A Grand Day Out

Last Sunday saw me granted a day pass to travel down to Nottingham to Warhammer World to meet up with Matt (he of the Mottblog) for a game and a catchup.  For this trip we agreed to play Warhammer 40K second edition - his Ultramarines vs my Tyranids (you know, that army that I said I would never build).  This would be my first proper attempt at the system, and Matt's first against Tyranids, so it was a learning experience for both of us.

not one of Matt's.  Definitely an imposing chap though

The game saw Matt's marines on a mission to assassinate my Hive Tyrant, with the hope of throwing the invading Tyranid forces into disarray. Little did they know that it was actually a trap, as the Techmarine's scanner revealed bio signals all around him.

The mission cards drawn were, as you might have guessed, Assassination and Trap.  Tyranids have a fun pre-battle stage in second edition where you roll to see whether the opposing forces have been impacted by the Tyranid invasion.  On the whole my rolls for this were sub par, with the notable exception of rolling 'Jones is acting strangely' for the Terminators (insert evil laugh here).  'Trap' also meant I had to roll to see which units deployed in my zone, and which would deploy from the flanks - this went well for me, with two genestealer broods and a termagant brood on the flanks, and the rest deploying as normal - including my Hive Tyrant, who was able to start nicely safe from being shot at, with his three Tyranid Warrior Guards.

The opening turns saw mixed results for both of us.  Jones did indeed act strangely, in the very first turn, exploding within his own armour as the barbed strangler seed he was carrying germinated (fortunately for Matt it didn't spread to any other marines due to his careful deployment).  In revenge, his two assault cannons (one with the terminators, the other on his dreadnought), tore apart my deathspitter armed Warrior Brood and most of a termagant broad.  Those things are nasty, but luckily for me, both jammed early and played little more of a role in the game.

My lictor had deployed with a genestealer brood, and discovered a rather nasty trick (which it would use several times more), of using it's flesh hooks to grab marines and drag them into its accompanying genestealers - with the added advantage of locking their unit in combat so they couldn't shoot (a bit gamey, but we were exploring what you could do within the rules).  

When Matt's marines got to shoot, they were very effective, and I lost all the termagants, and more than half the warriors.  I was lucky to manage to fix a lot of his strength in hand to hand for much of the game, limiting his ability to shoot up my bugs.

A 'reinforcements' strategy card allowed the marines to bring back on the Devastator squad that had been wiped out by the genestealers,  But the last minute intervention of the Tyrant himself sealed the end of the game by wiping out the marine assault squad.  Just about a win to me, 7 VPs to 5 (mostly because my squads were very low costs and so didn't score much).

So, verdict and thoughts on second edition and the armies that were in play.

• It was great fun!  Not weighed down with lots of special rules, and the ones that were there added to the story
• Terminators are tough (as they should be)
• Assault cannons are nasty against anything in the open (I was lucky they jammed and then got stuck in combat)
• the various 'gaunts ('gants?) are weak, but their cost reflects that - I shouldn't expect them to last long
• genestealers and warriors with boneswords are really nasty in combat
• the psychic phase has a nice back and forth, but wasn't really decisive - I see that as a positive, it felt like it was more about trying to get an edge over the opponent rather than a game winner on its own
• My 'nids have a problem with armour.  I was lucky that the dreadnought ended up in hand to hand with genestealers, as they usually won the combat, which stopped the dreadnought hunting the rest of my force, but they were completely unable to damage it.

Great fun with a great opponent, and a great venue, would definitely recommend!

Ratling Snipers

A squad of Ratling Snipers join my old style Imperial Guard forces.

I've had these many years - I bought them when they first came out as part of the significant expansion of the Imperial Guard back in Rogue Trader days.  They already had a paintjob, but it was... of it's time, and needed updating.

In all honesty, the sculpting isn't the best (how are the back three even holding those guns level?), even for it's time, but they remain a fun little squad.

"well I can't shoot it if I can't see it, can I?"

 

Lurker

“Clothes of brass and hair of brown, Seldom needs to breathe. Don't need no wings to fly. Oh a heart of stone and a fear of fire and water. Who am I?”

Internet bragging points to anyone who can identify the link between the post title and the quote above.

Sorry, where was I?  Ah yes, I painted a Tyranid Lictor.

Hilariously, I found an older post where I said I wouldn’t be doing a whole Tyranid army.  That aged well 😂

Same techniques as all my other tyranids, so I will say no more on that.  This was a second and model in finecast though, so I'll blame that for any rough edges.

I was also looking through the Advanced Space Crusade rulebook the other day and wondered if this might be one of the earliest representations of a Lictor (before there was a model).

Chaos Chap! (and metallic armour)

Catching up on some posts and recent work.

A Chaos lad from another Spearhead purchase.  I don't think that I have painted a chaos warrior since my original Kaleb Daark back in the 1980s (he must surely be due a repaint).

Base Coat was Colour Forge Dead Animal bits, with a white drybrush.

All of the armour had a layer of Retributor Armour Gold, which then got a wash of Nuln Oil.  The base armour then had a liberal coverage of Blood Angels Red contrast.  I was hoping to get a nice metallic effect, and I think I got it.  The exposed gold was left as is.

The face initially had several washes of Dreadful Visage, but the coverage on that contrast paint is terrible.  In the end a light coverage of Gulliman Flesh got the effect I wanted.  I think the horns may need a little more shading and colour though.

I wasn't 100% sure on the purple cloak at first (Sigvald Burgundy) but the more I look at it the more convinced I am that it was the right choice to go with something that clashed a bit with the red armour.

Just a quick comment on the miniature itself.  Assembly was pretty easy, although I'm not sure how I'd feel about a whole unit, and there wasn't actually too much detail.  I was a bit nervous that painting would be a chore but, on the whole, it wasn't.  But that does bring me to a sort of criticism.

The multi-part nature of the modern models allows for some interesting posing and lots of detail but, on this one, it also resulted in some parts of the model that were hard or just impossible to paint post assembly - like the backs of the legs, or the inside of the cloak.  Mostly they're not visible, but just sometimes you can glance at them.  The answer would be painting in sub assemblies but that comes with its own issues: (1) I don't want the faff, (2) you can end with miss-matched paintwork or a need to touch up, (3) you can't always tell which bits will be hard to paint.  Oh, and (4) I don't want the faff.

Right, he's off now to collect some skulls for the Blood God, gotta keep meeting those KPIs!

 

Space Hulk Mission 3: Rescue

Alternatively, ‘that darn Cat’.

Although Tuesday Space Hulk has now become a thing at work, I'm still occasionally working through the missions solo.

Up next, mission three - 'Rescue'.  Two terminator squads entering at either end of the board - one must carry the Cybernetically Altered Task Unit to the other end and exit the board.

As the marines were successful in the last game, they started out with the reward that they could use a CP once in the game to prevent the genestealers being reinforced (I'll assume they are able to counterattack somewhere or block off a bulkhead).

nice choke point right in the middle...

"Move out!" (the C.A.T. is centre of the left hand column)

CAT in their possession. Squad Adorn moved off as rapidly as possible, well aware that they had limited time, pushing up two parallel corridors.

Meanwhile, squad Giovan headed in to link up, peeling off their heavy flamer and a storm bolter armed terminator to hold the exit point.

Squad Adorn's Sergeant was the first to engage the 'stealers, taking out a group on the squad's left flank in a brutal close melee, before backing off and letting his own squad's flamer take up the role of defending their rear.  the two marines on the right risked a rush ahead to take the centre ground - a risk that paid off when the nearest contact proved to be nothing but an error on the Auspex.

"Contact!"

"Nothing there, just a false alarm..."

The heavy flamers did the heavy lifting, keeping the exit route clear by roasting any alien that dared enter at that spawn point, while squad Adorn's flamer gradually retreated behind a solid wall of flame that protected the squad's rear. 

"Burn, xenos scum!"

Can you smell burning?

While aliens burned at either end of the board, the rest of squad Giovan fought through the encroaching genestealers in that awkward chokepoint to link up the two squads and provide safe passage for the C.A.T.

"Push through brothers!"

This was the hairiest moment for the marines, and this was the moment they decided to call in to command to intervene. The techmarines succeeded in closing off some nearby bulkheads to slow the flow of genestealers, buying a moment for the two squads to regroup and for the CAT carrying terminator to finally link up with squad Giovan.

With the two squads finally linked up, but the flamers starting to run low on prometheum, (and a fortunate high CP roll), the marine carrying the cat was able to pass through Squad Giovan's perimeter and off the board without a single terminator lost.

I just had to be curious didn’t I...  With the CAT safe, but the genestealers pushing in hard on the flanks, I decided to play on to see how many marines would make it safely off the board (adding no more genestealer reinforcements from this point.  Typically, squad Adorno’s Sergeant was lost in a heroic rearguard action where he gunned down four of the genestealers facing him before his gun jammed and he fell under a mass of teeth and claws.  A terminator from squad Giovan then fell in similar circumstances near the exit point, but was swiftly avenged as the squad’s heavy flamer roasted the offending creatures to cinders.  And with that, there were no more aliens and it was all over.

"Avenge me, brothers!" 

Sergeant Adorn holds off the encroaching genestealers as long as he can

A further marine victory.  The flamers were an absolute star this mission (a trick I have learnt from playing against Tony on Tuesday lunchtimes).

In terms of the benefit for the next turn, I'm going to say that the knowledge from the CAT about the Hulk's layout will allow the marines to arrive early to the next mission and have a turn before the genestealer reinforcements turn up.

Imperial Army Command

 Some more Rogue Trader era Imperial Army minis.  A Captain, lieutenant, medic and sanctioned Psyker join the ranks.

The original lasguns have been shortened.  The lieutenant has the original plastic arms - the rest have combinations from Wargames Atlantic, Warhammer Empire Militia, and the Frostgrave soldiers sprue.

Trying something