Sniper Rifles (S1)
5 Tactical Marines- Bolters, Flamer (TS2)
Razorback- Twin Assault Cannon (Rb)
10 Sternguard- Special Issue Bolter (S2)
Drop Pod- Storm Bolter (DP)
5 Devastators- 4 Missile Launchers, Armorium Cherub (D)

Outrider Detachment
Librarian- Terminator Armour, Force Stave, Storm Bolter (L2)
5 Scout Bikers- Twin Bolters, Shotguns (SB)
5 Bikers- 2 Grav Guns, Twin Bolters (B1)
4 Bikers- Twin Bolters (B2)
2 Attack Bikes- Multi-meltas (AB)
10 Assault Marines- Flamer, Sergeant with Power Fist (AS)

7 Command Points

For my first foray with the White Scars in 8th edition, I decided to take a mix of units. The army was obviously led by a Captain on a Bike. I took the Teeth of Terra to give him a boost in his attacks. I then took a couple of Librarians, one on foot and one in Terminator armour. For my troops choices, I took two Tactical Squads in transports and a unit of Scout Snipers for some character killing action. The Sternguard in a Drop Pod were another useful addition, as they have access to some great Bolters for killing other Marines and a very useful Stratagem. A unit of Devastators with Missile Launchers would allow me to take on armoured threats.

An outrider detachment would provide the typical White Scars elements that I am used to fielding; two units of Bikers, a unit of Scout Bikers, two Attack Bikes and a unit of Assault Marines. These would provide some very mobile units and some potent firepower for my army.

The Watch Captain was my Warlord and took the Tenacious Survivor warlord trait. The Terminator Librarian took Veil of Time and Might of Heroes. The other Librarian took Fury of the Ancients and Null Zone.

Hobby Goals 2017-2018

The Confessions of a 40k addict hobby season has now begun. I am a little bit late to get my goals together for the coming year (too much great content to post first, perhaps?). 

Here are some of my hobby goals for the coming year:

1. Find a new gaming club

Another move this year necessitates finding a new gaming club! Fortunately, there is a gaming club in Oxford, so I hope to go along and check it out. I also will need to check out the Reading gaming club. I did half my industrial placement year in Reading and attended the gaming club there. Even though it was 9 years ago, the club had a huge number of players. Hopefully, it is still as awesome as it was. 

Army Showcase- Deathwatch Army

I recently completed my Deathwatch army, so here are some photos of the entire force. I started this army at the end of last year, and managed to get a fair amount painted up in the past year. With this army, I really wanted to push my painting skills and try to put together a nice looking force of Space Marine Veterans. 

The army comes in at just under 4000 pts (3977 pts including modelled upgrades), so there is a lot of scope for customisation at the standard level of 2000 pts. 

As this is an army showcase, I thought I'd answer the standard questions for my Army Showcase series. 

New Frontline Gaming Articles

With the release of the 8th edition codex, I have been able to start writing more in depth reviews of certain units for Frontline Gaming. I just wanted to highlight these to some of the readers, in case you had not seen them. 

You can check out the Frontline Gaming tab to get a list of my articles over there. Please check them out and comment on them if you feel like it (the more they get read and commented on, the better for me, as they'll want me to write more!). This gives me a chance to go into more detail than I did for my initial reviews, as well as to add some insight from actually playing games with the units. 

Hobby Sunday 17/09/17- Genestealer Cult Metamorph Hybrids

This week, I also managed to complete a unit of Metamorph Hybrids for my Genestealer Cult army. Even though these models take a while to paint with all the details, they are a joy to paint as I think they really come to life when completed. 

With these models, I have been trying to get them done to a decent tabletop standard. I have not picked out every single detail on the model, but I think they still look good. For example, I have left some of the hoses and buttons the same colour as the armour. I don't think this detracts too much from them, as they could get a bit too busy with all the details picked out (at least, that's my excuse!). 

Here are some work in progress photos. 

Hobby Saturday 16/09/17- Neophyte Hybrids

This week, I have been continuing my work on my slowly growing Genestealer Cult force. 

First up, I managed to finish off my unit of Neophyte Hybrids that I had started last week. These were from the Deathwatch Overkill boxed set.

North West Open 2017: Deathwatch Army and Tournament Review

I recently attended Bunker War 3 and the North West Open 2017 with my Deathwatch army. This post will take a look at the army that I took to the tournament and review how it performed during my games. I will also be reviewing the tournament itself, as well as the ITC missions, as this was the first time that I was playing them.

Army Review

As a reminder, my army consisted of:

Battalion Detachment

Watch Master

Watch Captain- Jump Pack, Pair Lightning Claws

Kill Team 1- 5 Veterans, Vanguard Veteran with Pair Lightning Claws, 3 Frag Cannons, Storm Shield

Kill Team 2- 5 Veterans, 2 Missile Launchers, 3 Stalker Boltguns

Kill Team 3- 5 Veterans, 2 Missile Launchers, 3 Stalker Boltguns

Kill Team 4- 5 Veterans, Meltagun, 3 combi-Meltas

Kill Team 5- 5 Veterans, 2 Frag Cannons

Rhino 

Drop Pod- Storm Bolter

6 Vanguard Veterans- 2 Pairs Lightning Claws, Power Sword and Bolt Pistol, 3 with Bolt Pistols and Chainswords 

3 Deathwatch Bikers- Power Axe, Power Sword

3 Deathwatch Bikers- two Power Swords 

Corvus Blackstar- Auspex Array, Hurricane Bolter, Twin Assault Cannons, 2 Blackstar Rocket Launchers

Vindicare Assassin

6 Command Points

I am finding the Deathwatch army quite a struggle in 8th edition at the moment. They are a small, elite army, but lack the durability of other elite armies such as Grey Knights or Harlequins (not the toughest, but that invulnerable save goes a long way). Their firepower output can be high, but you need to get to close range to make the most of the Frag Cannons, leaving the Kill Teams very vulnerable to counter-assault and being wiped out.