The painting (at least getting things "table top quality") is done, the basing is done, everything fits on my not very spectacular display board, and I'm ready to roll!
I do have a few more things I'd like to get done:
Many of those Horrors are missing arms or tentacles or horns or something...life in a cardboard box lid can be hard! I'm going to try to get their missing limbs reattached.
I've got a few dozen models I'll be bringing in case I roll the 12 on the warpstorm, or in case I choose to Portalglyph in some mission. These are all on Square Bases, so I'd like to get them on Skulls too!
I need to make something to be "craters" should the Soul Grinders explode!
But what I'm really lacking is some way to transport these guys! Those boxlids aren't so bad for going to the club, but for a multi-day roadtrip gig, something a bit more sturdy is in order! Oh well, I guess my guys are screwed!
So here's a few shots of the completed army on the board. Those of you that know me know that I'm not big on trying to aim for best painted, but I like things to be "table-top" quality with minimal fuss. I think I've done that here, thanks to Army Painter Quickshade and a lot of help from the wife and daughter!
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| Barbie Dogs, attack! |
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| The intent was to have evil crab-clawed Barbies...didn't work out too bad! |
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| How many different versions of Hounds can you spot in there? |
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| The stars of the show: Larry, Daryl, and Daryl! |
This week at the BFS club I played Ed Miller and a terrifying Space Marine / Imperial Guard list:
Librarian (Null Zone, Force Dome)
Librarian (Null Zone, Gate of Infinity)
5 Tactical
5 Tactical
Thunderfire
Thunderfire
Stormtalon
Stormtalon
Allies:
Company Command Squad
Platoon: (5 squads, each had meltagun, sgts with meltabombs and power axes)
Platoon: (5 squads, each had meltagun, sgts with meltabombs and power axes)
Vendetta
Manticore
Wow!
The missions was 5 objectives (Nova-style placement), triangle deployment. I won the roll and had Ed go first.
Sadly, I was too busy chit-chatting to take any pics, so a brief description of the game...
He put the Manticore and Thunderfires deep in his deployment triangle, and spread the blobs out to cover the entire width as deep as he could, at max spread.
I put Grinders center, Seekers behind them, dogs on either side of them, Horrors behind them (with Herald more central) and deep striking the Daemonettes.
I scouted so that nothing would be within 36" of the manticore on first turn. He went first, and moved backwards, lobbed a few thundrefire shots that did little due to nightfight. Manticore had no targets. I'd rolled the -1 to Invulns, and the Grimoire failed on my lead Grinder, so I made a traffic jam in my middle trying to get a cover save for him. Her...it?
I moved up to 18.1" away. I got Grimoire on one unit of Hounds (these were far on my right, kind of unsupported, where I hoped they'd hold him up on that side long enough for me to roll up the other side).
He got only one Stormtalon on. It went after Grinders, but did only 1 glance. Manticore went after Grinders also, doing 1 pen which immobilized the already wounded one. Guardsmen moved back up to where they'd started the game and did some FRFSRF action at the dogs. One unit came out pretty unscathed, the Grimoire'd unit also took thunderfires, but wasn't too bad off, with 9 dogs left.
I moved for the assaults I wanted...the damaged dogs going in to one blob, with the other dogs and seekers going in to the other. And Lo! the Warpstorm chart cometh! I rolled Rot, Glorious, Rot...nice! Nothing of mine is affected, but Nurlge goes CRAZY on him, killing 5 and 4 from the blobs, 3 Marines from one squad, and doing a hull point of damage to the Manticore!
Great, right?
Wrong.
Since he was able to allocate the wounds, he removed the blob models closest to my assaulting units, making my high-probability 5'ish inch charges go to 8 and 9 inches...and the supporting Seekers were now 10" out!
At least my Soul Grinders and Horrors were able to kill the Stormtalon!
Undaunted (and with no real other recourse), I tried to go in anyway. Only the mostly-intact unit of dogs made it in, the Seekers and other dogs did not. The combat went well for me, but the Prescience and Grimoire on the other dogs was mostly wasted.
His shooting of course was brutal. I lost almost half the Seekers, only 2.5 dogs lived from the rapid fire lasguns and thunderfires. Without Grimoire, they'd be dead. Vendetta and Manticore went after Grinders again...the already damaged guy suffered only one more pen, losing his mawcannon. The Hounds kept grinding thru the guardsmen they were fighting, winning for the second turn..but...ATSKNF.
My next turn was something of a last gasp effort to tie up the blobs long enough for me to secure objectives and leave them too far to get to some. The remaining Seekers went to help the Hounds; while the 2.5 hounds were Grimoired again and went to see how long they could last against a blob on their own!
But not completely alone, as the Nurgle Grinder (who was Prescient) killed 10 with some precision shooting! The dogs only took one wound total, and managed to kill 3 winning combat, but...ATSKNF. The Seekers and other Hound unit left only the Librarian and a handful of guardsmen alive, to hopefully die on his next turn...
...which sadly we didn't really have enough time to do. He did some shooting, destroying one unit of Nettes trying to hide behind a hill for an objective, and leaving another Nette unit with just 1 model. The Vendetta deposited 10 Guardsmen on the central objective. We kind of skipped the assault phase, as we had to clean up.
But we figured the two soul grinders, two horrors units, and Daemonette unit nearby would wipe out the 10 guardsmen and secure the middle objective for me; my Jetbike guy could zoom out and contest one of his objectives, giving me 2-1 on objectives.
If the game went another turn, though, his artillery was still strong enough to remove two more troop units, and now I'm in a bad way!
So, a great learning experience, spending more time chatting and goofing off than anything...which is how it should be! A great time playing with Ed! Thanks for a great game, sir!
I've also been getting my weekly beating by Neil, last night's game was my least unsuccessful effort yet, with an outside chance to pull out a win if the dice-gods will favor me!
He's using some very fun Tau toys with Space Wolf allies:
Ethereal
2 units of 8 Fire Warriors
3 units of 10 Kroot + Kroothound
2 Riptides (Ion Accelerators, Fusion Blasters, Skyfire, Interceptor)
2 units of 3 Broadsides (Missile Pods, 2 Missile Drones per unit)
2 units of 7 Pathfinders
and Allies:
Runepriest (TDA, Combi-melta)
Runepriest (TDA, Combi-melta)
5 Grey Hunters (Meltagun, Wolf Standard, Droppod)
Lonewolf (TDA, Chainfist, Stormshield)
Our game is Killpoints, Dawn of War, straight-forward stuff. I won the roll and chose to have him go first (I wanted to take advantage of Nightfight and his deployment as much as I could). He castled up in the top left, I deployed in the bottom right (trying to use LOS blocking central terrain to minimize early shooting).
I deployed unsoundly, with the Seekers too far away to affect anything early, and ended up going in piecemeal...but I'm in position now that he's only got the Lonewolf to deal with Soulgrinders, and my two Slaanesh Grinders are in position to template down FW and Kroot with impunity for a few turns.
Highlight for me was having 15 Fleshhounds charge a Riptide, Riptide failed to hit, Hounds did 1 unsaved wound, Riptide failed his Morale and was run down...
...which left those Hounds in RP range of a LOT of stuff, and now there's only 1 and he's running away like a girl :)
Soul Grinders are really good, for those that haven't figured it out yet. They of course have bad matchups (what doesn't?)...T6 Monstrous Creatures, anything with Melta that gets close...but overall I think they're an absolute steal for ~170 points!
Here's some fun math for you, a Daemon Prince vs. a Grinder...
now I'm not going to give either model the benefit for charging, this is just a vacuum test. The DP would have a hard time charging a Grinder that's surrounded by stuff (I wouldn't just let them charge me, right!?) likewise a DP is only going to be charged if he fails a grounding test. So, for sake of argument, neither gets the benefit of charging.
The DP Smashes, so has 3 attacks, hitting on 3s, so 2 hits. He needs a 4+ to Pen, with reroll that means 1.5 penetrations. The Soul Grinder saves 1/3 of those, so 1 Pen...and only 1/3 of those will kill the Grinder, so .333 "destructions" per round of combat.
The Grinder swings back, 4 attacks, 2 hits, 1.666 wounds, 1.1 unsaved INSTANT DEATH wounds. Prince dies, Grinder walks away giggling.
Of course, the Prince might have Iron Arm, or Armorbane, or rerolls to saves, or something...but overall, that's not a matchup I'm quite as worried about as I once was.
So, I'm heading out in a few hours. Wish me luck, hope to see some of you there!
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