Saturday 12 December 2015
Sunday 6 December 2015
Paint job: Bloodthirsters and Bloodcrushers
The other day I played Iyanden Craftworld against Khorne Deamonkin. My opponent had all three variants of the new(ish) plastic Bloodthirster at hand, but they were all unpainted. Feeling tempted myself to buy this kit even though I don't really need (ha!) a new bloodthirster when I hardly play with my old metal one, I offered to assist with priming and base colour. This led to the question if I'd paint them up.
Here you can see the result. The idea was to stay close to the paint job that these have in the KDK codex. The owner wanted these guys to forego their armour and had built them without it. I magnetised the wip and chain-hammerthing to ward against breakage and hit the models with black primer followed by zenital light grey primer.
Since the models are big, but fully assembled, I opted to do the remainder of the paintjob without the airbrush to avoid masking or overspray hassle.
I used Vallejo Model/Game Air colours, well thinned with Vallejo Airbrush thinner to retain the pre-highlight. I followed this up with dry-brushing, a semi-gloss coat and oil shade. Leading to this look:
Also lacking proper Khrone colours were a bunch of blood crushers, which received the same treatment, apart from applying the base red colour with the airbrush.
I finished this almost a month ago, but got lazy with this hobby diary. I am now sorting pictures for a bunch of battle reports ;-]
Here you can see the result. The idea was to stay close to the paint job that these have in the KDK codex. The owner wanted these guys to forego their armour and had built them without it. I magnetised the wip and chain-hammerthing to ward against breakage and hit the models with black primer followed by zenital light grey primer.
Since the models are big, but fully assembled, I opted to do the remainder of the paintjob without the airbrush to avoid masking or overspray hassle.
I used Vallejo Model/Game Air colours, well thinned with Vallejo Airbrush thinner to retain the pre-highlight. I followed this up with dry-brushing, a semi-gloss coat and oil shade. Leading to this look:
Also lacking proper Khrone colours were a bunch of blood crushers, which received the same treatment, apart from applying the base red colour with the airbrush.
I finished this almost a month ago, but got lazy with this hobby diary. I am now sorting pictures for a bunch of battle reports ;-]
Sunday 29 November 2015
Vraks Unending Host Update
As part of a 250 points a month panting challenge of my local gaming club, I took on the first platoon of renegades in my unending host.
Since the last picture, I covered all the bases with black Vallejo Primer, separating the minis from the bases which were hit by the same zenital highlight.
Expecting some serious motivation fatigue as numbers mount, I decided on a minimal paint job. I used VGC leather brown to pick out gloves, boots and rebreathers, as well as a bunch of straps and the nub on the back which is meant for a backpack that came with the Warzone minis. It makes a decent looking rebreathing unit in a pinch I think. I mixed some VGA chainmail silver and black for the gunbarrels. VGA pale flesh hit the few bits of skin for the weapon teams.
I used VGA gory red, dark fleshtone, cold grey and Citadel squig orange to split the platoons and squads from another.
I will weather those models when I got all of them on the level of the first platoon.
Since the last picture, I covered all the bases with black Vallejo Primer, separating the minis from the bases which were hit by the same zenital highlight.
Expecting some serious motivation fatigue as numbers mount, I decided on a minimal paint job. I used VGC leather brown to pick out gloves, boots and rebreathers, as well as a bunch of straps and the nub on the back which is meant for a backpack that came with the Warzone minis. It makes a decent looking rebreathing unit in a pinch I think. I mixed some VGA chainmail silver and black for the gunbarrels. VGA pale flesh hit the few bits of skin for the weapon teams.
I used VGA gory red, dark fleshtone, cold grey and Citadel squig orange to split the platoons and squads from another.
I will weather those models when I got all of them on the level of the first platoon.
Sunday 15 November 2015
Deamons of Slaanesh
Looking for something different to paint, I took a look into my hobby queue and fished out some deamons. I had Zarakynel waiting for some attention and intimidate me a bit with the slender resin bits and the work required to make it come together organically.
I used plasticard, chaos vehicle icons and brass clips to make armbands and shoulder pads. That's because I didn't want to glue all those extended parts into place and have them break at the earliest opportunity. Since the arms do not fit seamlessly to the body, some gapfilling would be needed - so I went for a coverup.
The result are the four arms and the head being attached with magnets. The magnet link is flexible, permitting the limbs to bend with any force applied rather than break off. That also goes for the heat-bent dreadlocks. The horns didn't have a clearly defined fit, so I used tiny magnets there as well.
Looking at some gaps in my Slaaneshi infantry, I also picked up a box of deamonettes to sort another unit and a spare banner and grabbed a box of seekers to bring my total up to 18 and get two banners and an instrument out of it. Below you can see the result of those efforts for my deamon forces.
While at it, I also finally slapped some paint on two metal deamon HQs that I had picked up off ebay OVP some months ago: Be'lakor and Kairos Fateweaver as well as a keeper of secrets which was built, but bare metal.
I went with thinned VGA black over a zenital grey highlight. Sticking more black on the wings. VGC glorious gold took care of the gold applications. I followed that with a clear coat and black transparent oil shade.
Kairos was easier than expected, except for the tangle of limbs to work around. I used Vallejo Air colours thinned with Vallejo air thinner to slap two coats of blue and white respectively on the model, going with some gory red for the book cover and using browns for the paper and the scrolls. Gold, clear coat and oil shade as before with Be'lakor.
The keeper was a quick and dirty job just ahead of a game for which I needed him in my mono-god list. Nothing much to report here, just thinned airbrush paint on pre-highlight followed by a clear coat and oil shade.
While I'm at documenting what I did without taking pictures a the time, I also grabbed this line-up of all my current Slaaneshi forces.
Clearly, what is missing are chariots to round out these forces. I'll however first pay some attention to other unfinished deamon minis before blowing money on more stuff ;-]
I used plasticard, chaos vehicle icons and brass clips to make armbands and shoulder pads. That's because I didn't want to glue all those extended parts into place and have them break at the earliest opportunity. Since the arms do not fit seamlessly to the body, some gapfilling would be needed - so I went for a coverup.
The result are the four arms and the head being attached with magnets. The magnet link is flexible, permitting the limbs to bend with any force applied rather than break off. That also goes for the heat-bent dreadlocks. The horns didn't have a clearly defined fit, so I used tiny magnets there as well.
Looking at some gaps in my Slaaneshi infantry, I also picked up a box of deamonettes to sort another unit and a spare banner and grabbed a box of seekers to bring my total up to 18 and get two banners and an instrument out of it. Below you can see the result of those efforts for my deamon forces.
While at it, I also finally slapped some paint on two metal deamon HQs that I had picked up off ebay OVP some months ago: Be'lakor and Kairos Fateweaver as well as a keeper of secrets which was built, but bare metal.
I went with thinned VGA black over a zenital grey highlight. Sticking more black on the wings. VGC glorious gold took care of the gold applications. I followed that with a clear coat and black transparent oil shade.
Kairos was easier than expected, except for the tangle of limbs to work around. I used Vallejo Air colours thinned with Vallejo air thinner to slap two coats of blue and white respectively on the model, going with some gory red for the book cover and using browns for the paper and the scrolls. Gold, clear coat and oil shade as before with Be'lakor.
The keeper was a quick and dirty job just ahead of a game for which I needed him in my mono-god list. Nothing much to report here, just thinned airbrush paint on pre-highlight followed by a clear coat and oil shade.
While I'm at documenting what I did without taking pictures a the time, I also grabbed this line-up of all my current Slaaneshi forces.
Clearly, what is missing are chariots to round out these forces. I'll however first pay some attention to other unfinished deamon minis before blowing money on more stuff ;-]
Wednesday 28 October 2015
RC Bodies - first steps
I've now done a couple of lexan bodies for remote controlled electric cars, for three chassis a colleague of mine uses.
Lexan bodies are different to work with than anything I previously hit with my airbrush. Firstly, they are painted from the inside which also means that one has to very carefully plan colours for each part of the body and take even more care to mask anything that isn't supposed to be hit with the current colour.
My first attempt was made on a big 1:10 chassis, which came supplied with window masks, which is a great convenience indeed. My buddy wanted the body white with yellow mirrors. All other paint would be stickers.
I used the supplied masks and Fascolor paint for this. This paint gave me a spot of trouble, since it didn't seem to be impressed with my airbrush cleaner at all, I had to flush the paint mechanically, with Q-tips and valliant use of the destilled water squeeze bottle. I realise that there will be a cleaner and thinner for this stuff, but I've stayed clear of it for now for this reason.
The result was good though, even after shoe goo was used to reinforce the bodies edges and stickers were applied, the body weighted in lighter than another one done with rattle cans.
Next was a cheap 1:12 body, with the request to hit it with "any colour", which I understood as green light for an extra manly paint scheme. This is quick and dirty over night with rally stripes masked with blue tape.
Following the purchase of a new chassis called X-Ray, my colleague wanted a red and white paintjob with some chevron style borders. I tried to mask these borders with tape and regretted this when I discovered some bleeding paint. :/
This was rather deftly fixed by my colleague with strategic use of the supplied decal stickers. =]
For the second X-Ray body I was supposed to follow the Team Force India scheme. This was the first time using liquid mask for me. This worked great, no question, but is also a skill to improve where small details matter. Unfortunately I messed up one of the colours in this body. The red was supposed to be orange, but I used a non-opaque neon yellow instead of an opaque yellow and ended up with basically just red parts. Since I'm unable to properly see red and green colours and failed to do a mix test and proper dry comparison... it's red. Ah well. The clear and neat separation of the green, white, red and black areas does look nice.
The previous results must have been sufficiently good to make some more bodies come my way. Six 1:12 bodies reached my desk. My first step here was to apply liquid mask to all of them. I bought finer markers, since the one I had were not fine enough to define a line for the exacto knife. The design is marked from the outside on the clear foil which protects the body from accidental overspray.
I got creative, admittedly with the use of Google Image Search for inspiration, and ended up with the following results.
My takeaway from this batch is that it is a good idea to separate colours with black lines. :)
Sunday 25 October 2015
Battle Report: Vraks Unending Host + Renegades vs Orks 3000 Points
This game was meant to be another test of new or unfamiliar units, both for my opponent and for me. We agreed on a game size of 3000 points and a random maelstrom mission. The Ork force was spread across two CADs. I apologize for not having a proper force list, but here is a line-up snapshot:
The orc force included: a unit of meganobs and a unit of nobs, both lavishly kitted, boys, commandos, lootas, burnas, a bunch of killa-cans, a def-dread, one of the new big walkers, grot artillery with a bubble-gun, a snotzoga with grots, some grots with herder, two trucks, a tank and a dakka-jet.
Since the last game, I primed all models black and applied Vallejo Primer desert tan very lightly with a low angle and heavy as a zenital highlight, resulting in getting a start on getting the lot painted.
On my side, I played the same 1500 points Vraks Unending Host list in the previous battle-report and tacked on an contingent of regular Renegades based on IA13.
The addon list is using a blood-handed reaver demagogue with a nurgle covenant, since I wanted to try grenandiers (as shown in the picture above) and a bunch of plague zombies as troops - having a boatload of infantry platoons on the other half of the list. I wanted to try some tanks and a valkyrie. I brought two vanilla Leman Russ with battle-cannons, lascannons and heavy bolter sponsons, a Leman Russ Punisher with heavy bolters and a stubber, a Executioner with plasma sponsons as well as two hellhounds.
We played mission 4, the orks the deployment/initiative roll-off.
Turn 1.1
The orks advanced - shocker! - pushing forward as far as possible and blew up a hell-hound!
Turn 1.2
The heretics blew up the mega-nob trucks and fired the executioner at the lot, which promptly got hot, and lost a hull point. The remaining hell-hound fired it's cannon into the ork artillery hiding in ruins - without much effect thanks to without much effect since DS4 didn't impress the carriages 3+ too much.
Turn 2.1
Turn 2.2
Turn 3.1
Turn 3.2
The orc force included: a unit of meganobs and a unit of nobs, both lavishly kitted, boys, commandos, lootas, burnas, a bunch of killa-cans, a def-dread, one of the new big walkers, grot artillery with a bubble-gun, a snotzoga with grots, some grots with herder, two trucks, a tank and a dakka-jet.
Since the last game, I primed all models black and applied Vallejo Primer desert tan very lightly with a low angle and heavy as a zenital highlight, resulting in getting a start on getting the lot painted.
On my side, I played the same 1500 points Vraks Unending Host list in the previous battle-report and tacked on an contingent of regular Renegades based on IA13.
The addon list is using a blood-handed reaver demagogue with a nurgle covenant, since I wanted to try grenandiers (as shown in the picture above) and a bunch of plague zombies as troops - having a boatload of infantry platoons on the other half of the list. I wanted to try some tanks and a valkyrie. I brought two vanilla Leman Russ with battle-cannons, lascannons and heavy bolter sponsons, a Leman Russ Punisher with heavy bolters and a stubber, a Executioner with plasma sponsons as well as two hellhounds.
We played mission 4, the orks the deployment/initiative roll-off.
Turn 1.1
The orks advanced - shocker! - pushing forward as far as possible and blew up a hell-hound!
Turn 1.2
The heretics blew up the mega-nob trucks and fired the executioner at the lot, which promptly got hot, and lost a hull point. The remaining hell-hound fired it's cannon into the ork artillery hiding in ruins - without much effect thanks to without much effect since DS4 didn't impress the carriages 3+ too much.
Turn 2.1
Turn 2.2
Turn 3.1
Turn 3.2
Monday 19 October 2015
Battle Report: Vraks Unending Host vs CSM 1500 pts
This game was intended as a test of the second edition of the Imperial Armour Vraks battle-forged detachment "Vraks Unending Host" from my side, and testing some CSM HQs by my opponent, who usually plays Khorne Deamonkin.
My List consisted of four troup units of renegade infantry with three 20 man squads each. I swapped five gits per unit for a chaos sigil carrier and two heavy weapon teams each. This left me with 4x2 lascannons, 4x2 autocannons and 3x2 rocket launchers and 192 T3 infantry without armour but with flashlights. Three sentinels with heavy flamers did away with the points otherwise needed to buy each git a 6+ armor save, I did spent the points for militia training though. As my one heavy support choice I picked 4 quad-launchers with three crewmen each.
Knowing a week ahead what I'd be doing (since I didn't want to play something this unorthodox as a surprise), my opponent brought Fabius Guile, Arkos the Faithless, four bikers, one eight and one ten man squad (with the ten man squad being Fabius-buffed), twenty cultists, autocannon havocs, a mauler fiend, a Sicaran with heavy bolter sponsons and a lone baleflamer helldrake.
The shared idea was to have a giggle. Right on!
We diced off the random stuff, got maelstrom mission one. My opponent set up the terrain, I won the first player turn.
After setting up I discovered quickly that I deployed my lascannon units wrong, since they caused a traffic jam of units that couldn't run forward properly due to this. The Quad-Launchers killed all but one of the cultist units thanks to a lucky roll of the scatter die.
My opponent advanced, with the mauler fiend taking the first volley of fire and being wrecked in the second round. My quad launchers took out all the autocannon havocs, leaving the aspiring champion alone. My sentinels got blown up, all but one. I failed the roll for the return of the first completely wiped out infantry unit. HA!
The Chaos Space Marines then got into melee and slashed through quite a few units like a hot knife through butter.
After that can of woop-ass was cracked open, I had five units eligible for respawning on 2+. I made all those rolls and brought the units back from the flanks. That's a hundred wounds bouncing back! However, since those models moved, that means neither assaults nor as accurate shooting as BS 3 permits. A mistake, since I forgot to take my maelstrom cards into account, I could have not rolled for at least one of them to bring it over my table edge and seized an objective.
After turn five, I was behind on points and would have clearly lost the game had the dice ended it there. In turn six, the units that respawned in the previous turn were firing at full ballistic skill and wiped out the remaining CSM units.
While the movement phase took a bit longer (doh!), skipping the psychic phase and being done quite quickly with shooting meant that game progressed nicely.
The quad launchers played out significantly above average, wiping out cultists and havocs down to one dude each and blasting another marine unit to smithereens. My opponent also taught me the proper way to do multiple barrages, I had the hit mark wrong. Being able to cut down on scatter with hit blasts really helps.
The chaos sigils are worth much more than their point cost (3 base for the guy +5) and also worth more than the opportunity cost of special weapons. Being able to reroll failed tests is a great help with 4+D6 random leadership.
Overall this was a fun game, playing markedly different from what I'm used to. The list definitely has potential for entertainment. Motivated by this, I primed all the infantry models black and gave them a zenital highlight of desert tan on the following weekend and wrote this report. Right on!
My List consisted of four troup units of renegade infantry with three 20 man squads each. I swapped five gits per unit for a chaos sigil carrier and two heavy weapon teams each. This left me with 4x2 lascannons, 4x2 autocannons and 3x2 rocket launchers and 192 T3 infantry without armour but with flashlights. Three sentinels with heavy flamers did away with the points otherwise needed to buy each git a 6+ armor save, I did spent the points for militia training though. As my one heavy support choice I picked 4 quad-launchers with three crewmen each.
Knowing a week ahead what I'd be doing (since I didn't want to play something this unorthodox as a surprise), my opponent brought Fabius Guile, Arkos the Faithless, four bikers, one eight and one ten man squad (with the ten man squad being Fabius-buffed), twenty cultists, autocannon havocs, a mauler fiend, a Sicaran with heavy bolter sponsons and a lone baleflamer helldrake.
The shared idea was to have a giggle. Right on!
We diced off the random stuff, got maelstrom mission one. My opponent set up the terrain, I won the first player turn.
After setting up I discovered quickly that I deployed my lascannon units wrong, since they caused a traffic jam of units that couldn't run forward properly due to this. The Quad-Launchers killed all but one of the cultist units thanks to a lucky roll of the scatter die.
My opponent advanced, with the mauler fiend taking the first volley of fire and being wrecked in the second round. My quad launchers took out all the autocannon havocs, leaving the aspiring champion alone. My sentinels got blown up, all but one. I failed the roll for the return of the first completely wiped out infantry unit. HA!
The Chaos Space Marines then got into melee and slashed through quite a few units like a hot knife through butter.
After that can of woop-ass was cracked open, I had five units eligible for respawning on 2+. I made all those rolls and brought the units back from the flanks. That's a hundred wounds bouncing back! However, since those models moved, that means neither assaults nor as accurate shooting as BS 3 permits. A mistake, since I forgot to take my maelstrom cards into account, I could have not rolled for at least one of them to bring it over my table edge and seized an objective.
After turn five, I was behind on points and would have clearly lost the game had the dice ended it there. In turn six, the units that respawned in the previous turn were firing at full ballistic skill and wiped out the remaining CSM units.
While the movement phase took a bit longer (doh!), skipping the psychic phase and being done quite quickly with shooting meant that game progressed nicely.
The quad launchers played out significantly above average, wiping out cultists and havocs down to one dude each and blasting another marine unit to smithereens. My opponent also taught me the proper way to do multiple barrages, I had the hit mark wrong. Being able to cut down on scatter with hit blasts really helps.
The chaos sigils are worth much more than their point cost (3 base for the guy +5) and also worth more than the opportunity cost of special weapons. Being able to reroll failed tests is a great help with 4+D6 random leadership.
Overall this was a fun game, playing markedly different from what I'm used to. The list definitely has potential for entertainment. Motivated by this, I primed all the infantry models black and gave them a zenital highlight of desert tan on the following weekend and wrote this report. Right on!
Tuesday 30 June 2015
Vraks Unending Host
Half a year ago I bought a lot of 200+ Warzone minis via eBay. These models are plastic and came on sprues marked with "Target Games 1998". The models are not quite as detailed as the Citadel plastic troopers, but they do come with basic armour, weapons and - quite convenient for the Vraks setting - rebreathers all around. A major advantage in my view is total lack of six aquilas per model.
My motivation was getting a bulk of GEQ minis to use as Renegades for the Unending Host. At 3 points per model, there are likely to be a lot of models to be fielded indeed.
My motivation was getting a bulk of GEQ minis to use as Renegades for the Unending Host. At 3 points per model, there are likely to be a lot of models to be fielded indeed.
After spending hours to clip all of the bits from the sprues and gluing the bodies to the bases, I took this picture as a starting point. That are 251 models to do, quite a daunting number.
My plan is to remove the mold lines and gate connections that I judge to be visible from above. Then prime black, apply a white zenital highlight, spray highly diluted colour for the gear and finish by picking out some details with the brush.
I left sprue attached to the backpacks to serve as holder. The backpacks will receive basically the same treatment as the body, but will get a darker colour.
So far the plan, let's see how it goes!
Friday 26 June 2015
Eldar Craftworlds Seer Council
For quite some time I wanted to get a Seer Council on Jetbikes going. The conversion did look so daunting, in particular regarding the green stuff clothes that I shelved this and didn't touch it.
Just before the new Craftwords release announcement I had picked up six old style Eldar jetbikes off eBay at half of list price. I also had a single jetbike left from doing the Guardian and Shining Spear bikes. That meant I needed to find the bits for the riders!
From left to right, we have some prospective riders. A plastic farseer came with the lot for my wraith knight recycling, a couple of metal Eldar psychers from eBay, a shuriken cannon rider body. Two spare heads from the new Skyrunner clamshell and finally the first warlock I painted, since that model doesn't really fit in with the models I painted later.
Motivated by some newfound confidence, I grabbed my clippers and mutilated the metal models. The hobby saw did part of the job as well. My plan was to use the regular jetbike rider legs and arms together with the psyker torsos and a bunch of spears to make the riders.
After a significant amount of time spent making sure that the torsos did fit on the legs and looked somehow plausible, I pinned the torsos to the legs. Deliberately, I didn't attach the riders to the bikes yet. I also left the center and the rear parts of the bikes separate to make it easier to paint. I put magnets into the torsos and the spears to counter the expected breaking of these parts.
As next step, I rolled out some green stuff and cut it to approximate size to make hakama-style pants covering up the plastic legs. It took quite a bit of effort for me to get these bits into place and have them look half-way believable.
Then I clipped the pins that hold the consoles with the handlebars to give them less grip, fit them into place without glue and glued the arms between the handlebar and the shoulder.I glued small plasticard triangles to the bracers of the plastic arms holding the handlbars for use as an armature for green stuff sleeves. It's starting to look like something deliberate!
I put the spears and riders on a buch of rod-magnets and the bike hoods, centers and rears on paperclips stuck in cork for painting. I primed rider, spear and center in black with a white zenital highlight. Hood and rear I primed white. Hood and rear I airbrushed, the remaining bits I painted with a regular brush, trying to maintain the previously created shade. There isn't anything regarding the painting that I didn't already show in previous posts for this army.
Instead of converting the bike hoods for the theme, I cut up a bunch of decals from the big Eldar decal sheet to make seven distinct hood logos. The Farseers got modified hemlock decals in the style of their chest armor design. The warlocks got the white decals of the sheet and custom variations of the same.
Just before the new Craftwords release announcement I had picked up six old style Eldar jetbikes off eBay at half of list price. I also had a single jetbike left from doing the Guardian and Shining Spear bikes. That meant I needed to find the bits for the riders!
From left to right, we have some prospective riders. A plastic farseer came with the lot for my wraith knight recycling, a couple of metal Eldar psychers from eBay, a shuriken cannon rider body. Two spare heads from the new Skyrunner clamshell and finally the first warlock I painted, since that model doesn't really fit in with the models I painted later.
Motivated by some newfound confidence, I grabbed my clippers and mutilated the metal models. The hobby saw did part of the job as well. My plan was to use the regular jetbike rider legs and arms together with the psyker torsos and a bunch of spears to make the riders.
After a significant amount of time spent making sure that the torsos did fit on the legs and looked somehow plausible, I pinned the torsos to the legs. Deliberately, I didn't attach the riders to the bikes yet. I also left the center and the rear parts of the bikes separate to make it easier to paint. I put magnets into the torsos and the spears to counter the expected breaking of these parts.
As next step, I rolled out some green stuff and cut it to approximate size to make hakama-style pants covering up the plastic legs. It took quite a bit of effort for me to get these bits into place and have them look half-way believable.
Then I clipped the pins that hold the consoles with the handlebars to give them less grip, fit them into place without glue and glued the arms between the handlebar and the shoulder.I glued small plasticard triangles to the bracers of the plastic arms holding the handlbars for use as an armature for green stuff sleeves. It's starting to look like something deliberate!
I put the spears and riders on a buch of rod-magnets and the bike hoods, centers and rears on paperclips stuck in cork for painting. I primed rider, spear and center in black with a white zenital highlight. Hood and rear I primed white. Hood and rear I airbrushed, the remaining bits I painted with a regular brush, trying to maintain the previously created shade. There isn't anything regarding the painting that I didn't already show in previous posts for this army.
Instead of converting the bike hoods for the theme, I cut up a bunch of decals from the big Eldar decal sheet to make seven distinct hood logos. The Farseers got modified hemlock decals in the style of their chest armor design. The warlocks got the white decals of the sheet and custom variations of the same.
Sunday 14 June 2015
Battle Report Mechanicum vs Eldar 4000 points
Yesterday, a battle was fought between forces of the Mechanicum and my Eldar Iyanden Warhost. We agreed on a 4000 points game. Here are the Armies:
My warhost consists of:
The Mechanicum force consists of a new formation that combines:
In addition, there is a force of Iron Hands with:
We set up two tables with a bunch of ruins. Given the time challenges of the game size, we didn't bother with eleborate mission parameters and just went for "Destroy the Alien". ;-]
The IOM forces won the deployment roll-off, deployed first and elected to take the first player turn. The crafty Eldar forces managed to steal the initiative! The Rust Stalkers scouted 9" forward.
Turn 1.1 Eldar forces advance on the entire front, skewing left to meet the Mechanicum infantry advance. A unit of Rust Stalkers and the majority of models from a second Rust Stalker unit fall to S6 monofilament and shuriken cannon fire. S6 does the job primarily because the Stalkers are T3 with 2LP each.
Turn 1.2 Sees a clash of the heavy units commence. A Knight Errant shoots and charges a unit of Wraithguard, takes one Overwatch D-Hit and a result of 6 on the D-Table for 6+D6 hull points lost with no saves allowed. Ouch!
Unfortunately it turned out later that my oppoonent wasn't aware that he should have charged in first with another unit to avoid the overwatch fire on the knight.
The other Knight Errant charges one of the Wraithknights. Even though the Wraithknight gets to hit first and has an edge over the Imperial Knight with a Master-crafted weapon, it barely survives and only scratches the opponent.
The Johnny 5 revival unit brings it's torsion weapons to bear on the wraithknight with the ghost glaive. Those are AP3, bring enough strength to wound well and do D3 wounds instead of one wound. This takes five wounds in one round of shooting.
Turn 2.1 The Eldar cast invisbility on the left wraithknight and the wraithlord, since both of them are down to one wound. I consistently forgot FNP and IWND rolls for my knights. The advance of the Mechanicum infantry on the left is halted
The remaining Wraithguards with D-Scythes move and run into range of the master of the forge and inflict an overload of D3 D-wounds on the unit as well as graze the Warden.
The heavy weapon servitors with the torsion guns are taken down by a ridiculous amount of fire made necessary by all mechanicum forces having both Shrouded and Stealth this turn.
A lone Wraithguard manages a 10" (8+2) charge on the Knight Warden just ahead of the knights in the picture above. The Warden elected not to waste overwatch due to the long odds of the Wraithguard's charge. The strikes of the Ghostglaive destroyed the Imperial Knight. The resulting explosion killed the wraithguard and took a wound from the knight with the heavy wraith cannons.
The invisible Wraith Knight and Wraith Lord take the remaining hull points of the Knight Errant and weather the explosion.
Turn 2.2 Mechanicum forces advance, the big robots wipe out units left and right in melee. Marines wipe out the Wraith-Scythe unit. I missed out on taking a picture during this player turn.
Turn 3.1 One of the almost-dead Wraithknights dies in Overwatch fire. I forgot FNP again.
Turn 3.2 Heavy weapon servitors finish off the last wound of the Wraithknight on the left. Big robots wipe out a unit of wraithguard on the left and damage a wraithlord on the right. Some warlocks on jetbikes die due to being too dumb to jink in time. ;-]
We called the game at this point. While there was only one knight out of six left standing, there were more troops left on my side with the mobility needed to evade and kite the remaining hard hitting, but slow remaining mechanicum units.
It was impressive to see what the mechanicum infantry can do. Interesting special rules, powers and weapons combined with dynamic BS/WS boosts and other effects like spreading cover boni around has a lot of potential. Even more interesting is that all these are deliberate choices rather than silly random tables!
My warhost consists of:
- a Windrider Host as a core choice,
- two Wraithhosts,
- a lone Wraith Knight,
- an Avenger Shrine and
- an Aspect Host with two units of Dark Reapers and some Warpspiders as auxiliary choices as well as
- a Seer Council (here proxied with Shining Spears).
The Mechanicum force consists of a new formation that combines:
- a trio of knights (two errants, one warden),
- a Skitari formation that consists of Rust Stalkers, Snipers and Tropers, Lancers and a Dune Crawler,
- a Mechanicum force with two units of heavy weapon servitors, two units of two big robots with herder each and an HQ.
In addition, there is a force of Iron Hands with:
- a Master of the Forge,
- three Tactical Squads with some Plasma and Grav weapons,
- two Contemptor dreadnaughts.
We set up two tables with a bunch of ruins. Given the time challenges of the game size, we didn't bother with eleborate mission parameters and just went for "Destroy the Alien". ;-]
The IOM forces won the deployment roll-off, deployed first and elected to take the first player turn. The crafty Eldar forces managed to steal the initiative! The Rust Stalkers scouted 9" forward.
Turn 1.1 Eldar forces advance on the entire front, skewing left to meet the Mechanicum infantry advance. A unit of Rust Stalkers and the majority of models from a second Rust Stalker unit fall to S6 monofilament and shuriken cannon fire. S6 does the job primarily because the Stalkers are T3 with 2LP each.
Turn 1.2 Sees a clash of the heavy units commence. A Knight Errant shoots and charges a unit of Wraithguard, takes one Overwatch D-Hit and a result of 6 on the D-Table for 6+D6 hull points lost with no saves allowed. Ouch!
Unfortunately it turned out later that my oppoonent wasn't aware that he should have charged in first with another unit to avoid the overwatch fire on the knight.
The other Knight Errant charges one of the Wraithknights. Even though the Wraithknight gets to hit first and has an edge over the Imperial Knight with a Master-crafted weapon, it barely survives and only scratches the opponent.
The Johnny 5 revival unit brings it's torsion weapons to bear on the wraithknight with the ghost glaive. Those are AP3, bring enough strength to wound well and do D3 wounds instead of one wound. This takes five wounds in one round of shooting.
Turn 2.1 The Eldar cast invisbility on the left wraithknight and the wraithlord, since both of them are down to one wound. I consistently forgot FNP and IWND rolls for my knights. The advance of the Mechanicum infantry on the left is halted
The remaining Wraithguards with D-Scythes move and run into range of the master of the forge and inflict an overload of D3 D-wounds on the unit as well as graze the Warden.
The heavy weapon servitors with the torsion guns are taken down by a ridiculous amount of fire made necessary by all mechanicum forces having both Shrouded and Stealth this turn.
A lone Wraithguard manages a 10" (8+2) charge on the Knight Warden just ahead of the knights in the picture above. The Warden elected not to waste overwatch due to the long odds of the Wraithguard's charge. The strikes of the Ghostglaive destroyed the Imperial Knight. The resulting explosion killed the wraithguard and took a wound from the knight with the heavy wraith cannons.
The invisible Wraith Knight and Wraith Lord take the remaining hull points of the Knight Errant and weather the explosion.
Turn 2.2 Mechanicum forces advance, the big robots wipe out units left and right in melee. Marines wipe out the Wraith-Scythe unit. I missed out on taking a picture during this player turn.
Turn 3.1 One of the almost-dead Wraithknights dies in Overwatch fire. I forgot FNP again.
Turn 3.2 Heavy weapon servitors finish off the last wound of the Wraithknight on the left. Big robots wipe out a unit of wraithguard on the left and damage a wraithlord on the right. Some warlocks on jetbikes die due to being too dumb to jink in time. ;-]
We called the game at this point. While there was only one knight out of six left standing, there were more troops left on my side with the mobility needed to evade and kite the remaining hard hitting, but slow remaining mechanicum units.
It was impressive to see what the mechanicum infantry can do. Interesting special rules, powers and weapons combined with dynamic BS/WS boosts and other effects like spreading cover boni around has a lot of potential. Even more interesting is that all these are deliberate choices rather than silly random tables!
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