Warhammer 30,000: Week 5

Neither of the two blood angels player showed up for week 2 of the blooding of Signus. It didn't really matter though, since Aventine didn't bring his mutants for the other half of my LatD army. No big deal, instead I just hung out and watched several of the games being played, mostly the Dropsite Landings at Istvaan V, as Sam, proxying his fallen Dark Angels army for the forces of the Iron Hands, attacked bunkers held by the Death Guard (Bigred) and World Eaters (Adam) legions. The Blitz mission rules reward a highly mobile attacker, and in that regard the Iron Hands were in very good shape. Sam always fields tons of rhinos anyway, all with fisty/melty tac squads riding inside, and for this game he rounded out his 3000 points with a vindicator, a land raider, and three or four terminator squads that all teleported in very early in the game. I got to see some heavy casualties (and several World Eaters plasma overheats - must have been a bad batch) being inflicted on both sides before I left for the night.

Warhammer 30,000: Week 4

Well, as will sometimes happen when you’re playing a sprawling, ambitious multiplayer campaign, this week’s installment of Warhammer 30k didn’t turn out exactly as I expected. The Blood Angels player didn’t show up, so I went ahead and played a game against a walk-in, namely Nick with his chaos army. I suppose I could come up with an extremely creative narrative to explain why a mixed force of already heavily corrupted Death Guard and Tzeentch Raptors would be fucking about on Signus instead of the Blood Angels, but I’m just not up to it today. In any case, I was grateful for the opportunity to play with the LATD list (thanks again to Aventine for his glorious, livestock-toting mutant horde), and I’ll simply consider the game a warm-up for the real thing next week, if Brian shows up that is. Nick had a bunch of smallish squads in rhinos, mostly plaguemarines, with a couple squads of raptors flying around. The tar pits worked just like they were supposed to, but the new plaguemarines are very tough to beat without power weapons, and the mutants could usually only inflict one or two casualties a turn while taking four or five themselves. As a result, they would inevitably lose combat, fail leadership, and get run down by sweeping advances; this happened with both of the mutant squads as well as the big mutants. The greater demon arrived on my third turn, failed to kill a rhino, and was brought down by two flying sorcerers and their insipid force weapons (at least a mutant squad was able to kill one of them in return). I was able to occupy most of his force until the very last turn when he grabbed a third building to make the game a draw.

Paging Ka'Bandha! Ka'Bandha to hospitality!

I'm excited about my matchup in this week's installment of the Horus Heresy campaign - the blooding of Signus. I was going to roll with the Witch Hunters again but I finally decided that they just weren't chaotic enough to represent the khorny minions of Ka'Bandha. So instead I'll be borrowing a couple mobs of muties from Aventine and teaming them up with my guard and chaos models to field a Lost and the Damned list, complete with a greater demon at the head. I'm going to scramble to try and put together some sort of captive blood angel to use for the demonvessel. My bloodletters will get to participate as well, but I'm going to use them as big mutants rather than the lame demon packs. We will actually have two weeks to fight this big battle out - this week's scenario is Firesweep from the Cities of Death ruleset. I know what one of my strategems will be! Can you guess?

HQ

Greater Demon

Chaos Aspiring Champion

ELITES

8 Big Mutants

TROOPS

10 Traitors - agitator, plasma gun, autocannon

10 Traitors - agitator, plasma gun, autocannon

10 Traitors - agitator, plasma gun, autocannon

10 Traitors - agitator, plasma gun, autocannon

20 Mutants - mark of khorne

20 Mutants - mark of khorne

FAST ATTACK

10 Traitors - agitator, plasma gun, heavy bolter
Chimera - multilaser, hull heavy bolter, extra armor

10 Traitors - agitator, plasma gun, heavy bolter
Chimera - multilaser, hull heavy bolter, extra armor

Hellhound - pintle heavy stubber, extra armor, dozer blade

HEAVY SUPPORT

Leman Russ - hull heavy bolter, sponson heavy bolters, pintle heavy stubber, extra armor, dozer blade

Basilisk - indirect fire, extra armor

Warhammer 30,000: Week 3

Dire Portents this week, as the Warmaster gathers to him his most trusted brother Primarchs and their legions. During an attack on forces loyal to a traitorous planetary governor, the Death Guard and World Eaters discover a strange ziggurat near a former listening post in the (apparently) frozen wastelands of Istvaan Extremis. As they begin to search the area they come under attack by a human army led by a potent mutant psyker, a.k.a. the Warsinger, a.k.a me! We decided to represent the Warsinger with a model from Aventine's collection - his zealot leader - using the mutant psyker rules in the Witchhunters codex. In exchange for her cost plus the three available psychic powers, the Death Guard took an additional land speeder. It was a rather poor trade in the end for the soon-to-be traitor legions... muahahahaha!

Deployment

For our random special mission we drew "Rescue." The legion players, Bigred (Death Guard) and Adam (World Eaters) decided to use the corner deployment, choosing the one with the most mystery tokens nearby. Apparently there's some dispute over whether your opponent has to also use corner deployment if you do, but it wasn't worth bothering about so I just used a corner too. The Death Guard and World Eaters color schemes looked really great together as they deployed their tac squads along the inside borders of their corner. I basically mirrored them with my infantry squads. It would be a dead sprint to find the right token!

Turn 1 & Turn 2

I rolled to go first. Given the corner deployment zones there had to be a lot of movement before anything really heated up. However, at the end of the second turn, I turned over the very first token and it was the objective! The Warsinger's quarry (a mysterious box) was very nearly in her possession. Of my reserves I only had my hellhound and one sentinel come in. The rest of the Istvaan guard infantry moved forward and hunkered down to wait for the approaching legions.

Turn 3

Turn 3 saw the arrival of the command HQ elements, including heavy weapons and mortar teams, as well as the last two sentinels and one of the veteran squads. My heavy tanks were still waiting in reserve! The squad with the objective passed it off to the command squad behind them. The HQ chimera drove out to supplement the forward lines, and most of the infantry squads got shots off at nearby enemies, dropping a few marines here and there (no thanks to a succesful prayer from Garro as Bigred used his special faith point to give the big Death Guard infantry squad invulnerable 3+ saves). The hellhound helped to inflict heavy casualties on the large World Eaters tac squad, but shortly thereafter a Death Guard landspeeder arrived and killed the flame tank with a precision multimelta shot. The legions' precious Land Raider arrived chock full of Berzerkers, including Khârn, and moved up towards the main event about to go down in the center of the table.

Turn 4

The command squad holding the objective ran back towards my table edge, and the Command HQ's chimera drove forward in front of them, moving into position to cover their retreat from the main body of the marine forces. The heavy armor arrived and reduced the Death Guard squad to less than a "decade." A World Eaters combat squad botched an easy target priority test to kill the objective-carrier and had to shoot at the closer infantry squad, wiping them out. They are indeed the Shaq legion! One of the Death Guard landspeeders pulled up right in front of the guard frontlines and wiped out 6 or 7 traitors with their heavy flamer. Then their dreadnought penetrated the chimera's hull but could not wreck it. The command HQ, including the Warsinger, jumped out but passed their pinning test like champs. The Death Guard and World Eaters infantry charged into combat with the traitorous guardsmen - the World Eaters wiped out their opponents completely and followed up into a sentinel, but the Death Guard were bogged down in the last three members of an infantry squad. They were in perfect position for my Warsinger to bring the pain.

Turn 5

Time left for the legions to stop and retake the objective from the Warsinger's forces were running out. Heavy bolters on one side of my lines shook one landspeeder, and lascannon teams destroyed both weapons on the other. Two of my sentinels came around from cover, one shooting the nearby crippled landspeeder and missing, and the second took a chance shot at the heavily obscured back corner of the World Eaters land raider. Three sixes later: KABOOM! The legions were stunned in the face of such a tragedy, and could only watch as a mighty machine spirit went up in smoke. As the Death Guard began to realize the hopelessness of their situation, the Warsinger pounced and used her mutant powers to turn them against one another. Four Death Guard fell by their own hands, and the legions decided to withdraw. Garro himself was grievously wounded, and the Warsinger and her minions were victorious... for now.

Rescue was a double edged sword for me - the other two special missions could have been total disasters (especially night fight with those Berzerkers and Land Raider). But I also got really lucky when the objective token happened to be the closest one to my deployment. After that it was just a matter of running away from marine shooting, and I got lucky again with some of those World Eater misses (thanks guys). This was probably the most fun week yet of the campaign, but next week promises to be even crazier, with the bombing of Istvaan III. I even feel as if I had some hand in provoking that legendary tragedy!

Warhammer 30,000: Week 2

The second week of the campaign featured a lot of soon-to-be traitor legions whupping up a little overzealously on faithful worlds. Given that the names and places of these have been described in more detail in the fluff than most of last week's matches, the stuff I wrote up beforehand didn't really apply. Oh wells, I still had a couple of interesting games against two tough legions with the 2000 point witch hunter list I brought.

My first game was against the Luna Wolves, playing the Rescue scenario, as they swept the wounded Warhamster, er, I mean Warmaster, to safety from one of the moons of Davin. My forces represented the Davinite Cultists, in the middle of a surprise attack on the Wolves' positions. I inflicted a few casualties in the beginning, and I believe my Seraphim and sisters managed to drop one of the special characters, but his drop pod squads really made the whole thing a non-starter. Once he discovered the correct token, Abe's drop pods were able to land directly onto the objective, shuffle it around in his marine squads and move it backwards. I didn't take any pictures, as the DreamBlade boxes he pulled off the rack and used for his drop pods just looked a little too retarded to be captured for posterity. I mean, I understand you do what you have to do, but I just think posterity would have been disappointed. Anyway, after he moved the objective out of my reach we called it early, Luna Wolves win.

The second match was against Jon's Night Lords, as they attacked the previously compliant Imperial world of Anargo. We played an alpha night fight mission. Nightfighting was always in effect, using table quarters as the objectives and deployment zones. We both deployed in two main wings, his bikes, vets, dreadnought, and assault squad heading towards my seraphim, assassins, repentia, sisters, retributors, and inquisitor retinue, and on the other side,
his infantry squads and land speeders against my exorcist, penitent engines, storm troopers, and another squad of sisters. I managed to play rope-a-dope for nearly the entire game, inflicting damage on units here and there and trying to stay out of his grasp. It was a very challenging game; perhaps without Night Fight I might have been able to get enough early shooting in to prevent myself from being so inevitably overrun. Probably the most fun part was launching into the oncoming bike squad with the last few repentia and two of the death cult assassins, wiping them out, then sweeping into his deep striking terminators and teaming up with the Seraphim to take them out. The Eversor and third death cult held off the veterans and brought them below scoring. I was contesting every quarter until I failed four or five armor saves on my retributors in his last turn, bringing them below 50% and giving up the home table quarter. Night Lords win a really great game.

I witnessed my first game of Apocalypse being played between Mkerr and Bigred from BOLS. It was a massive 5000 point battle pitting a ton of Death Guard and a titan against a large Witch Hunter/Guard force. It looked very cool but perhaps a little tedious, but as I was playing my two games I didn't really watch enough to get a feel for the mechanic. You can read Red's specific comments on the game here. The BOLS rundown of 30k Week 2 is here.

In Defense of the Priory Scarlet: Witch Hunters 2000

I'll be taking this 2000 point Witch Hunters list to the second week of the Warhammer 30k campaign, being played at Battleforge. It's a pure list, focusing mainly on close quarters fighting, using all of the WH assault models I have - the Cannoness, Seraphim, Repentia, Engines, and Assassins - as well as some core troop and support units to back them up. It's the best I could do at representing a loyal crusader force about to be betrayed and viciously attacked by the Emperor's 8th legion, the Night Lords. With night fighting in effect, I have no worries that this one's gonna be a bloodbath!

HQ:

Canoness - blessed weapon, jump pack, inferno pistol, cloak of st. aspira, mantle of ophelia, frag grenades, book of st. lucius

Inquisitor Lord - liber heresius, carapace armor
Retinue - 2 chirurgeons, 3 heavy bolter servitors, 1 acolyte with carapace armor

ELITES:

6 Repentia
Mistress
Priest - power weapon

1 Eversor Assassin

3 Death Cult Assassins

TROOPS:

10 Sisters of Battle - meltagun, storm bolter, imagifer
Veteran Sister Superior - book of st. lucius

10 Sisters of Battle - meltagun, storm bolter, imagifer
Veteran Sister Superior - book of st. lucius

10 Storm Troopers - 2 flamers
Rhino - smoke launchers

FAST ATTACK:

10 Seraphim - 2 flame pistols
Veteran Sister Superior

HEAVY SUPPORT:

2 Penitent Engines

1 Exorcist - extra armor

10 Retributors - 4 heavy bolters, imagifer
Veteran Sister Superior - book of st. lucius

The Treachery of the Legio VIII

“Praetor Tomas, there are men here from the borderlands that urgently wish to speak with you. The colony at Vilneus has been laid to waste, sometime in the night! One of them swears it was the work of the legions - had a look at them himself, he says!” Getting no response, Nicodemus licked his lips and collected himself. “They await you in the Epistolary, Praetor.” He retreated backwards through the reliquarium door with a deep bow, closing it behind him. The Praetor did not look after his assistant, but remained apparently motionless on his meditational slip. A closer look might have revealed that the aging magistrate was shaking in his robes. He was, in fact, terrified.

Skar! Praetor Tomas cursed quietly in the old tongue. The Astartes commander had assured him not three days ago that he would have the rest of the month to deliver the regular tithes. Now it appeared their time was up, and they would all likely be dead come next nightfall.

The audacity of it all! Why, there were none so loyal in this sector as the Priory Scarlet! Had this very mission not reclaimed scores of human worlds in the past 300 years? In their glorious history, had they not overthrown vast hordes of defiant militiamen, scourged forgotten tribes of mutants, and pushed back the cursed xenos time and time again? Why, the Emperor himself had recognized the Priory specially, granting them the blessed armor that had so protected their faithful in the countless battles of their crusade. And now one of his trusted legions was attacking them over what amounted to nothing more than a slightly late harvest?

Bah! The outriders of the Priory Scarlet had been wielding boltgun and flame in their righteous quests long before these arrogant goliaths, these overgrown psychopaths, started roaming the stars, dispensing their cruel and twisted sense of justice with no fear of retribution. If he and his fellow crusaders were destined to die, it would be in glorious battle! They would raise such a din as to wake the sleeping Emperor, perhaps make him realize the imminent danger inherent in loosing such powerful madmen upon his kingdom. True, the angels of death had earned fearsome reputations as merciless deathbringers, but the Praetor’s own ranks were filled with fearless devotees, lunatic martyrs, and arcane machines of death that had successfully purged three death cults in the past month alone! Well, perhaps not so much purged as absorbed, but it was all really a matter of perspective in the end, was it not? The most dire fanatics were easily brought from one cause over to another, and he would surely need their special talents in the hours to come if they were to have any chance of surviving.

He stood up with a speed belying his age, gathered his robes, and strode to the door. There were many preparations to be made, and time was of the essence – they would soon have guests to entertain!

Warhammer 30,000: Week 1

Today was opening day in the Horus Heresy campaign being played out at Battleforge Games, using the ruleset developed by the folks at Bell of Lost Souls. I was promised by Bigred that if I brought my Guard I'd definitely get a game, and that's just what happened. I used the old citywide Tiefwalder army, with the dozer blade switched over to the standard Russ instead of the demolisher. Chris and Amos teamed up their small pre-heresy legions to try and bring to heel what would eventually be one of the most loyal and valuable system of planets in the Segmentum Obscuris.

*Wayne's World flashback sound*

Way back when, the Walder system was defended by the Gruene Wehrmauer, the extremely well-armed militia of Kronprinz Chamblais, ruler of Hauptwald. And they didn't have Leman Russes or Leman Russ Demolishers, but rather Hauptpanzers and Megapanzers. Who is this Russ guy anyway? And more importantly, who the hell are these highly armored pituitary psychos that are laying siege to Eiswald, the furthest populated planet from the system's sun? Apparently, they're some of the so-called Emperor's finest: Space Marines from the Salamanders and Thousand Sons legions. Shit, they look mean! And brr! We should have brought sleeves!

The forces on both sides declared battlefield objectives and set out to secure and control them, ready to open up on anything that moved. As the Wehrmauer moved into position, they were suddenly attacked by a wave of Space Marines along a wide front. Ordnance, rocket, and heavy bolter fire ripped through the defenders, who came about and returned the favor as best they could. The Wehrmauer poured it on thick and managed for the most part to keep the invaders at bay.

One giant warrior, leading a large squad from one of their transport vehicles, actually charged the flamethrower tank and set about it with a giant powered hammer, but was thankfully unable to damage it. His squad was roasted alive for their trouble, though the last heroic survivor managed to stagger off a short distance before Hauptwalder ordnance and anti-infantry fire finished him off.

The Emperor's soldiers were able to mow through the Wehrmauer foot troops with ease, but they were rather ill equipped to handle Hauptwald's fine heavy armor. The Lema... er, Hauptpanzer, went down in the end to a squad of Thousand Sons terminators pulling the ole lightning claw rear admiral, but by then the guns of the Hauptwald pride had reduced the arrogant invaders to a few loose stragglers. Unfortunately, those won't be the last bunch of maniacs this hippy hair, gold-wearing nutbag sends to Walder. The resource-rich system is too valuable an asset to let languish out of his reach. They'll be back.

Word around the solar system is that the Emperor's legions ran into similar trouble on a planet called Mordia. You might want to put some training wheels on those Rhinos before you send 'em our way, big guy!