28 February 2011

Wave Assault – The battle

So we decided to play the “Wave Assault” from the Mission Book. The day started out with me lining up all my Tyranids into the three groups for the assault, one for each front while Mike and Darryn deployed there Space Marines and Eldar into their deployment zone. Separating my list into three groups was a bit of a mind bender, with synapse range to consider I had to split my force up. I went for two stronger groups and one small groups with a little punch, in the form of Zoanthopes.

Wave1

Space Marines and Eldar deployment, a formidable force including 4 Gave vehicles and 2 Space Marine Predators.                                Wave2 Wave3

My first group deploy along the left flank , with Mike’s Death Company dead in their sites. But all those vehicles not far behind were a little daunting.

Wave4

Mike’s Death Company take a pounding from my first round of shooting as the Dice God’s laughs as Mike fails lots of saves.

My Tervagon spawns 10 more grunts but rolls a double and stops spawning for the rest of the game. I lose a few Termagaunts in the shooting round but nothing else is in range so an easy and quick turn 1.

Wave5Wave6

Turn 2 see’s one of Darryn’s Gav Tanks zooms in and deploy some troops right in front of my 32 Termagaunts giving them something to shoot at and with a Space Marine Dreadnought steaming forward into position. My Tervagon charges the Gav Tank and managed to completely miss everything. My second group deploys along the front, including my Hive Tyrant and a Tyrgon Prime and lots of troops. They poured in, engaging a squad of marines, and my Genestealers assaulted the Predator. This turn saw my Tyranids take a massive pounding. The Baal Predator flamed 80% of my Gargoyles before they even got to shoot at anything and the ripper swarms got barbequed quickly. My genestealers got completely decimated after the damaged Predator limped off leaving them in the open to be cut down by the Eldar.

Wave7

Turn 3 sees the rest of my Tyranids deploy on the right flank, with all the shooting failing. To short or just simply missing or those damn Medic’s and Armour saves. Then in my Ravenors assault and hit on every roll only to have them all.. yes all save, unfortunatly they take one wound and end up fleeing.

We battle it out until turn 5, at which point most of my Tyranids are dead, with my Trygon and all my heavy support dead in turn 4, I have no way of taking out the vehicles as the Dreadnought stomps though my remaining troops.

All in all a really fun game, a great mission to play with lots different things to think about. My lack of play and remembering the rules meant I missed out a a good few dice rolls in the first few turns, but I don’t think it would have changed the outcome. The combination of Eldar and Space Marines was down right nasty especially with what Mike and Darryn fielded. looking forward to the next game,

27 February 2011

The Swarm : 'Wave Assault' mission

Darryn has written up this Prelude for our 3000pts game tomorrow. Tyrainds vs Space Marines and Eldar.
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Captain Laevinus regarded the ancient Xenos structure. It certainly didn't look like any transport machinery used in the imperium, which would be humming and sparking, the air pungent with the aromas of the incenses and unguents of the acolytes of the machine spirit. In contrast, this machine looked like nothing more than another old ruin, though he could not deny that it was responding to the Eldar group around it who were, of all things, singing at it.

The Farseer's melodic voice cut through the music - though even this, mused Laevinus, seemed only to enhance its beauty, "It will take the bonesingers some time to complete their task. I suggest that your men take up defensive positions, the enemy will be here soon". Laevinus regarded the Eldar through narrow eyes. Though it was true that she had not yet demonstrably lied to him at any point, he knew that the aliens' reputation was of untrustworthiness, and she still refused to tell him what the Eldar were doing on Altus 4.

Laevinus had come to the planet after the governor had put out an emergency call to help quell a rebellion which had taken over more than half of the planetary defence force. When the strike cruiser 'Litany of Vengeance' arrived, they had found the planetary palace under siege. After clearing the immediate threat, Laevinus force tracked down the leaders of the revolt and dropped directly into their headquarters, determined to strike at the heart of the cancer. What a cancer it turned out to be, at the heart of the rebellion was a genestealer cult. Laevinus had led his men through dark subterranean caverns, dripping with aliens ichor and filled with half human monstrosities, while the thick layers of plascrete above them cut off all communication. Breaking through to the very heart of the alien lair, Laevinus had found the core of the cult, all lending their voice to a singular chant. Their leader, a bald tattooed parody of true humanity, surrounded by his harem of dominated women, mocked the space marines, telling them that they were too late, that the great devourer had come. Laevinus had ended his life with a single shot from hist bolt pistol, while his men exterminated the chanters. Returning to the surface, however, Laevinus found that the magus had been all too correct. As soon as they were within communicator range, the 'Litany of Vengeance' reported that they were under heavy attack. Reaching the surface, the space marines saw the sky begin to turn black as thousands of mycetic spores dropped from the leaden skies. Unable to lower their shields for teleport, the ship dispatched gunships to retrieve Laevinus' men, but they were torn apart by swarms of gargoyles and tyranid shrikes before they could descend halfway through the atmosphere. Within minutes, the strike cruiser was overwhelmed, the last communication from the captain to Laevinus was to seek cover. Realising what the crew were about to do, Laevinus led his men back into the bunker of the genestealer warren. The 'Litany of Vengeance' then lived up to its name. Descending into the atmosphere, it detonated its plasma engines in the heart of the tyranid horde. When the space marines emerged again, they found nothing but devastation and corpses. Only their blessed power armour protected them from the incredible doses of hard radiation left by the explosion. Laevinus was torn - he knew that his duty was to get off the doomed planet, but could see no way to do so - even if he could find a ship it would simply be overwhelmed by the fleet of hiveships above the planet. Instead he resolved to sell the lives of his men dearly. That was when the Eldar had turned up. Usually Laevinus would have had nothing to do with the Xenos scum, but he acknowledged that the space marines were in a desperate situation, and the aliens could hardly lead them into a worse trap. They had promised a way off Altus 4, and the only price was helping to protect the bonesingers while they activated it. The only other real question Laevinus had managed to get answered was why didn't they leave the way they had come - the answer was that the Strike Cruiser's detonation had destroyed that avenue.

For the past three days, then, the combined force had travelled across the once verdant landscape of Altus 4, now pockmarked with alien vegetation taking root. All the time Laevinus aesthetic soul had been at war with his mistrust. Everything the Eldar did, from walking and running through to battle or simply taking meals was performed with an effortless artistry that thrilled the blood angel to watch. Nevertheless he was glad when, with the Tyranids closing in, they had reached this destination. Now, assuming that the Eldar delivered on their promise, all they had to do was hold out long enough to open the gate. Laevinus turned away and began ordering his men into position.

26 February 2011

Battle of the Rule Book

Today Chris and I stumbled thought 2 games of FOG. Both of us still being new and learning the rules, we battled through the games spending a large amount of time thumbing through the rule book trying to work out situation the had arisen. We came across quite a few situations that we hadn’t run into before, And typical Chris coming up with something different to really stretch our noodles with rules. Unfortunately the FOG rule book isn’t laid out that well, so finding some of the rules was a bit of a mission. But we managed to get though and the rules are becoming easier. I’m really hoping the second edition rules will simplify a few things and make the game easier to lean. Personally I think alot of my frustrations would be alleviated with a better laid out Rule book and tables, the content and structure of the rules are all good. (But eh, I’ll get over it once I get my head around the rules) . I’m really enjoying the game even with the rule struggles.

Here’s a few shots from the games, Chris is proxing in all his army using some of Mark’s Greeks' (I think) And a few blank bases to fill in, the Elephants were actually Heavy artillery.

Feild of Glory - Vikings in Battle Feild of Glory - Vikings in Battle
Moving up field

Feild of Glory - Vikings in Battle Feild of Glory - Vikings in Battle
Charging in my Viking Freemen face off against some Chivalry, and some good old routing thought some of his own troops, This really gave me the upper hand in the centre of the table and pretty much won me the 1st game in the end.

Feild of Glory - Vikings in Battle P2260006
The battle for the left flank, turned against me as Chris killed my commander and then I rolled an epic fail

P2260007 Feild of Glory - Vikings in Battle
Game 2: In deployment I mesed up not giving myself enough room to have one huge battle, line. So ended up having to gamble a bit and put a battle group of Huscrals in behind the main battle line.

Feild of Glory - Vikings in Battle Feild of Glory - Vikings in Battle
The main battle line coming up to the crunch and a risky (stupid) deployment or one of my Battle groups over the far left flank to try and take the Heavy artillery and Camp… with heavy foot.. moving at 3” .. (What in the nine hells was I thinking)

Feild of Glory - Vikings in Battle Feild of Glory - Vikings in Battle
After some looking up of rules I managed to wheel my battle groups apart enough to get my Huscarls through into battle and not get caught in behind, then I finished off a battle group on my right flank by charging into there side. One of my battle groups got total routed and destroyed then in another epic fail after another one of my commands got kill, my Huscarls got routed as well. Pretty much everything failed after that and Chris walk home with a resounding win.

All in all a good day, even though it drains the brain somewhat with learning all those new rule.
(Easily fixed with a nice Single Malt Scotch)

24 February 2011

Game on

With this both Saturday and Sunday set for gaming, I’ve been busy finishing off some of my terrain for the 40k game on Sunday, the 6x9 table should be good for a my large Tyraind army to have some fun.

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Vikings_Stave_Church_4

Also managed to get a bit more done on my Viking Stave Church now the plaster has dried nicely. I used a dermal tool and filed out the roof tiles after drawing them on with a pencil. Rather messy work and I got dust everywhere but the result was great. Just a shame my coats of plaster were a bit uneven, but I pretty happy with my first go using this method.

Looking forward to fielding my Vikings on Saturday.

On a more sombre note, I’m thankful that my family in Christchurch are all ok after the earthquake. Having walked those streets, driven those roads and spent time in Christchurch there is little you can say after seeing the devastation and destruction. My thoughts are with them.

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20 February 2011

Viking Camp

Borgund_Stave_ChurchAfter looking around at what other people have done for Viking camps, I was looking at doing a classic Viking boat landing. I didn’t have to much luck finding a good scale model of a ship, so I started thinking of the Stave Church that I visited in Norway, It was a massive wooden structure which was really impressive up close with ornate carvings all over it.

Now trying to reproduce something like this is 15mm would be a bit insane, especially with the limited size of the camp for FOG being 80x120mm. So after thumbing though several books and found a good article in a Wargames Illustrated magazine on making an earl Irish church.(Issue 270 – April 2010). I went for a similar basic design as in the magazine, but made it more like a Stave Church.

I started out with 6 of my bases for Calvary 40x40, glued them to a thin bit a plastic card so it would keep the height the same as the rest of my bases in the army, and of course make a very nice 80x120mm rectangle base for the camp. I then just used some balsa wood and cut that up to shape. After that I ran over it that with a black undercoat, and then covered it with a thin layer of Selly’s Pre-mix plaster.

Once that’s dry fully in a day or so I’ll take the Dremal to it and carve out the wooden roof tiles etc

Vikings Stave Church Vikings Stave Church Vikings Stave Church

13 February 2011

Viking Horde

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After long week at work, my wife scored a cheap second hand table tennis table for the garage. At 5 x9 foot it’s a perfect gaming table. It also folds up so in winter I can still park my car in the garage.

I got a few hours in painting my Viking yesterday with that in mind I just spent a bit of time looking around for ideas for the shields. Pulled a few ideas from a few books I have, these ones above are from  “The Vikings - Voyagers of Discovery and Plunder “ and also allot from the internet. So found some nice looking runes that the Vikings would have used back in the day, so going to try and get some of them onto some shields.

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Here’s what I’ve been working on, I’m still pretty new at painting in 15mm so learning a lot as I go.

Norse VikingsNorse Vikings

Norse VikingsNorse Vikings

Irish Vikings

06 February 2011

The FOG of War returns

WOW, it’s been 7 months since I last play a game of FOG.  Chris and I bashed out a game, With me struggling to remember the rules and Chris just learning, two games took us all day, but it was fun and it’s rekindles everyone’s enthusiasm for the game. So I’ve already started added some more paint to my Vikings and seriously considering getting another army as the exchange rate is just awesome at the moment.

Chris, true to form, proxied his army using some blank bases and borrowed models from Mark, can’t actually remember what armies he used, but I used my Vikings. I managed to roll through his first list and also the second list which was a different army. We definitely had several rules wrong, but it was all fun and now I’ll be reading the rules again.

Here’s a few pic’s of the game. “Yes” Do you like my Flames of War artillery Camp Smile

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Here’s a closer view of some of Mark’s models.

02 February 2011

Imperial Guard Valkyrie : Part 2

Over the last week I’ve been chipping away at the Valkyrie, I finished up the pilots and cockpit, and got the main fuselage together and undercoated.

Imperial Guard Valkrie Imperial Guard Valkrie

And today I got the three primary colours ait brushed on. I tried just using masking tape this time and it work well, but I need to take a little bit more care as some of the areas weren’t completely covered. I don’t think I’ll have problems with them as some weather effects will help hide them.

Imperial Guard ValkrieImperial Guard ValkrieImperial Guard Valkrie