Tuesday 30 December 2014

Warhammer 40k - Kill Team - Second Tournament

While I was home over Christmas we all decided to play another Kill TEam tournament since it turned out to be fun the last time around. So a few more small games of 40k. This time I took a tau army composed as follows:



Sine there is 4 of us it is just a 3 round robin thing and the person with the most wins is the 'winner'.

Game 1:
Escalating Skirmish vs Grey Knights

In the first round I played against some Grey Knights in the Skirmish mission. This one is a pretty normal game, both sides have half their force in reserve and the objective is simply to eliminate the opposition while preserving your force.


I deployed my broadside and a few firewarriors behind a rock wall, with another couple on top of the water fall to give fire support.


The Grey Knight commander deep struck into my lines and used the Psychic Scream power to make quick work of my big broadside.


On my turn I outflanked a few fire warriors with carbines to take a few shots at and distract the grey knights that were advancing up the side.


I also had the fire warriors behind the rock wall kill off the pesky commander.


Next turn I brought in my stealth suits and had them peruse the advancing grey knights who are now hiding behind the tower, meanwhile my guys in the back with carbines went after a guy with a very pesky gun in the ruins top left.


Disconcertingly another pair of grey knights deep struck into my back area, and used a powerful flame thrower to take out most of my troops, and then kill my commander with an assault.



Allot of my guys had been killed, but I managed to kill all of the grey knights ont he table with a bit of luck so it was a victory for me.

Round 2:
Take and Hold vs Chaos Marines

In the second round a faced a bunch of Chaos Terminators supported by a spawn of chaos, the mission this time was 'take and hold', five buildings were spread around the board and the objective was to occupy as many as possible by the end of the game.


This time I put a few guys in the central tower to try and claim it, had a bunch to march up the right flank and take some towers, and few behind the same rock wall to try and retake the tower held by the spawn.


The spawn charged out and assaulted and killed my stealth suit, while my forces tried to shoot everything they could at the chaos champion in order to kill him, which proved very difficult.

Big scary guys getting close
I lost  a few guys to assaults, but did manages to put a wound on the champion, and I think I killed one terminator somewhere.


The chaos pretty much continued to pick at my force this way until the game ran out of time, and it was a draw due to us both holding 2 towers.

Game 3:
Last Stand vs Tyranids

The final round was played using the last stand mission, there was 2 players with a win and a tie, so I figured they could both be the defender and this would settle things. In this mission the defender deploys half there force in the middle of the table, and must hold out until reserves an come and hopefully save them.


I put my fire warriors in a tower with the rest in reserve, and they had lictors and genestealers all around.


The tyranids advanced in the face of a ragged fire, and managed to get off 'the horror' psychic power which pinned down most of my guys in the tower. This prevented them from making much in the way of defensive fire.


I had a few guys come in from reserve and try to take out the broodlord commanding the tyranid force but this went predictably poorly.

He seems happy somehow

I brought in my stealth suits and tried to pincer the tyranids, but they were fast enough to assault and kill both of them with out much trouble. My guys in the tower meanwhile tried their best to hold off the assaults.


But it didn't go terribly well.


This continued for awhile with both sides rolling routing tests, which unfortunately I failed first, leaving the tyranids as the winner.

So in the end it was the Chaos player who won it all, with 2 wins and a tie.

Operation Icestorm:

We also played through the icestorm scenarios, but I didn't get to many pictures as my phone battery died, been having allot of problems with that.


Hope everyone had a good Christmas break.

Thanks;
Mike

Wednesday 24 December 2014

Painting - Teutonic Foot Knights

Well I have been having trouble with procrastinating when try to start my Crusades project, something about all the mounted knights I guess. So I decided to get going I would just paint a few foot knights, makes sense to me.

So I have 4 guys from the Fireforge Games Teutonic Foot set, this is a really great plastic set, lots of models in there, you can make Knights or Sergeants even cross bow guys. They are nice also.

So plan is to start I will do a few SAGA armies, and then maybe work on some stuff specifically for Hail Caesar, will have to see how I get on with that. Mainly it's a question of what kind of game I want to do for Cangames as I will soon ahve to start painting stuff for that maybe, but I have allot of ideas.


So there we have those guys, I was a bit lazy with the shields if I'm honest but it turned out alright. The LBMS transfers are really nice, and with these ones you mostly just cut out the symbol so no problems with bad fit, except the small shield. I gave one guy a banner pole, but then couldn't find a standard to give him, so I will have to bring in a few of those and add it on later I guess.

Let me know what you think. The only thing I am not keen on are the cloaks so I likely won't use a ton more of those.

Paints Used:

Liquitex:
Black Gesso

Games Workshop:
Leadbelcher
Mithril Silver

Vallejo:
Black
Dark Grey
Natural Grey
Deck Tan
German Camo Beige
Ivory
White
Woodgrain
Dark Sand
Chocolate Brown
Japan Uniform WW2
Smoke
Orange Brown
Flat Earth
Desert Yellow

The base is Desert Yellow, Flat Earth + Smoke wash, Dark Sand, Dark Grey rocks, pale flock.

Thanks;
Mike


Monday 22 December 2014

Painting - Tau Cadre Fireblade

So planing to play some Warhammer 40k Kill Team games with my buddies back home over Christmas, so to that end I decided I needed to paint a new comander guy for my old Tau army as that is what I decided to use.

 It turned out pretty good, but the face is more white looking then I had intended but no big deal.


This is a plastic model, but annoyingly they don't give you any options at all, I don't like the fake knife he is holding so would have been nice to have an optional gadget or something, but not a big deal. It's just a quick job for 1 day of gaming really.

I kind of want to collect some fantasy stuff after Christmas to do something a bit different, and would like to use GW stuff, but the price is just brutal. This 1 guy was like 20 bucks and that is just not right.

Thanks;
Mike


Sunday 21 December 2014

Event Report - SAGA Vassals Tournament

So we had our SAGA day after, ended up with 8 people which I thought was pretty good. Never managed to finish off the whole thing, but we got 2 of the games done and everyone seemed to enjoy it so that was pretty successful.

I never played after so I don't really have any reports of the games, just a bunch of pictures.

Round 1:

In round 1 we had 4 games, so every 3 feet of the table is a separate game. This was basically the learning the game mission, we had a bit less experienced then I would have thought but since I was not playing I could answer questions more easily, and Jeff really helped out on the far side.


12 feet of darkages, Vikings vs Normans in the closest game, the Anglo-Danish vs Vikings, Saxons vs Scots, and then Normans vs Scots on the far end. I think the winners were Vikings, Danes, Scots, and Normans going down in order.

Round 2:

For round two all the games doubled in size, and we were then playing the Challenge. This one has the warlord for each side out in the middle ready for a duel and the troops have to race in and rescue them and kill the other guy.


I think the closer battle ended up in another Danish victory as they killed the opposing warlord. The far game ended up as a draw basically, by the wording of the scenario it was technically a Viking victory but no one really had the upper hand.

Some of the other guys had a war of 1812 Naval battle going on.


So lots of activity going on for the last meeting of the year.

Thanks;
Mike

Thursday 18 December 2014

King of Britain - SAGA Vassals Campaign

So tomorrow we are going to have a SAGA vassals tournament at the club (Ottawa Miniatures Gamers http://www.creasey.ca/omg/ ), so I thought I should make a brief post with the rules of said tournament. The general idea is that when ever you beat a player (or team of players), the become your vassals and add a smaller warband to your which they control making later games team games. This continues until only 1 person is left undefeated and all other players are their vassals.

To start players may select a 4 point SAGA warband of their choice, with Heroes of the Viking Age allowed.

When a player becomes a Vassal there force is reduced to 2 points, and their Warlord is reduced to a Vassal warlord.

Vassal Warlord Stats:
Attacks: Melee 3, Shooting 2
Armour Melee 5, Shooting 6
Equipment Options as per options for that armies Warlord
Considered a Hearthguard and Activated as such (generates 1 SAGA Dice)
Benefits from the Determination Special Rule (Once per turn can be activated for free)
Ignore the first un-cancled hit in melee or shooting (limited resilience)

All other Warlord (and hero of Viking age) special rules are lots, especially 'Warlord's Pride'! hah.

Since there are 10 players the format will be as follows:

Turn 1: 1v1 games using the 'Skirmish' mission (first player to loose 2 saga dice loses the game) (4pt armies)
Table Size: 3'x4'


Turn 2: game A will be 4 players total (2 warlords and their vassal), playing 'The Challenge' (Pg. 65)
            game B will be a 3 side 'Feast for Crows' (Pg. 68) game (each side has main players + vassal), but the vassal that scored the most point will betral the winner and join the total force from game A.
Table Size: 6'x4'

Turn 3: A big game where each side has 1 warlord and 4 Vassals, will be t'Champions of God' (Pg 110),
Table Size: 12'x4'

As a bonus here is a shot of the 4 armies I am bringing, 1 for me and 3 loaners.

Pagan Rus: Took this before I finished off the enw warlord and Varagian Guard the other day, so have since swapped them in.

Anglo-Dane:

Norman:

Saxon: (option to use Athelstan or a normal boring warlord)


Plan is to take some pictures of the event so should be a report over the weekend I guess.

Thanks;
Mike

Wednesday 17 December 2014

Painting - Viking Warlord

Finished off my new warlord for Friday, this guy I like allot better, he is charging in to get some action, much more interesting.




Vallejo:
Black
Deck Tan
Ivory
White
Woodgrain
Dark Sand
Chocolate Brown
Japan Uniform WW2
Smoke
Orange Brown
Flat Earth
Natural Grey

GW:
Pallid Witch Flesh
Dryad Bark
Khorne Red
Wazdaka Red
Leadbelcher
Mithril Silver
Dawnstone
Blood for the blood god

Foundry: (I really need to get a Caucasian triad I guess)
Oriental Flesh Shade
Oriental Flesh
Oriental Flesh Light



Thanks;
Mike

Tuesday 16 December 2014

Painting - Varangian Guard

Well we have a big SAGA day coming up on Friday so I have been feeling like painting some more Dark Ages stuff, nothing like some games to get the interest going. I decided to try out a Pagan Rus force, so basically Russian Vikings, so figured I would try to do a few more eastern looking guys. Had the Gripping Beast Varangian Guard pack in my box so time to give it a go.

They are basically the vikings who joined the personal guard of the Byzantine emperor, who later came back. I thought they would look more eastern. This turned out to be a bad assumption, actually I don't really like these models at all.


So here they are, they all have big giant axes which is pretty fun, but there hands are all really close together which looks dumb. I think it would be more effective to chop people with a wide grip. But also the faces are not well done, and they don't have any extra byzantine looking elements or fancy gear like I feel like they should. So not bad but kind of generic and disappointing.

I have a new warlord to paint so hopefully that is better, the viking warlords and generally fun.

Of course here is the list of paints for my future reference: I used the Vallejo wood and leather set for the axe handle and leather straps which was nice but doesn't really show in the pic.

Vallejo:
Black
Deck Tan
Ivory
White
Reflective Green
Woodgrain
Dark Sand
Chocolate Brown
Japan Uniform WW2
Smoke
Orange Brown
Flat Earth
Natural Grey

GW:
Pallid Witch Flesh
Dryad Bark
Khorne Red
Wazdaka Red
Leadbelcher
Mithril Silver
Dawnstone
Dark Angels Green

Foundry: (I really need to get a Caucasian triad I guess)
Oriental Flesh Shade
Oriental Flesh
Oriental Flesh Light



Thanks;
Mike

Saturday 13 December 2014

Painting - Operation Icestorm Completed

Hello folks, so today I managed to finish off the rest of the models in the Icestorm infinity set, actually only had the CSU left as I had finished the others previously but was waiting to have it all done to make the last post.

Mobile Brigada:

So first up we have the big mobile brigada heavy unit. This guy turned out pretty well even thou it is a pretty straight forward set of colors. I used the black ink the paint some thin black lines around the plates which improved things allot, might have to go back and do that for some of the others.


Grenzer:

Then I have the Grenzer, acting as the Nomads sniper. I painted this guy much the same as the Specter with the white face thing. I actually tried the Nomads out last time I went to play infinity and found he was much inferior to the PanO sniper. But looks cool never the less.


I have been using the Black and White paint set from Vallejo with tips from Angel Giraldez. The method and colors for doing white seem to work very well, but the black is maybe not as effective I would say. Well especially in a super zoomed in picture.

Corporate Security Unit:

Finally there is the CSU, which was a bonus miniatures fir pre-ordering the set. This one was again a huge paint to assemble due to her being so skinny, but managed to get it to stick eventually. Had a bit of a paint glueing it onto the base after as it has a bit of a forward lean and the feet are real small, so she falls over easy until the glue is dry.

I decided to try out one of the methods for doing sheer fabric, so the idea is to create an effect where it looks like you can see the skin tone under the panty-hose where they are stretched tight. I think that turned out reasonably well for a first attempt, maybe went a bit to high into the flesh tone so might have to think about a back wash to bring it back a bit. I tried for a few freckles on the face as well which was really pushing my luck, but had allot of fun painting this one none the less. Who doesn't like a suitcase that folds out into a gun right.


To close it out here is a shot of each army set up in the terrain that comes in the set, which is pretty cool.


I would have to say the Nomads came out much better, I think the Specter, and the blue haired Alguacile are probably my favorites.

Anyway let me know what you think.

Paints used:

Vallejo:
Flat Red
Black
Dark Grey
Neutral Grey
German Camo Beige
White
Ivory
Deck Tan

Foundry:
Oriental Flesh Shade
Oriental Flesh
Oriental Flesh Light

Warpaints:
Electric Blue
Crystal Blue

Games Workshop:
Khorne Red
Wazdaka Red
Wild Rider Red
Leadbelcher
Kantor Blue
Dawn Stone


Thanks;
Mike

Thursday 11 December 2014

Battle Report - Devils Charge - Part 3!

So we played out the last of the Devils Charge scenarios. Panzer Kampfgruppe Peiper is trying to get off the board so they can make it to the Muse and divide the Allied armies in half.


On turn turn one the SS start to bring in their column, it's three platoons per turn same as before. A platoon of panthers along with Peiper and some AA for defense came down the west road, while a platoon of 4 panzer IVs came down the east corridor (The 2 platoons had been consolidated). On my turn I rolled for reserves and got none, but I did get air support. So as you can see my Typhoon is making an attack on a Panzer 4, trying to stay just out of range of the German AA which would likely destroy them.

The allied air support had a special close air support rule which lets the role 2 air craft dice so this was a very dangerous plane with it's rockets, although it did no damage in this case.


On the following turn the Germans kept pushing hard, the Panzer IVs drove down the road fast and some Panthers came in behind them, on the western road things really god bogged down, but the Grille mechanized artillery guns came in along with a platoon of panzer grenadiers. They were get really bunched up now, but were confident that the AA net would protect them.

On my turn I got 1 reserve, and brought in a full platoon of tanks. I fried the 76mm shermans at the panthers hoping for a few kill but got none, the remaining three 75mm shermans took out the AA thou. This allowed my plan which came in again to fly by and blow up to of the Panthers on the east road. A pretty effective turn for me really.


But of course the SS were quick to react, the teams on the west road all spread out and put a devastating amount fire on my tank platoon destroying all of them. I had figured this would be the result when I deployed them there, but I thought it would give me a good chance at a panther or 2 and take down the AA so it was worth it in my opinion.


On my turn I brought up my scrap yard tank platoon to help cover the west road, which was the most dangerous. On the east side I got another reserve and had to bring in a platoon of paratroopers. I was still a bit concerned about the platoon 4 tanks, I had the engineers around the bridge like a cork, but any assault is dangerous so I thought it was possible an assault with all 4 might get through. So I decided to use the paras to pick at the tanks and try and get a few kills out of it. With very careful position I was able to bail 1 Panzer IV with a bazooka shot, and then assault with only 3 tanks involved. This limited defensive fire to only 7 dice, so I lost a few teams but got in with 2 or 3. These guys were able to destroy the panzer and then the rest broke off.

I used my paratrooprs in a bunch of tournaments so I had gotten a bit of experience picking at tank platoons like this.

On the west road my heroic typhoon came in yet again and blew up a few teams. the Germans had a bunch of self defense AA machine guns, but these are far less effective then the real AA and didn't manage to do anything to my plane.


At this point the SS were getting a bit nervous about the plane so they decided to come closer and try to slip by. We ruled that the tank couldn't fit by along the river without killing the outer most couple of infantry teams that were dug in around the woods, but it was very close. So they decided to try an assault. My bazooka team took out 1 tank in defensive fire, and then I was able to counter attack with allot of teams. So the Germans decided to break off the assault fearing that it was a bit too dangerous.

The panzer grenadiers and coming up in their half tracks thou to give it their shot.


On my turn I got in the last tank platoon, and decided to be a bit more conserative and fight the panthers head on (this may have been a mistake). My scrap yard guys put a good amount of fire on the half tracks and destroyed 2 of them really cutting down the effectiveness of that platoon. I am starting feel safe on that side now the panthers are the only real problem left. On the other side the tanks blasted my paras away with machine guns and advanced a bit. I was only able to get 1 tank with this platoon but it also bought time and I think it was worth it. Being assault by 3 tanks is allot safer then 4.


On the west road the Germans decided to be a bit patient and lay down fire for a bit. The assault guns killed a team or 2 but nothing serious, the panthers thou had no trouble gutting my good tank platoon, and I was not able to get anything for me trouble. So it seems I should have been aggressive after all. But the rest of my guys reduced the infantry to 2 teams making them pretty ineffective.


On the east the Germans kept advancing, and my typhoon kept on destroying them, another Panzer Iv was killed one turn, and a half track the next.

But you can see that they are creeping up to my bridge and the combat engineers defending it. But the typhoon has done it's work and they are feeling pretty confident by this point.


So we had another couple of turns of fire with not so great of a result. I was able to get my last platoon of paras on from reserve and put them at the end of the west road to plug that off and keep the panthers bottled in. The Germans only need to get 1 platoon off to claim a win!

I decided to invite them in a bit and made a gap in my infantry platoon. I put the bazooka up to try a shot at a panther, and just moved the infantry team out of the way. By now we were running out of time thou and the SS were feeling the pressure, for the break through to succeed they need to start taking some chances.

Everyone was in close range of my teams now so it was no longer safe for the typhoon to do his work.


On the very last turn the SS decided to go for a few last ditch assaults to try and escape off the board. All the teams on the east side finally managed to pin down the engineers to make it worthwhile (they had been trying for a few turns), and sent in the remains of the panzer grenadiers and felschimjagers (we had consolidated them into 1 platoon), with a mounted assault. But I was still able to push them back with defensive fire. They had killed a few teams with machine guns in the last turn thou so it was a possibility.


Finally on the west road the two remaining panthers took their chance as well (Peiper was to far back out of range). They got in past my defensive fire, but didn't manage to kill anything with their first round. On my turn I counter attacked with the full platoon of paratroopers and luckily killed both tanks. This was super close to the edge so if I had not the panthers would have been able to break off through my platoon and head for the Muse.

So in the end a very close run battle but the SS were not quite able to achieve their strategic break through. But to be fair they still had a number of platoons left on the table, though all were now at very reduced strength. Tons of burning tanks and casualties on both sides.


I found this to be a very interesting and fun series of battles, especially the last one. Very different from normal flames of war games as they are all linked and the losses really count against you. The Germans had a big advantage in points most of the time, but the snow rules kept them on the roads allot, and made it hard for their whole force to be effective. You almost need to hold a few back so you get them full strength in the last battle, but the time limits in the early games really put on that pressure.

So for me this was a great series and thanks to Serge for playing the Germans and dealing with the evil unlucky SS dice. Big thanks to the typhoon who came in every turn and kept killing stuff!


Thanks;
Mike