An Old Beakie With A Big Gun

Rogue-Trader era heavy weapon marine with lascannon

We will be playing another game of Warhammer 40k's new 8th edition this week, and my dusty old Crimson Fists will be putting in another appearance on the gaming table.  The setting will shift somewhat, from the familiar nostalgia of Rynn's World and the "Battle At the Farm" to the world of Toxo IV, our sort of go-to setting for general 40k mayhem. I don't recall exactly when our use of this name started - seems to go back to at least 2009 - but we thought the name was kind whacky and did its own bit to convey the warped darkness of GW's far future.

So Toxo IV will be the setting of an encounter between Dallas' foul Chaos renegades, backed by some even fouler Nurgle types, against an Imperial task force that will feature Crimson Fist Space Marines and some Imperial Army types - this is a set-up we have used previously and it has always been fun.  We are going to scale the game up a bit more this week, and bring out some vehicles. 

The studded shoulder pauldron, a classic emblem of old Space Marine figures from Citadel/GW

The presence of tanks, and even worse, Nurgle, means my Marines will need a little bit more punch. A lascannon would sure come in handy...and then I see this guy, who has been sitting, primed, in the pending pile for like four or five years! I rushed him through the painting table late last night, as the weather has finally been nice, and the days in Winnipeg are very, very long right now, and I find myself staying up very late anyway, so it was easy to finish off.

Unique venting system, no backpack on this fellow! Makes it much easier to pose the heavy weapons.

This figure is old school, a pewter Space Marine heavy weapon trooper of the Rogue Trader era.  There is no finer Space Marine figure than the originals with the "beakie" helmets, and metal figures are always the best, so man, was it fun to crank out one of these classic gems. I don't have many of these left in my collection to paint, and they are getting harder to find online, so it was a real treat to relax, put on old music and put the brush to this old, old casting.

You can see the size of the contemporary decals vs. the size of these old castings...looks kind a funny, but I'll take it for now

These old figures had so much character.  One thing that stands out for me with this guy is how he has a unique venting system on his armour, so he does not wear the ubiquitous power armour backpack, leaving more room to swing that big gun around.

Ready for gaming action with his Crimson Fist battle brothers!

I tried to use some decals to mark him out, but of course the scale creep on the decal side has far outgrown the original Rogue Trader era figures - and this is particularly pronounced with Space Marines, as GW's Marine decals have always been too large, even for the later plastic figures (although I suppose they would fit nicely on those hideous Primaris Marines).  I have attempted the odd freehand Crimson Fist symbol, but wasn't up for this time. So I went a bit wacky using the decals, and put the chapter symbol on the leg greaves instead.  He's got a big cannon anyway, so he can do what he wants, right?

Lascannons always come in handy, so hopefully this fellow will be able to blast a renegade tank or Plague Marine with it! 

15mm Battle Report - Control Battalion vs. GZG NAC

A couple weeks back we played an enjoyable game using our house rules, "Red Storm!", updated for use in a sci-fi setting. Greg brought out his awesome "Control Battalion" army and I used some new figures I had gotten from a German TMP member - some very nicely painted GZG NAC and APCs - along with a few I painted especially for the game. The action centred around a sludge production facility on (where else) Toxo IV....

A team of NAC engineers started the game at the sludge plant. Their goal was to retrieve the production data slates and take them off board. I guess the wi-fi was down - but why would they have that giant dish??

The engineer figures are from Rebel Miniatures and their transport is actually a repainted Matchbox vehicle found at Wal-Mart :-)

The rest of the NAC force arrived in transports (mildly converted 1/87 "Fuchs" APCs from Siku). Their goal was to protect the engineers from the approaching Control Battalion forces and facilitate their escape off-table.

NAC transports approach the sludge plant.

But Control Battalion has gotten there first! Cleverly, they fire on and destroy the engineers' transport.

As the engineers scramble to retrieve the data slates, the supporting NAC force hurriedly deploys. A Control tank has just destroyed one of their transports.

View from the Control side. Riflethings are taking cover in the cactus while their armour lights up the helpless softskin truck...

... then blows sky high! What happened??

It was Brian's cleverly deployed NAC heavy weapons team. Brian turned out to be the star general of this game. After dropping off its section, his transport cruised around for a bit, then positioned itself to retrieve the retreating engineers and secure a NAC victory. But we're getting ahead of ourselves a bit...

The situation at the sludge plant. Control has broken through the perimeter and the NAC tries desperately to stem the tide. The few surviving engineers are in full flight.

Brian's section moves up to provide fire support.

Endgame. Brian's APC has made its way to the ad-hoc rendezvous point to pick up the engineers and data slates. Control has been pinned in the middle due to some hot fire from NAC anti-tank weapons.

The APC high-tails it with its iron-ring wearing passengers ;-)

Quite a fun game - thanks to Greg for bringing his awesome Control guys and to the lads for coming out. I'm becoming more a convert to individually based 15mm figures with each game we play...

Elysian Fields (of Fire)

Last Thursday Greg brought out his Valk-heavy 1500 point Elysian Drop Troop army out for a game against Hive Fleet Nostromo, my Alien-style Tyranids. It was simultaneously the first outing for Greg's gorgeous army and for my new-to-me "Stalingrad" resin terrain, this time standing in for the embattled Imperial planet Toxo IV.

Greg's Valkyries and especially his Vulture (Vendetta?) certainly brought the pain with twin-linked Punisher cannons (20 shots re-rolling misses?!?!) but we had similar luck with bringing on reinforcements... "what did we say? All at once. What did we do? One at a time." 

The game ended on Turn 5 as a draw as we both held our own objectives, uncontested. A couple more turns of play would have been interesting - I had an undamaged Trygon set to eat some Guardsmen while Greg still had some mobile troops in Valks flying around. But it was great to see his lads out and to use the new terrain. Regarding the latter, I'm all about cost amortization, so look for many battles to occur in the sump factories of Toxo IV, the ruins of Grozny, and the industrial area of New Putingrad, as well as in Stalingrad ;-)

Ride of the Elysians

Tonight the Elysians will undertake their first full-blown 40k engagement in a 2000 point matchup against the evil Hive Fleet Nostromo.

The Elysians had a small test run in September of last year, but this will be their first game as an all-in detachment. While the standard fate of newly-painted models in their maiden game is well known, I am still pretty fired up to have these guys out for a run.

Let's mount up for Toxo IV, boys!

To mark the occasion, we will set the game in - where else? - good old Toxo IV! I'm sure the Elysians are not that excited to learn they will be deploying there, but orders are orders!

See everyone tonight.

Letter from a Plague Marine

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To: pusgobbet334@scabiethrax.net
From: nurgles_choice@toxo.mil.gov
Date: 0 556 741 M41 21:34
Subject: Hi Aunt Pusgobbet!
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Dear Aunt Pusgobbet,

Mum said that they just installed high-speed at your seniors' complex on Scabiethrax VII. That's great! I thought you might like an email from me with some news, so I'm writing to you about the battle I was just in!

I've been a Plague Marine for awhile now, and it's pretty great, aside from having a runny nose all the time, and the weeping open sores. But you get used to that. It's kind of awesome to not feel pain anymore, either. You know how much it hurts when you get a papercut, or stub your toe? Well I don't. We Plague Marines can't feel a thing. In fact, last week when we were training, Sergeant Oozeblister got run over by our squad Rhino by accident. He wasn't hurt at all! He was just mad that his plasma pistol got kind of messed up and there wasn't time to fix it before the big battle. But that's OK, it turned out he didn't need it anyway.

So like I said, we were in a big battle. It was on Toxo IV, as usual, and we had to fight Space Marines. I thought I might know some of the guys we had to fight against, being that I used to be a Space Marine too, but I didn't. I had my iPhone with me so I took some pictures during the battle, I thought you might like them.

You can hardly see me in this shot, but I'm behind the Spawn carrying the Icon.

When we got to the battle there was hardly any Space Marines there! Just a few scouts in a crater and some guys on bikes quite a way away. So I gave my iPhone to my buddy in the other squad and he took some pictures of our squad. We had to walk to the battle because our Rhino was still busted from running over Sarge, but it was OK because we got to walk behind the two Chaos Spawn we have in our army. Well, it was good because we had cover, but it was bad too, because of what Chaos Spawn leave behind... especially if we have Mexican food the night before a battle. But the cook says that just makes us more special to Father Nurgle, so that's cool I guess.

Here we are at the start of the battle. You can see the Blight Drone behind us. He likes to call himself the "Bile Cyst of Nurgle" but we call him the "bicyclist" as a joke! He doesn't like that - you should see him get all swollen up and hissy. It's a riot.

Here's those Space Marines on the bikes. They put a lot of miles on in this battle - drive up, get shot at, drive really far away, come back, get shot at... right here is just before they all drove away again... then they all got killed.

It was so awesome being the icon bearer because I got to summon the Plaguebearers! They are really gross, even by Plague Marine standards. Also in this shot you can see the last scout about to get eaten by Spawn.

"Down the hatch!" They regurgitated the Scout later and I think he's going to join our squad! His name is Phil, he's actually a really nice guy.

The Plaguebearers are fighting some Space Marines in this picture. We're in the crater behind the Spawn still. Sorry it's out of focus but this was when the Land Raider was coming and my buddy dropped my iPhone, I think.

After awhile Typhus came along with some Terminators! They were totally awesome. Typhus was really on his game, he blew up a Rhino by himself and killed a whole bunch of Space Marine terminators. He probably would've blown up their Land Raider too if he'd had time, but he had to leave right away again. I guess he had something really important to do, he gets teleported everywhere, must be nicer than having to walk around behind a bunch of Chaos Spawn! But anyway, he was really cool and his Wind of Chaos smells really, really bad. And he has a lot of flies around him all the time. A LOT of flies.

I know you don't see many Space Marines in these pictures but I can tell you there were quite a few in the battle, it's just that a lot of them got there late. Like I said, there was even a Land Raider with a bunch of terminators and a chaplain, but they were kinda far away and we weren't in a big hurry to get up close and personal with them, if you know what I mean! But we ended up right near them and we shot at them a lot with our bolters but nothing much happened. Just when we thought we might be in BIG trouble Typhus and the terminator squad came along and totally owned them, it was so cool!

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the photos. I have to go, Sergeant Oozeblister is telling me my armour isn't rusty enough so I have to go put some salt water on it.

Love from your nephew,

Plague Marine Blisterscab

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So, Conscript Mike F. brought over his Space Marines for a battle against my tuned-up Nurgle Chaos Space Marine army. It was a really fun game (for the disciples of Nurgle) but I think a frustrating one for Mike as his Reserve dice did not cooperate with his plan... having a Land Raider full of Terminators and a tooled-up Chaplain is great, but not if they don't arrive until turn 4... The "null deployment" tactic can work great if you have infiltrators and a way to increase the chance the reserves will all arrive at once, but for non-Eldar it's a bit of a crapshoot. Anyhow, an enjoyable evening's entertainment and Mike, your army looks great!

Game This Week

Unfortunately Dallas is indisposed this Thursday, so there will be a game this week at my place. We'll play "Epic 40,000", pitting the Tau against the Orks! And for fun, we may, just may, set this on Toxo IV...



Epic 40,000 was the prior version of the Epic game - it was more abstract, and, in many ways, superior to the current Epic: Armageddon rules. Strange things happen that never happen in other 40k games - like casualties impacting your detachments' staying power, your army breaking when horrible losses occur, etc.



In Epic 40,000 there is abstracted firepower values for the different units/models - no worrying about whether it is a heavy bolter or a missile launcher etc. It makes for a more interesting game in a lot of ways. It is also possible to play with some smaller detachments which tend to get obliterated almost immediately in Epic: Armageddon.

See you Thursday!

After Action Report - Battlefleet Engagement on Toxo IV

Toxo IV - a nice, sulfur sheen in the healthy atmoshphere

Last night the Conscripts assembled for a game of Battlefleet Gothic. For the scenario we decided once again to draw in the hapless Imperial world of Toxo IV. Subject to numerous Ork air strikes, as well as assaults by Chaos and Tau ground forces, Toxo IV was now under a Chaos blockade.

Toxo IV has been causing the Imperial government so much trouble over the past year, many players are wondering at what point the Segmentum authorities would decide that enough was enough, and simply abandon the place to Chaos and whoever else was foolish enough to want it. Driven by the requirements for high-grade sludge which only Toxo IV can provide, however, it was decided to give saving the planet one more try...

The table showing embattled Toxo IV, together with nearby asteroid fields

Alhtough the fluff on the scenario involved a blockade, the game itself was fleet engagement, of approximately 1700 points per side. The objective was to drive off the opposing fleet by crippling or destroying enough ships, or least cripple/destroy more points worth of warships than the enemy.

The Chaos fleet featured a fearsome Desolator class battleship and a variety of cruisers and escorts. Brian and Dave V. took command of the Chaos fleet.

The fleet of Chaos Lord Kruschev the Obnoxious

The Imperial Fleet was anchored around a trusty Retribution class battlewagon. While slower than the Chaos ships, the Imperial fleet featured the heavy armoured front prows and massive amounts of torpedo launchers common to their ships. There was also one cruiser equipped with a dreaded (and fun) Nova Cannon. Dallas and Mike F. took command of the Imperials.

An Imperial Battlefleet is assembled to challenge the mighty Chaos warships

Each fleet had one battleship, several cruisers, including one capabable of launching bombers/fighters, and a squadron of escorts. If you are wondering, the answer is "yes, that is dust on some of the models". I can't remember the last time we played Gothic.

The Imperial fleet divides forces

The Imperials split their fleet, looking to divide the Chaos forces in return. Two cruisers and the escorts would proceed around the asteroid field, while the battleship would lead the balance in a head-on drive toward the enemy ships.

The Chaos fleet lurks around Toxo, attempting to wait out the initial torpedo salvoes from the Imperial capital ships

Chaos responded in a similar fashion, with Dave leading a cruiser division off to meet the flanking force, while Brian led the balance of the fleet into position to bring their longer-range guns to bear on the Imperials.

"The Shizz", flagship of Kurschev the Obnoxious, leads the Chaos battle line of cruisers

The Imperials sniped away with their Nova Cannon, but achieved little other than to land many shots right into the atmosphere of poor Toxo IV. Some stray torpedo salvoes also entered the planet's atmosphere. That place just cannot win...

The Imperial flagship "Hammer of Justice" leads the direct assault on the Chaos battle line

The battleships slugged it out. The Imperial battlewagon took a solid licking from the Chaos lances, but in the end was not crippled. "The Shizz" was not so lucky, and Imperial fire managed to cripple the Chaos battleship.

"The Shizz" struggles under the weight of Imperial batteries - the ship was crippled in the battle, but managed to survive - sans bridge; junior officers are encouraged to watch the Chaos Human Resources deparment for postings involving new bridge officers..

While there was definitely some entertaining exchanges of broadsides, the bomber pilots for both fleets figured prominently in the action, accounting for the loss of a capital ship on each side.

Chaos guns and lances return the love to the Imperial ships; the Imperial flagship took heavy damage, but kept on fighting

In addition to these losses, a Chaos Acheron class battlecruiser was crippled. For their part the Chaos fleet managed to reduce two Imperial cruisers to drifting hulks. Both sides also lost the majority of their escort squadron - but hey, that's what you get for having only one shield and one hit...

In the last turn, the Chaos gunners rolled vegas and reduce two of the Imperial cruisers to hulks; the victims are seen here at the top and the left of the picture

The Chaos fleet really pulled it out in the last turn, when their bombers and gunners consumed a Lunar Class cruiser and an Overlord Class battlecruiser, eeking out a very narrow victory over the Imperial fleet in the process.

The Imperial cruiser "Lord Daros" prepares for an extended stay in dry-dock - note the Chaos cruisers with "lock on" special orders

So while the Chaos Fleet was not defeated, it likely decided blockading the dupes on Toxo IV was hardly worth the cost. As for the Imperials, they likely had to resist the urge to bombard the planet themselves just to rid themselves of the issue. So we'll see what happens next to poor old Toxo IV...

It was really fun to play Gothic once again. The players on all sides did a great job, and the bomber pilots were (almost literally) on fire. In hindsight, I think the game was a bit too big for the evening (four ships a side would have been lots), but it was great to get the battlewagons into action. And the fact that Toxo IV still managed to suffer even more was pretty entertaining as well.

Thanks to everyone who came out, and thanks, as always, to Dallas for hosting!

Game this Week - More Problems for Toxo IV

Just when things couldn't get worse for the poor Imperial Governor on Toxo IV (see here, here and here for just a few examples), the planet has now come under blockade by Chaos forces (real ones, not the "Plague Marines" Dallas puts on a table for a 40k game which end up getting mowed down like fresh hay).

Chaos Overlord Kruschev The Obnoxious has decided that now is the time to strike, and he has led a battlefleet of horrendous Chaos warships into the space around Toxo IV, looking to strangle the already embattled planet of critical supplies.

Chaos Warlord Kruschev The Obnoxious Exhorts his Followers - note that he no longer needs one shoe thanks to Nurgle Foot Rot progression

The Governor of Toxo IV implemented some commissar-assisted rationing, backed by helpful and informative literature.

In addition to these positive things, rationing also helps prevent loyal Imperial citizens from being fed to the sludge factories as 'improvised lubricant'

The governor has sent a desperate plea for help to the Imperial Navy, and a relief fleet has been assembled - can they break the Chaos blockade?

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From the dusty archives of the "Specialist Games" (and my basement) we'll fire up Battle Fleet Gothic. See you this Thursday!