Campaign Begins!

For a while now our group has been talking about putting together a Campaign in order to give us something a little more to focus on besides the normal 1v1 or 2v2 battles be had been doing for a while now. Personally I was just looking for a change. So we came up with a slightly modified change to the good old Planetary Empires rules. So what I am going to post here is the first part of Campaign Turn 1. We have chosen our controller sectors and played the first round of Battles.

Here is the Turn 1 Sector Map with the Army holding and Attacks.

Turn 1 Sector Objectives 

Imperial Guard

Sectors – 9

Space Ports - 2 (1 Hive)

Power Station – 2 (1 Hive): 12

Command Bastion – 2 (1 Hive): 16

Shield Generator – 2 (1 Hive)

Manufactorum – 2 (1 Hive): 22

Blood Angels

Sectors – 9

Space Ports – 2 (1 Hive)

Power Station – 2 (1 Hive): 20

Command Bastion – 1 (Hive): 10

Shield Generator – 1 (Hive)

Manufactorum – 1 (Hive): 6

Eldar

Sectors – 9

Space Ports – 2 (1 Hive)

Power Station – 1 (Hive): 10

Command Bastion – 3 (1 Hive): 33

Shield Generator – 1 (Hive)

Manufactorum – 2 (1 Hive): 12

Tau

Sectors – 9

Space Ports – 2 (1 Hive)

Power Station – 2 (1 Hive): 16

Command Bastion – 2 (1 Hive): 18

Shield Generator – 2 (1 Hive)

Manufactorum – 1 (Hive): 8

Turn 1 – Actions

Imperial Guard: Attacked Tau 4,3 Hive – Imperial Guard Win 4+ VP – Sector Secured Failed

Blood Angel: Attacked Eldar 1,2 Space Port - ?? -??

Eldar: Attacked Blood Angel 4,4 – Blood Angel Win 2 VP – Sector Defended

Tau: Attacked Eldar 4,1 Manufactorum - ?? - ??

So we played the first to games this weekend. My Imperial Guard attacked the Tau Controlled Hive sector and I won the battle with something around 7 victory points but still required a 9 on a roll of 2d6 due to the Shield Generator in the Hive to take it. I failed with a 3. Go figure that I smash Austin's Tau and I cannot hold the territory. I completely forgot to get pictures of the battles but I will try to do better in the future. 

G's Eldar also attack the Blood Angels and while the list looked good it was all G could do to prevent Scott's Blood Angels getting the 4+ victory points on defense to get a Counter Attack. If the battle hadn't gone on for a full 7 turns I am not sure G could have done it. Actually I am pretty sure Scott would be counter attacking if it had ended earlier.

I am hoping to get the games army list posted as soon as i can get them together.

Next up, it looks like G's Eldar get to defend their lines against both the Blood Angels and Tau. It seems I get away pretty easily this turn. 

Sister Test Paint - WIP

A while back my daughter asked me to build her a Sisters of Battle army and I said sure. At the time she wanted a them to be pink and black but now that has all changed. Fortunately for me I really hadn't done much with them and I only have enough for the minimum of Allied Detachments.

Seeing as I now have time to do a little bit of painting while my daughter does here homework I figured I would post the first test paint of one of her sisters. This is just the base coats but it is the best I could do with the time I had. At least my daughter is getting her homework done in a reasonable amount of time now.

This is what my daughter agreed upon.

I took the base primed picture more for detail reference for myself since I tend to lose sight of the detail on occasion.

List: Space Wolves vs Tau

So I said I would post the list as soon as i had the chance and Scott came through rather quickly. So here is the Tau list that kicked the puppies.

Darkstrider 100

8 Fire Warriors 72
• Devilfish: disruption pod; twin-linked smart missile system; seeker missile 113

3 Farsight Enclaves XV8 Crisis Team: Bonding Knife Ritual; Crisis Shas'vre (plasma rifle; missile pod; vectored retro-thrusters; shield drone; shield drone); Crisis Shas'ui (missile pod; plasma rifle; vectored retro-thrusters); Crisis Shas'ui (missile pod; plasma rifle; vectored retro-thrusters) 208

3 Farsight Enclaves XV8 Crisis Team: Bonding Knife Ritual; Crisis Shas'vre (plasma rifle; missile pod; vectored retro-thrusters; shield drone; shield drone); Crisis Shas'ui (missile pod; plasma rifle; vectored retro-thrusters); Crisis Shas'ui (missile pod; plasma rifle; vectored retro-thrusters) 208

5 Pathfinders: EMP grenades; Bonding Knife Ritual; Pathfinder Shas'ui (shield drone; shield drone) 104

2 XV88 Broadside Team: Bonding Knife Ritual; Broadside Shas'vre (advanced targeting system; shield drone; shield drone; twin-linked plasma rifles; seeker missile); Broadside Shas'ui (advanced targeting system; twin-linked plasma rifles; seeker missile) 198

And here are the puppies that got kicked.

Rune Priest 

6 man Blood Claws w/ Flamer; Wolf Guard Pack Leader w/ Power Sword; Rhino

2x 5 man Gray Hunters w/ Meltaguns

5 man Scout Squad w/ Camo Cloaks and Meltagun

4 man Wolf Gaurd Terminators w/ 2x Thunder Hammers and Storm Shields, 1x Dual Wolf Claws, 1x Assault Cannon and Power Fist

1 Vindicator w/ Siege Shield

1 Venerable Dreadnaught w/ Helfrost Cannon, Dread Fist w/ Heavy Flamer; Drop Pod w/ Deathwind Launcher and Locator Beacon

The last three of the options on my list were a rather miserable failure. My Terminators love to roll "1"s for Armor Saves. The Vindicator is a pie plate but I have never really done enough hits with it to cover its cost and the Dread was simply poorly deployed. I cannot complain about it since it was my fault. Bad deployment is bad deployment. 

On the other hand my Blood Claws and Rune Priest that accompanied them where rather awesome. They charged a unit of Crisis Suits and wiped them out and then followed up by charging the Broadsides and while they were decimated they did get the Rune Priest in place to charge and then rout them. 

Friday evening beating! Tau vs Space Wolves

So I had a Space Wolves Test Army that I was pretty sure was going to fail and it did. I ran a 1000 point list which included the 500 points that I already had for my wife plus a squad of scouts, a venerable dread in a drop pod, a vindicator, and a additional terminator with an assault cannon. This is not the norm for me since I would rather have more infantry but since I wanted to see how the Drop Pod Dread and Vindicator played with the Space Wolves I decided to give them a try. I must say I wasn't impressed.

So the game took place on a rather cluttered table with lots of ruins and some forest and for the most part I got the advantage but then again I was going up against Austin's Tau. I hate how the Tau can just up a ignore cover saves. The scenario was a Relic run and like the game I played against Scott the week before the game was won by the fact that the Relic and Objective was denied in turn 5. This time though I was the one that got denied. I would like to say that the Dice Gods weren't on my side and complain about this and that but the fact is that I left my left flank open and Austin took advantage of it. There was also a early turn 5 move I could have made to secure the Relic better but I didn't. Austin exploited most all the wholes in my defense and seeing that this was a friendly game when he had questions I answered them. The better he gets the more fun the games will be so since i was just playing to test I had no issue helping him out with questions.

So in the end Austin got his first win, I remember why I don't take Vindicators in lower point armies and need to figure out a better way to deploy reserve troops. The game was fun and hopefully I will get a copy of both armies some time later in the week.

Tau Test Paint - WIP

Scott sent me a couple of pictures of the test paint job he was doing for his son's Tau army. Figured i would share them.

He did mention this morning that they were probably going to go with a Farsight paint scheme for the Tau. Some times it seems you just have to put paint on a model before you can decide if you like it or not.

Blood Angels - 500 Test List

So Scott decided to send me the info on his list from last Friday and I decided I would pass it on and comment.


Blood Angel 500

HQ - Librarian

Troop - 10 man Tactical Squad; Rhino

Troop - 5 man Scout Squad

Fast Attack - 5 man Assault Squad; Drop Pod

Heavy Support - Predator



I must say that between the Drop Pod Assault and the Scouts infiltrating he had me on the defense early on. We were playing with the Relic being the Primary Mission and the Scouring being the Secondary. Scott started with his Scouts deployed 3" from the Relic and the Drop Pod just out of my deployment due to deviation and that is all the luck he seemed to have in turn one. I had a bit more luck in that I one shot his Rhino with a meltagun causing it to explode at max range. It took out 2 Tactical Marines and a couple of scouts.

The next couple of turns were maneuvering and minor casualties due to shooting. Scott's Scout move the Relic towards his deployment and a 4 point objective. We did had an assault between his Assault Marines and one of my Grey Hunter squads which held out long enough for my second Grey Hunter squad to come an assist. At this point Scott had 7 points and I had 5. The only way i was going to win this game was to deny the Relic to him and man did I get lucky with a boltgun shot from close to max range through forest against his last scout with the Relic. I made the shot and Scott failed the save. While we did roll for another turn we came to the consensus the while his Predator could hold the 4 point objective he had no way of grabbing the Relic since I had his only infantry unit locked in melee with my Blood Claws and Librarian.

My Wolf Guard Terminators had a bad Deep Strike and worse armor saves but did a very good job keeping Scott's units from firing at my grey hunters for a couple of turns and let me get my Blood Claws into a good position, but all in all they were nothing more than an expensive decoy. Hopefully I wont get so unlucky with them in the next game.

A New Start and a new army....

So the group seems to be getting back to playing again after a very busy holiday season. We have plans to try out a campaign based on Planetary Empires with a couple minor changes though I think we are still a couple of weeks out on that due to scheduling. The big news isn't the fact that we started up playing again or the campaign but the fact that after a year or so of talking about it I have finally started working on my wife's Space Wolf army.

I got a base 500 army built for her and play tested it last weekend against Scott's Blood Angels. The games was friendly since we were both trying to learn an army since this was his first game with the new codex and i haven't played Space Wolves since 2nd Edition.


Space Wolf Core 500 

HQ - Rune Priest

Troop - 2 x 5 man Gray Hunters w/ Meltagun

Troop - 5 man Blood Claws w/ Flamer; 1 Wolf Guard Pack Leader w/ Power Weapon; Rhino

Elite - 3 man Wolf Guard Terminators w/ 2 x Thunder Hammers and Storm Shields and 1 x Pair of Wolf Claws


I do have a test list for 1000 points that will most likely see a revised 1000 Blood Angel list this weekend. The test list isn't what i am looking for in the Space Wolves but it will be good to see a couple of options that I wouldn't normally take with my Dark Angels but I have no issue using with the Wolves.