Dark Eldar Thoughts Post-Game

Ello all,

I thought on Monday night, for a change, I'd give my Dark Eldar a run out. I'd been thumbing through the codex, looking for conversion opportunities and what also what options I would like to start buying up next.

Anywho, I thought I'd chop and change my list a bit for a 1,500pt game. I didn't have my new Incubi painted up, so they were gone, and also I had swapped my old Incubi, to become a Kabalite Warrior unit for Duke Sliscus.

So my list going into the game was something like this:
Duke Sliscus
Haemonculus - Shattershard, Venom Blade
Haemonculus - Venom Blade
3 Wracks - Venom, 2 x Splinter Cannon
10 Kabalite Warriors - Raider w/ Dark Lance, Blaster Splinter Cannon, Sybarite w/ Ago
9 Kabalte Warriors - Raider w/ Dark Lance, Blaster
5 Wyches - Venom, 2 x Splinter Cannon, Razorflails, Hekatrix
5 Wyches - Venom, 2 x Splinter Cannon, Razorflails, Hekatrix
3 Beastmasters - 3 Fiends, 10 Khymarae, Agoniser
Ravager - 3 x DL

Couple of upgrades on the vehicles, think each had flickerfield and night shields.

Now, I was playing against Semi-Mech Guard, led by Commissar Yarrick with lots of high strength firepower.

Me being an idiot, I forgot that the Duke let's all your Raiders, Venoms and Ravagers come in via Deep Strike (and not the same as Retro Fire Jets). Which meant against a gunline type army with lots that could blow up my vehicles, I should really have been deep striking and doing what I could close up.

Anyway... things I've learnt...

1. Don't rely on a cover save or Flickerfield.
I got pasted because I set up trying to claim cover and just couldn't keep out such high volume of shots. I think I've also yet to save anything with my Flickerfield saves, maybe just my Dark Eldar are cursed?

2. Don't rely on getting the first turn
Bit obvious this one, but I was hoping to get the jump on the guard, stun or shake his vehicles and then go in the for the kill. It wasn't the case, and so I set up on the board hugging cover.

3. Dark Eldar vehicles are easy Kill Points
As the headline says really. I went for 3 small units in venoms, along with 2 raiders. Armour 10 and Open Topped is a harsh mistress. I think I was 5 nil down by the end of turn 1.

4. I need more practice
Dark Eldar aren't my forte. I'm very much a "smash and grab" mentality when it comes to 40k. I like my army to be able to weather some fire, then be able to batter the enemy when I get in the optimum area. I've been able to do this with Orks when they get into assault, or with Necrons previously with my shooting.

5. Remember the special rules!
I forgot I could deploy via Deep Strike thanks to the Duke, I forgot to roll for my combat drugs, etc. etc. I still see myself as having new codex syndrome. I've read the book cover to cover umpteen times, but as soon as I get on the table, I panic and forget.

That's all for now, I'm going to be starting prep on the Phalanx Demo game tonight. Get everything packed up, labelled and most importantly - make lots of sandwiches to get us through the day.

I'll attempt to Tweet as I go through the day, which you can follow on Twitter @MAWS40K

Peace,
SB

Demo Mini-Game - Deathwatch Kill Team

As you may have heard we are performing a demo game at Phalanx 2011 in St. Helens, there Suicide Badger and Sanguinius will be fighting it out in an epic Apocalypse game which made me think, what if someone wants to try the game out. Sure they can have a turn or roll a few dice as they pass by, but what if someone really wants to try it out and get involved, thats where my idea came from to provide a mini-game (hopefully I don't stand around with no-one joining in).

So the basic idea (as I don't have a fancy PDF ready yet) is the passerby controls six Deathwatch Marines (Sternguard) and has to kill the Ork Kommando Snikrot who is protected by a 20 sentries, this means that it is small and should be completed in half and hour to an hour. I have prepared Stat Cards for all the models involved to make the game flow smoothly and so I don't have to cart around a load of Codex's and the main rule book. If they kill Snikrot they get to choose one random Apocalypse Stratagem, if they kill him in combat they get two, if they fail then the Ork's get one.

The main reason for this post though, is to showcase the six Deathwatch Marines which I have been painting up, took me a while to be bothered painting them. I apologize in advance for the poor picture quality, my room and phone just dont cut it. First up is Sergeant Ghost, leader of Kill Team Kappa, armed with twin Lightning Claws keeping his iconic weapons from the Raven Guard.

The bit I am most proud of is the writing I put on his little scripts, the reason I am proud is because my writing skills are sub-par, but this particular one looked really good (for me). His other piece of parchment says Purge The Unclean, but I couldn't fit all of unclean on and it gets a bit squashed.

Next up is Drake, he is a Salamander and he is still carrying a Heavy Flamer, which is actually a Grey Knight Incinerator, I used this as it has a little Inquisitorial icon on it, and its the only marine sized heavy flamer I could get my hands on.

This guy is nothing special, he is a standard Sternguard, nicknamed Borg because he is an Iron Hand (not that I had anything to convert him with, so he just looks normal).

Here is a veteran of veterans, I remember reading somewhere that the Ultramarines provide the largest number of candidates for the Deathwatch, this is because of their hatred and knowledge of the Tyranids, so here we have a Smurf reloding, no-one ever reloads...

Here is the Sternguard nicknamed Cypher, because he is a Dark Angel. This guy was my tester model, and originally all my models had capes, but once I painted this guy up I realised there were too many colours and the cape just drew away from the black making them look more like clowns than marines. I gave him a book just so that it looks like he is training to be a Chaplain, and to practice painting paper, it is currently blank, I will try to get something written in it, or just put some squiggly lines.

Lastly we have what was going to be a Exorsist, this was because of the Deathwatch short story I read in the Fear the Alien book, but then I realised the rest of the squad was too miss matched, so I left the link with Ghost. Now, this guy is nicknamed Artisan because of his Bolter, and he will be a Blood Angel, who are well known artists and sculptors.

Well there you have it, my six men that took me nearly three days to paint, and still need the chapter symbols putting on the shoulder pads, and writing in a book. I am also planning to continue with my Grey Knight overview next week (seeing as it has been a month since my last post)

Have Fun

Col.Straken

Demo Game - Battle For Hades Hive

Afternoon all,

Just a quick one as usual, to show off the mission / scenario pack for the demo game we're running at Phalanx on Saturday.

The theme is the Second Battle for Armageddon, including a pre-Klaw version of Yarrick, pre-Lord of Death Mephiston and pre-face mask Tycho.

It wasn't until we'd decided on the Battle for Hades Hive that we realised all these events happen at this point, that half the Blood Angels characters come to power at this time, along with other nice facts that you only find out if you're a walking fluff bible or start to research events in depth.

So we're playing 10,000pts of Orks (with a Stompa and 2 Flyers) vs 9,000pts of Imperial Guard and Blood Angels.

You can find the mission pack here: Battle for Hades Hive v3

Any feedback, let me know. There's a few tweaks in there and some new Ork special characters I've come up with. As well as that, there's some Blood Angels characters that are a bit.. strange.

Basically, if Captain Mortiar dies (and later becomes a Dreadnaught in the 3rd Battle) then Sergeant Tycho becomes promoted to his full Codex stats. Also, during the battle Mephiston ends up crushed by a building and becomes Mephiston, Lord of Death. So if he's killed, he comes back on in reserve as the Lord of Death.

I'm going to try and set up "Blogging as we go" from my mobile, but I'm not sure on it working. Otherwise, you can check out pictures and a (probably rushed) write up on Sunday / Monday.

Peace,
SB

Britcon 2011 update

Hi all,

Angryman here.  as mentioned in an earlier post I had emailed the umpire / organiser of the Britcon 2011 WH40K event as there were some discrepancies in the published rules pack.  The email I sent him is as follows

Hi Geoff,


Hope all is well, i had a read of the rules but there was some conflicting info that i hope you can correct.


THE BATTLES


Missions And Deployment:


The missions played will be from the following list:


•Annihilation.


•Seize Ground (5 Objectives).


•Capture and Control


•Cleanse (see below)


•Seize The Centre (3 Objectives)(see below)


Missions 1, 2 and 3 and deployment rules are to be played as detailed in the 5th edition 40k rulebook. Missions 4&5 rules are detailed below.


A list of the missions and deployment scenarios for each round will be provided at registration on the Saturday and announced prior to each game.


it then goes on to say that


PLAYING THE GAME


General


•Players will compete in a total of six games. Please refer to the tournament schedule of events.


WINNING THE EVENT


1. Scores of 32pts per game mean a maximum of 192 pts are available.

there are only 6 missions listed and it says that registration is on a saturday. the past competions have always been 6 games with registration on Friday. To finish with a maximum of 192 points there has to be 6 games winning 32 - 0, if there are only 5 games then the maximum score acheivable will be 160.

also it says

2. All games will last a random (7-8) number of turns. Note the game time includes discussing each other’s army lists and any special rules, discussing the effects of terrain and troop deployment

is this a mistake or will the games be 7 or 8 turns, if so will it be an automatic turn 6 then roll a dice at the end of that turn and at turn 7?

I hope you can clear these up for me,

Stephen.


Here is the response, it made me laugh when i read it
 
Hi Stephen,



Well spotted, someone has dicked up my pack during publishing I think.


Deffo SIX games, Friday start.


Also MINIMUM six turns, as we have 3.5hrs to fill, just something a bit different and allows games not to be rushed most of the time.


Cheers

Geoff

All comments welcome.

Badger's Log - Weekend at Badger's

Ello,

Quick Monday morning post of what hobby stuff I got up to over the weekend...

Do you ever get that really annoying time where you lose a model from a unit? Somehow over the past few weeks of gaming, I've managed to lose a boy from a Trukk squad. Luckily, I had a few leftover AOBR boyz lying around to fill the gaps, but it's so frustrating not to know where it's gone to!

The Lost Boyz... Well, just 1.

 So there you have a replacement member for Trukk Boyz #3. They're now back up to their full number, rather than me messing around and playing a man down.

Now, the next thing I spent most of the weekend messing around with, were my Finecast Incubi. I've never worked with resin or finecast before, so I vastly underestimated how long it took me to trim all the excess clean and get at the mould lines.

All in all, I think it's worth the extra work and a few quid extra, to have such nicely detailed models that are easy to transport and maintain as well. The only thing I wasn't keen on was some of the more fiddly, bendy bits... such as the Klaives and the trophy racks. Trimming the flash off them was like tightrope walking. I'm very heavy handed when it comes to cleaning models, so I had to take it down a notch in order to clean these up.

They're sprayed up and I just need to undercoat the missed areas, then I can get on with painting them, hopefully get them done for next week's game at the club.

You might also notice there's only 4 Incubi there, when in the box you get 5. Basically, each Incubi body, head and racks come on an individual frame, where as the 5 Klaives come on a single frame. To match the Klaives, in a normal box, you should get 2 Type A bodies, 2 Type B bodies and 1 Type C. Now I was given 3 of Type A or B, so I couldn't fit the Klaive onto the body properly.

Suffice to say, I've rang GW and got a replacement on the way in the post, so that was good of them. Originally I was going to run them as a 4 anyway, with an Archon in a Venom, so I can at least make a start on that for the moment.

I also spent most of Saturday packing my armies up into Chinese tubs. I've got some kind of Takeaway storage OCD, but it means I can keep all my similar squads together and store them a bit nicer.

It also means I can store things a bit neater at home and see where each unit is at the time, rather than trawling through old Battleforce boxes of fileboxes to find where my Wych squad is.

After that, I just spent some time trying to work out some points for this Apocalypse demo game next Saturday. At the moment, I'm on 7200pts of Orks, without my unpainted Squiggoth and without reinforcements from other players. Next thing after that is to work out the points of my Imperial Guard.

That's all for now, I've got a mission pack for our demo game to upload onto here for people to read at some point, so that should hopefully be up tomorrow!

Peace,
SB

Badger's Log - Duke Sliscus and Dark Eldar re-shuffle!

Morning all,

Over the last week or so, I've been hammering my Dark Eldar codex, eager to get back to playing with them, once I've finished prep work and practice for a Demo game we're doing soon.

After seeing the new Finecast stuff "in the flesh", realising how light they are, I've been extremely tempted by them and ended up buying a squad of Incubi as my tester unit, as they're my absolute favourite models in the army (perhaps even in the whole of 40K), but I would never have originally bought them, because they were metal.

I'm still waiting for them to show up in the post, but hopefully they'll be here soon.

Anyways, on top of this, I had been looking to see about getting some more scoring units into the army, along with a Raider... After buying the Incubi though, I was a bit skint, so thought instead about having a reshuffle of what I own.

So my old Incubi were made from Dark Elf Corsairs, I'd imagined them more like Swordsmen with 2 blades as opposed to the giant Klaives. However, everyone online seems to be using these cloaks to convert Duke Sliscus and units of Trueborn.

To make my Duke Sliscus, all I did was take the champion model from the unit and slap the Serpent banner on the back, so that he stands out above the rest of the unit. The model is armed closely enough to Sliscus, with the 2 blades being his Twin Venom Blades.

New and improved Duke Sliscus

They were originally Incubi, now Kabalite Warrior Corsairs, to accompany Sliscus!

I didn't fancy hacking the rest of the squad up though, or buying more arms and guns, so for now they'll stay as they are and all have Splinter Rifles (improved, thanks to Sliscus). I'll see about getting a special and heavy weapon off Ebay, and just attach them to the back of the cloaks.

I've got a few loose splinter rifles (hopefully) lying about from assembling raiders which I can tack on. I've tried to keep them looking like Corsairs for now, like an old school boarding party.

So now, my troop choices look something like this:
1 x 10 Kabalite Warriors in a Raider
1 x 9 Kabalite Warriors (option to use as Trueborn) in a Raider to accompany Sliscus
1 x 5 Wyches in a Venom
1 x 5 Wyches in a Venom

Then my 3rd Venom is used to transport my Incubi and Archon.

So that's the plan, get some loose guns off eBay and have them slung over the back or down by their side, and count down until my Finecast Incubi show up and get them on the blog. I'm hoping for the best with them, so I can start buying some other models, after my Metal-phobia.

Peace,
SB

40KUK Podcast

Hello everyone,

I mentioned this on Monday night, but I've been looking around the net for some Podcasts to listen to at work or whilst driving around, and I've listened to a few that I'm not keen on, however, one that really impressed me with the first episode was "40KUK - The Tournament Podcast".

I listened to the first episode on Monday, where they discussed (amongst other things) Codex: Space Marine's Fast Attack choices. It was a really good listen, I'd recommend it to others.

You can check out each Podcast episode here: 40K UK Episodes

See what you think, and if you can suggest any other good Podcasts, feel free to suggest them on here!

Peace,
SB

Badger's Log - Commissar Yarrick Conversion

Ello,

Quick one again while I remember and have a few mins. Over the last month or two, we've been planning a club demo game for Phalanx 2011, themed around the 2nd Battle for Armageddon, specifically the Battle for Hades Hive.

In doing this, I've had to read up a lot on exactly who was there and also, check out a lot of facts about Commissar Yarrick, like when and how he got all the wargear he has in Codex: Imperial Guard.

To be on the safe side, I needed to make a version of Yarrick as he is in the Guard codex (Battle Klaw, Bale Eye and Forcefield). So after scrambling around on eBay, I pieced together this guy:

His Klaw looks a little big on the pictures, but it's an Ork Warboss's Klaw afterall, so it shouldn't look like it fits Yarrick. I used a Baneblade Tank Commander as the basis, as he came with a robo-eye which gives me his Bale Eye as well.

So yeah, he should be appearing on the battlefield with my Imperial Guard army sometime soon, along with preparations for the Third Battle for Armageddon.

Peace,
SB