Fighting Withdrawal

The lack of supplies and reinforcements has pushed the Defending forces into a corner. They must make a fighting withdrawal to the starport while the Attacker attempts to cut them off and finish them.

Wednesday night I missed the big Bug/Guard dustup, since I was scheduled to play a game with MarioR. We played one of the preview scenarios from Mechani-Kon2 , another local tournament coming up on September 18, put on by AlexB and ThurstonH. Of the three example scenarios, one will be present at the event, so they are a good introduction to the types of missions we will face.

I ran with my Eldar Swordwind. Mario played his Ultramarines, led by Sicarius.

Objectives:
Defender: Hold your ground as long as possible before falling back, escape with as much of your forces intact as possible.

Attacker: Prevent the enemy from falling back, do as much damage to the enemy as possible.

This is a difficult scenario. Six turns in length. The defenders gain VPs only for (1) proximity to objectives calculated at the end of each turn, and (2) for units which withdraw of the table, but only on or after the 4th turn. The attacker gains VPs for proximity to objectives and defender units destroyed/damaged.

We rolled off and the Eldar would defend.

Rats. Nothing in reserve, and all the Eldar skimmers immobile at the start of the game.

Per the scenario rules, I drew an imaginary diagonal line from the northwest to southeast table corners. Three objectives were set up in the southwest half.

I deployed the Dragons and Spiders well forward, to push back the Marine deployment. My plan would be to use the Fire Dragons and Warp Spiders to distract and delay the Space Marines, using the Vypers as a second line of support, also shielding the vulnerable rear armour of the lead Serpents from Deep Strikers. The HQ's hid behind some woods to the south, ready to move up in support of the centre. The Night Spinner and Dire Avengers would lurk in the southwest corner, gaining VPs for the objectives there and shooting at targets of opportunity.



I left a bit of a gap between the Farseer/Autarch duo and the Dragon Serpents. If the Space Marine Dreadnought in its drop pod came down there, it would get a lot of melta love.



Mario combat squadded a unit of Marines, deploying half in some ruins to the north, with a missile launcher. The remainder embarked in their Razorback fighting vehicle, a little closer to the centre of the table.



The Ultramarines started off by dropping their Dreadnought just in front of the objective in the centre of the table. Mario thought about a drop behind the Eldar lines, but gleaned my melta-laden intent. Marine fire killed some Warp Spiders.

In response, the two Dragon Serpents moved up in tandem. One moved Flat Out beside the Dreadnought, capstonong the move of the second Serpent, and blocking movement/fire by the Razorback. The second Dragon Serpent moved up behind and deplyed its Fire Dragons, who blew up the Dreadnought.

The Farseer Fortuned the Autarch and herself, and moved up in support of the Dragons. The Vyper squadron and surviving Warp Spiders moved up and shot up the Combat Squad in the ruins, killing three, including a Missile Launcher dude.

The two Avenger Serpents moved up to the second objective to gain its VPs, but failed to destroy the drop pod with their fire.

The Night Spinner dropped a large blast on the Razorback, failing to damage it, but forcing a Difficult Terrain test the next time it moved.

For their second jump, the Spider Exarch and one Spider jumped back beside the lead Serpent, helping to contest the central objective.



Next turn, the Space Marines received from reserve an Assault Squad led by a Chaplain, and an outflanking Tactical Squad. The jump troops came in from the north. The outflankers rolled and came in from the east, exactly the worst place they could since they would have to move the length of the table to get into the action.

The Razorback declined to move. Instead, the Combat Squad inside the Razorback disembarked to assault the dismounted Fire Dragons. Marine fire pulled the turret off a Wave Serpent. The Fire Dragons lost a man in close combat but their morale held.

The second Fire Dragon unit dismounted. The two lead Wave Serpents pulled back, supported by the Vypers. The Night Spinner also enmeshed the Assualt Squad in monofilament wire. Eldar fire destroyed the Razorback and killed almost half of the Assault Squad.

In the Assault Phase the Autarch assaulted the Combat Squad locked with the Dragons, but only killed one. The Dragons lost another member, leaving a drawn combat.





The Marines then received from reserve an Attack Bike squadron, coming in from the north, Siccarius, who moved up behind them, and a Thunderfire Cannon, which moved on in the northeast corner. Getting revenge for the Razorback, Marine fire wiped out a Dragon Squad; the other Dragon Squad was wiped out in close combat. The Autarch fell back south.

In the bottom of the turn the Autarch rallied and joined the Farseer. They ended up taking cover behind some woods with their second move.



Concentrated Eldar fire wiped out the remains of the Combat Squad from the ruins, and reduced the Assault Squad to just the Chaplain and one jump trooper.



In the fourth turn, the Thunderfire Cannon opened up on the Vypers with a barrage that wiped out the entire unit. Ouch! That's the first time I've lost all three Vypers in a single game. Concentrated melta fire from the Attack Bikes and some lucky close combat rolls destroyed both Fire Dragon Wave Serpents. The Spiders were reduced to just the Autarch.

In just half a turn the game had turned around. With the start of their fourth turn, the Eldar could now start pulling forces off the table. My quandry was in trying to decide what, if anything, to leave behind to further slow down the Marine onslaught. The Eldar had or would gain 350 VPs for objectives, the lone Spider couldn't get off the table this turn, and the Night Spinner was pretty safe in the corner.

The Eldar chose the better part of valour. The Farseer Doomed the Assault Squad and withdrew off the table with the Autarch, followed by both Dire Avenger Wave Serpents. The Night Spinner killed a couple more of the remaining Combat Squad.



The Spider Exarch moved up and gunned down both the Chaplain and the last jump trooper. The Exarch didn't make a second jump, contesting the central objective with his last act of defiance, denying the Marines 50 VPs.



The game's last two turns proceded quickly. The Exarch fell to the guns of the Marines and the Attack Bikes surged forward to control objectives. The Night Spinner withdrew off the table as Mario's Marines consolidated their hold on the three objectives.

At the end of the game, the Eldar had managed to save over half their force for 793 VPs and gained another 350 VPs for objectives, totaling 1143 VPs. However, the Marines themselves gained 300 VPs for objectives, plus the 707 pts worth of units the Eldar lost. 1143-1007=136, shy of the 150 point spread required for a win.

Result = Draw

This was a tense and exciting game. The end was unclear until the final tallies were made.

I liked how each side had some radically different goals. Trying to hold onto objectives added an interesting twist to the proceedings.

It's officially a brigade!

Well, two units plus some kind of command base = a brigade! I finished the basing and flags for my second battalion of Austrians, and also based up the two officers I had painted.

Here are some photos. The latest unit is the one in front, with the green facings.





Here is the brigade-level command base:



Now, it is on to the Grenzers. I finished my first "stick" of these guys on Thursday night. Four down, 36 figures to go...



The Grenzers are Foundry figures as well. I will dig through my Foundry pile in the hopes of finding a pack of mounted officers with Shakos...the Hungarian one could stand in for a mounted officer for the Grenz battalion. Failing that, we'll go with all foot-sloggers for this unit.

Twin-linked Punisher Cannons are great, says Imperial pilot shortly before being eaten

After preparing a Tyranid army in near-record time, Dallas hosted a game of 40k this week, pitting his bugs against a mish-mash of my Imperial Guard. The game was based around one of the soul-less, abstracted non-scenarios from the current 40k rule book, "annihilation", in which victory depends on wiping out entire units from the other side. Each side would have 2000 points worth of stuff, which equals many, many bugs and lots and lots of Imperial Guardsmen.

To give the game plot some actual colour, the Imperial force was split into two - one component was comprised of the Elysian drop troops I have painted to date, and my regular blue mechanized Imperial lads would comprise a relief force. The Elysians would start on the table, holding an objective (Dallas' excellent Imperial Bastion), and the rest would be in reserve.

The Elysians amounted to about 700 points - three squads of veterans, included one loaded down with melta-guns (which are truly awesome - man, am I going to get some more of those guys put together). They were backed up by some fun flying/skimmer vehicles - a Valkyrie troop carrier, and a Vulture gunship mounting twin-linked punisher cannons. The relief force comprised a mechanized platoon with three squads in Chimeras, a squad of armoured sentinels with autocannons, a Leman Russ Vanquisher and a Leman Russ Demolisher.

The Tyranids had...well, lots of Tyranids - big ones, small ones, ones that eat vehicles, others that eat people, some that emit psychic blasts and a particular one that emits some kind of faintly toxic miasma. The one I focused a lot on was the Trygon, an evil, massively large and cool model that appears out of the ground and begins to wreck your sh*t. I am not knowledgeable enough about 40k or the Tyranids to detail the overall force properly, but think this entry from the blog gives a good idea of what was coming for dinner, so to speak. I can assure you it looked damn cool!

Dallas and Mike F. locked in as the Hive Mind, while I rolled with the Imperial side, and Brian H. was on hand to observe and mock all of us as needed.

The game was well-fought draw. I managed to wipe out six of Dallas and Mike's units, and they wiped out a similar pile of my lads. Here are some pictures. My favourite is the Trygon appearing behind the squad of Elysians - was a classic "I've got a bad feeling about this" moment.












(editor's note - Dallas has some great pics too - hopefully he can post when he gets the chance)

Most of the Elysians became calories for Hive Fleet Nostromo, but they gave a good accounting of themselves on the way out. The mechanized platoon did a reasonable job. The sentinels, useful throw-aways, did a great job in tying down a big squad of Tyranid warriors. The Trigon went on a tear, but I think it is fair to say Dallas and Mike were hoping it would eat more than it managed to before my panicked, curse-laden heavy weapon fire brought the thing down. On the other hand, they got to enjoy me freaking out about it, which is hard to quantify as a points value, but certainly can be fun.

Lesson for the Tyranids - don't spread out. You don't need a pincer movement to sit down for dinner. The bugs tried to come from some different angles, and it didn't pay off too well in the end. Another disappointment seemed to be the Zoanthropes (?) - the psychic blast bugs. They had to roll to pass a check to see if they could use their power, then roll to hit...it was a pretty big let-down at times for Dallas and Mike (and, of course, fun for me).

There were several lessons for the Guard. First of all, Veteran squads are awesome. I think I will make my Elysian troops pretty much a veteran concentrated force. Each squad counts as a troop choice. They have a BS of 4, can have multiple special weapons, and you don't need to waste points on junior officers and their flunkies. (Unless of course I got that totally wrong - you never know, as I freely admit to messing up when it comes to the Byzantine rules and regs of 40k codices).

Second, tanks are not as cool as they used to be. I remember a great section from the book "World War Z", where a veteran from the "Battle of Jonkers (sp?)" talked of what a let-down it was to see a tank plant a main round into the Zombie horde and nothing happened. That's what happened to the Imperial Guard in the game, where I would land tank rounds into the big bugs (Hive Tyrant, etc.) and they would simply take a wound. Yikes! It's not like the tanks don't have uses (and the Demolisher wiped out a whole brood of 'stealers in one shot) but I over-estimated the ability of tanks to take out the big bugs.

Finally, Valkyries are fun, and the Vulture with the Punisher Cannons is REALLY, REALLY FUN! It only got to fire one time (understandably, Mike and Dallas spent a lot of effort to bring that sucker down), but that was SWEET. I may need another one of those for the Elysians!

In terms of the overall game itself, playing 40k continues to be a struggle at times as the current rules compel the abstraction of fun while specifying absurdity in great detail. As a house rule, we did away with the utter stupidity that is "true line of sight". I think the next rule we will consider doing away with is the current treatment of blast weapons, in which you roll 2d6 and and a scatter dice, and subtract your model's BS from the result - EVERY TIME YOU FIRE THEM. It is utterly and completely ridiculous, and as a game mechanism, not that far removed from flicking a piece of paper on to the table to see where you hit. Considering the thin regard many current 40k fans have for the game mechanisms of the original Rogue Trader rules (in which nearly all blast weapon shots "deviated") I am surprised they tolerate this absurdity in the current edition.

I also broke a few bolts when I realized that close combat attacks on vehicles are ALWAYS on the rear armour. In hindsight, the rule makes sense - that's what you get for having tanks unsupported by infantry (not that I think a squad of guardsmen would have done much against the !#$!@#$ing Trygon, or that a huge monster is really "infantry", but anyway). I'll keep that in mind next time I roll the tanks.

Of course, no matter how much 40k rules suck, they never wreck cool models and fun opponents! The game was a hoot, and looked really cool. Thanks to Dallas for hosting a great game! I look forward to returning to the table with a full 2000 points of Elysians, completely kitted out with all of their Valkyries...

Black Powder update

I continue to chug away with my Black Powder project. The pile of Austrians is large, but I am excited to report that a second battalion is now closing in on completion. They have been based, and I'm just waiting for paint to settle before doing the final dry-brushing and groundwork and then finally adding the banners. Here are a couple of interim progress shots.



This unit is another monster - 38 foot figures and 1 mounted officer. The figures are all from the Foundry range. I find the Foundry castings to be much leaner (especially on the legs) and way less varied than the Sash & Sabre castings from my first unit. But the Foundry castings are very sharp, with excellent detail. It's still an excellent range.



I am also trying to get some officers ready. Curt's magnificent wedding gift has given my Austrian lads an overall command, but nearly all of the game systems require that brigade and/or division commanders of some kind be represented as well. So I have finished painting a general and a flunky, and will try and base them together on a command stand this weekend.



I found the generals pretty tricky to paint, as I was uncertain on the colours and details that show on a 25mm figure which I would never concern myself with on the 15mm or 6mm figures. Still, with enough gold-ish stuff on their saddles, cuffs and sashes, they look like they should be in charge of something. That seems about right for a brigade-level command to me.

Another thing I have found is that I am also really struggling with the horses - I find painting them in 15mm and 6mm to be a breeze, but the furniture etc. is stumping me at the 25mm level. Fortunately there have been very few mounted models so far. I am going to try and get some artwork to inspire me once I get to the cavalry.

No cavalry for now though - still going to work through the infantry. The Grenzer unit is up next - a beefy grouping of 40 models. Stay tuned for more progress. Long weekends are often a good time to paint, so I'm hoping I can get some good progress on the Grenzers through to Labour Day.

Hive Fleet Nostromo

Another New Insane Project virtually completed!  (I say "virtually" only because no wargaming project is ever completed, is it ;-)

Anyway, here in all of its xenomorphic glory is my new Warhammer 40K Tyranid army, "Hive Fleet Nostromo".  Of course pretty much everyone recognizes the reference from the classic "Alien" movie - "USCSS Nostromo" was the name of the space semi-truck on which Captain Dallas (!) and the rest of the bunch served as crew.  Eventually I might write up some silly story about how the Rogue Trader vessel Nostromo made first contact with this particular Hive Fleet and how "First Officer Rellen Ipley" escaped that encounter and brought news of the Xeno threat back to the Imperium... but that's for another post.

For now, here are some pics of the new army.  They are all standard GW Tyranid models but pretty much all have been converted, either with Chapterhouse's excellent Xeno heads or with my own cack-fisted greenstuff head conversions.  They were painted in a very basic style - black undercoat, heavy drybrush of very dark grey, light drybrush of Space Wolves Grey, boltgun metal for teeth, claws and biomechanical bits, bright green for gooey parts.  I'm really happy with the groundwork colours - Bestial Brown drybrushed with two Ceramcoat colours - "Mudstone" followed by "Sandstone".

The army sits at a bit more than 2,000 points right now:

• Hive Tyrant
• Two Carnifexes
• Trygon
• Nine Warriors
• Five Raveners
• Twenty Genestealers
• Seventeen Termagants
• Three Ripper swarms
• Two Zoanthropes
• "Venomthorpe" (subspecies "Gav")

Tonight I finished some Hormagaunts, spore mines and objective markers, but I also have an unassembled Trygon too.  I'm looking forward to pitting the basic army against Mike's Space Marines (and eventually Dave V's Eldar if I get brave enough ;-)

Lonely Patrol for Battlefleet Gothic

A few months ago, I found on Kajiji an unpainted Imperial fleet for Battlefleet Gothic. The price was decent and I like the look of these little miniatures. So I bought them and I just finished painting them.


Now, the challenge is that: A. I don't know anybody else in Regina who plays Battlefleet Gothic. B. For the moment I don't have an enemy fleet to play against these. So the lonely little ships are patroling around the house trying to find enemies to do battle with.

This is so pathetic! I hope they can soon find an enemy to do battle with! Maybe Curt could help?

Command Stand for Greg

As many of you know Greg and Linda tied the knot this past weekend - congratulations you two! I was honoured to be asked to be one of his groomsmen and so had a great time catching up with Dallas, Greg and his brother Clinton (all the while making sure Greg did not get a wandering eye for the rear exit at the last minute).

For this past month, in getting prepared for the wedding, I was at a loss trying to figure out what kind of gift to get Greg. Finally, it dawned on me that he needed some officers 'to-the-manor-born' (to lead his new Austrians to their destruction) and so I made up a command stand depicting Archduke Charles and some of his aristocratic funkies from an old pack I had from Foundry.

I based them up to be compatible with many of the 'Grande Manner' rulesets that have been published recently. I also made sure to heavily pin all the figures to their mounts and quadruple-coat with the varnish just in case Greg feels the need to fling it across the table when my French roll over his boys-in-white... ;)

Smack Mode: 'Off'