Battle reports - lose some, win some!

When I started playing Iyanden, I had a series of wins and posted some battle reports. After that, RL intervened and my leisure time allotment shrank a bit. My Iyanden list got quite some play and I still got some painting and modelling done, but I didn't go for elaborate battle reports.

Obviously, the series of victories was unlikely to continue - and it didn't. I still won some games decisively and some by points - but on the flip side there were defeats. I did not document each game fully, but I'll just highlight some losses here.

 I lost to 186 or so HPs of Ork boys with my list reduced in points to match the lower point limit. That cost me one serpent. Facing a number of 30 boy mobs each with a power weapon as threat in it. While I was able to slaughter the orks with gay abbandon , there were simply too many of them for the amount of individual shots I could offer. Having to kite the orc mob also meant that I couldn't use my wraithguard effectively. I lost the game by points with the game ending early. I might have won with another turn or two, but clearly there were too many wounds marching over the table. 

I got stomped by chaos deamons. Twice. The first time a combination of various deamon flavours smashed my forces - in cases of the serpents and FMCs quite literally - while my wraithknight fell to a plague bearers special sword via instant death and my farseer got swapped for a herald by the warp storm table. The second round was even worse. Four squads of rosa horrors with heralds, guide and banners unleashing 20D6 S6 24" shots to start with. Add in fire deamons, two FMCs, the grimoire of true names and the portal glyph producing a 4-5 horror squad behind a building. In addition, the deamon player was rolling awesome and lucky, while I had FAIL on tap. =] 

Luck and bad luck respectively nonwithstanding, I clearly couldn't deal damage effectively to the deamons. Outgunned and faced by a load of invulnerable saves making my AP irrelevant, my space pansies were even more doomed than they are supposed to be. Oh, and the warp creatures had their invul saves improved the first two rounds... Khaine wept. 

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Recently, I fought a Forgeworld Army for the first time. In this case, an armored company. We got the kill points mission and diagonal deployment, I had initiative. I deployed on the line to the nomands land, eager to get my wraithguard in range. Imperial high command deployed conservatively behind an Aegis defense line. To begin with, I faced three Hydras, an Executioner, two Leeman Russ's and one Atlas. I'll use the following pictures to illustrate what these can do. ;-]

The following picture shows the end of turn 1. I moved forward, shot at the Hydras - did either no damage, hit the Aegis or had the damage done nullified by the Atlas and the two techpriests, which get to repair hull points on 5+ and may do that twice and reroll fails within 6" of the Atlas. Awesome!

On the flip side, the Hydras have a special rule (not ignore cover, specific to them in the IA book) which prevents me from using my jink save on my Serpents. They have only skyfire, but that USR does count skimmers as valid targets for full ballistic skill. Ouch.

Also, the HQ and Commissar Leeman Russ tanks were sporting Beast Hunter shells. Those are S8 AP2(?) small blasts, but they have instant death against anything with hit points. Since a part of my wraith knight was visible through the building, it was a valid target, got hit, wounded and failed it's cover/invul 5+ save. Dead. OUCH!

Here is the end of turn 2. My second wraith knight arrives via deep strike, but is displaced a perfect 12" away from the enemy lines. My Serpents are mostly scattered across the landscape and my wraithguard are foot slogging but of course not sized for that. Imperial reinforcements arrive and mow down my footies.

Blessed by my farseer with a 4++, the second wraithknight is lucky a number of times. The beast hunter shells either scatter, fail to wound or I make the saves.

With only a few wraithguard and a wraithknight left alive, I finally get to carry the battle to the enemy.

Who deftly manouvers to avoid me jumping his HQ tank and places other vehicles in my assault path.

Even thoug I got spanked big time in this game, it was fun to see the guard be awesome instead of an also died in a Space Marine story. ;-]

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A few weeks later I got my rematch. Same army lists, same deployment and initiative for me again - by chance. I kept both wraithknights in reserve this time. Imperial HQ got a warlord trait that allowed granting outflank to a unit, which was given to the commissar Leeman Russ. Punisher, two Chimeras and the flyer stayed in reserve.

My first turn consisted of advancing my serpents by 30", thanks to 12" normal movement and 18" turbo-boost. Imperial forces killed one of the Serpents, but the rest survived thanks to luck and the serpent shield.

The following picture shows the table after the movement phase of my second player turn. I got lucky with both wraithknights showing up and not scattering too badly.

And here we see the table after my shooting phase. With multiple wraith knight units being in range, some tanks - including the HQ tank - got destroyed. Funny enough, the bunch shooting at the executioner missed all but one shot.

This pretty harsh alpha strike pretty much called the game in my favour in combination with all of the heavy Imperial reserve rolls failing and only the Chimeras comming in. This allowed me to dish out some more before the flyer and the commissar tank arrived. The commissar insta-killed a wraith knight, but got nuked in return.


Taking a step back, it is quite obvious that moving forward agressively and actually using all the wraithguard from turn two onwards was the way to go. Nobody can plan for dice, but with 30" movement in turn 1, 6" movement of the serpent in turn 2 and 12" weapon range, clearly it is possible to reach quite far indeed, even if some range is lost due to the serpent exit point and shape in combination with the up to 6" disembarcation move.

TL;DR: won some, lost some, had fun! =]

Swarmlord = base deco

On new years day, I finished my swarmlord base decoration effort. Some touches could still be done, but I wanted to get the model in place and at least a bit highlighted. I bought the Hive Tyrant / Swarmlord kit because it looked to be just the right size to fit nicely on the wraithknight base. At the time when I picked the swarmlord as base decoration, I didn't actually know that he's the tyrant's superior. I picked him since his weapons/arms fit into the space nicer and because I wanted to build a flying hive tyrant with the other bits. The different models share a common thorax, but I managed to make do. ;-] Anyway, here the swarmlord lies. I used a hot air gun to soften the plastic of his tail, legs, tongue and arm joints to make him look a bit slack. I'm ok with him not being a pile of goo - considering he's got a carapace and loads of armor, he wouldn't be a pancake anyway.

The swarmlord's legs extend just over the base edge, which considering the size of the wraithknight and it's base shouldn't be a problem.

Considering that the wraithknight isn't a real monsterous creature - since it cannot hold a candle to a moster like the swarmlord, tyrant or dreadknight - it would be ludicrous to claim the swarmlord as a melee kill. That's why I made a sizeable hole into the swarmlords chest and had green goo flow out of it. A ranged kill it is. Mind you, that was before the new tyranid codex dropped and Iron Arm was no longer available and T6 is the ceiling for the swarmlord now - vs the S10 AP2 guns of the wraithknight. ;-]

The swarmlord could benefit from some more love. The seam between the separately painted lower leg halves bothers me, but not as much as it did before going over the knight once more. Ah well! Once I got my whole Iyanden force painted, I might go and put more time into this model.

Farseer on (count as) Jetbike

So, an Eldar Iyanden List I want to play includes a Farseer on Jetbike. I don't want to order the Chapterhouse kit or get into making a green stuff cloak to cover up the mishaps of converting a biker to a Farseer.

There is a great plastic Farseer kit, but that fairly static in pose. I decided to try an alternative to the jetbike model and want to use an support battery antigrav platform instead. I had one lying around. I gently ripped off the glued gun emplacement. ;)

To my joy, a 25mm round base fits exactly in the center of this platform. That allows me to have the plastic farseer stand on the platform on his base, so I can tie that together with deco and paint and use the model without the bike if needed.

Additionally, I gave the farseer the sniper rifle. I found a dark eldar rifle for this and attached that and the figures head with 2x2 mm magnets. The base is held on the antigrav platform with another magnet pair.

You can see the model here. My focus was on utility and having a model that won't be confused with anything else and matches the jetbike dimensions closely to avoid modelling for advantage discussions from the get-go.

I want to add some rune deco to both the base and the antigrav platform, but I'm pretty happy with the model's overall look.

Update: I carved runes into the models base and the sides of the platform and applied some paint. It's not finished, but far enough that I could glue the farseer to the base and make the model playable.

Wraithknight Mk.III moar!

I've spent Sunday using the brush on the parts. I used Citadel Warplock Bronze and Hashut Copper for the Rune on the back and the big bulges on the hip armour plates. The gems were done as before, with VMA Tank Brown, VMA Sand and Tamiya Clear Red. I used VMA German Grey and Citadel Nuln Oil for the grey bits.

Tonight, I did some careful edge highlights using VMA White and VMA Yellow. Then I grabbed my trusty bottle of Revell Contacta plastic cement and went to town. The model stands by itself without a base, hip, shoulder and neck joints are held by magnets. I've also put magnets into the shoulder weapon mounts - just in case.

Here is the assembled model next to the second Wraithknight I painted, which is now no longer alone in my Iyanden army. The painting parts method is by far better than trying to paint an already completely glued model - like the one I did first as a favour for the owner and rehersal for me - and also still much better than panting an over-magnetized model - like the wraithknight I assembled when it came out with no thought about airbrushing or even painting.

I'm now going to stick the new wraithknight on it's base and get to doing the base deco. For that I need to make a halfway convincing job out of the swarm lord. The nicer look on the new knight has me considering re-doing or touching up my other knight, but I'm not sure what way I'll go there.

Wraithknight Mk.III

I've hit all subassemblies of the wraithknight with primer and paint now. Then I attempted to add some shade to the yellow parts. I'm not too happy with the result. I will have to see how it looks with greylining, edge-highlights and gems.

My plan was to have a Swarmlord with a hefty hole or two in its thorax as casual(ty) base deco. Using a hot air gun at 180 degrees Celsius, I was able to bend the plastic kit into shape to make this work and look a tad better than the model instriding pose just tilted on its side.

My first Apocalypse game

Being new to the hobby, there are certainly a lot of firsts. I wanted to share some pictures and a short video walkthrough of the battlefield of my first apocalypse game at the local friendly wargaming club.

We used four regular size gaming tables and a couple of the bigger terrain pices that don't get much use in normal games.

This first picture shows the deployment of the Tau and their human auxiliary troops that happen to sport two scout titans and my chaos space marines.

Here the orks have crash landed in a wide band between the skyshield landing pad and the fortress.

The loyal imperial forces and space marines on the other side of the battle are dug in among the ruins. Some marine forces will deepstrike via half a dozen drop-pods and seven blo(l)od angel land raiders.

With the special 60" formation move and enough luck to score a penetrating hit and an explosion, each of my drakes killed a vindicator before the first move.

Not too long after the game started we had a lunch break, which I used to do a quick video walkthough of the battlefield. I didn't think about switching off the radio, so I had to remove the audio rather than get into trouble over some faint noise in the background.



These pictures show the battlefield shortly before the game ended after turn two.

It was amazing to see this many minis in action! I've learned a lot and will be revising my setup for the next game.

Hellfire FTW

From left to right, my first, second and third heldrake. Apocalypse formation ready in time for the game on Saturday.

And we are back!

Due to starting a new job and hobby time spent playing 40k, I didn't make any progress on the modelling or painting fronts in the last weeks.

Now I'm scrambling to get ready for an Apocalypse game this Saturday, for which I still needed a third heldrake to complete the Apocalypse formation. Having learned from previous builds, I went with assembly of groups of parts with access for painting in mind. I got the flame pattern done.

In parallel, I've got a second wraithknight and a hive tyrant on my bench. The tyrand kit makes a flyrant and a corpse under the knight's foot. I stuck the flyrant on four stacks of 2 euro-cent coins hotglued together and superglued to a 60mm round base and two bottom-to-bottom plastic cemented square bases on top. That gives the flying model some lift and also a hefty base weight.

The wraithknight is now removed from the sprue, cemented together, scraped, sanded and magnetised. The parts are split into three groups for the main colours

Next steps are painting the trim on the heldrake and putting that together. The wraithknight will get a German Grey primer coat for the parts on the top left. A black wash will follow. Everything else will be primed white. The parts on the bottom left then be airbrushed blue, while the bunch of parts on the right will be hit with yellow.

PS: Getting there... looks like hot wings to go for tomorrow night.

 

Battle report Grey Knights vs Iyanden 1750 pts

Game background
A new player showed up at our local gaming club yesterday. He'd recently moved to the area, was looking for new stomping grounds and happy to play a game of 40k using his Grey Knights. We agreed on 1750 points.

I played the same wraith list as before, just sans Reavers.

Grey Knights
Scriptor, Mastery Level 3, Terminator Armour, Psi-sword (omniscience, guiding spirit, doom), Warlord
Xenos Inquisitor, Psi-sword, Servo-armour, Psi-gas-grenades, Beam-grenades, ML1 (omniscience)
9 Purificators, 4 Halberds, 2 Hammers, 2 Flamers, Knight of the Flame, Halberd
Vindicare-Assassin
10 Strikesquad, 7x Psi-swords, 2xPsi-Bolter, Justicar, Hammer, Rhino
10 Strikesquad, 7x Psi-swords, 2xPsi-Bolter, Justicar, Hammer, Rhino
Land Raider Redeemer, TL Assault Cannon, Psi-Ammo, Multimelter
Dreadnight, Sword, Flamer, Teleportmodule


Parameters
Mission 5: The Will of the Imperator. 2 objectives.
Deployment 2: Standard
Iyanden wins Initiative and keeps it.
Grey Knights force Nightfighting for round 1 via Warlord table.

Turn 1.1 Iyanden
Serpents advance 6" to 12".
Serpent evacuates the Assassin from the Ruins.
Two Serpents damage Rhino on the right.
Wraith knight attempts to damage the Dreadknight.

Turn 1.2 Grey Knights
Land Raider advances and attacks the shield-less Serpent with Multi-Melter and Assault Cannon. Serpent makes the cover saves.
Grey Knights disembark from the Rhions. The squad on the left attack the previously hit serpent with Psi-bolters. Serpent makes the cover saves.
Dreadnight jumps 30" and hits the Wraithblades and the Wraithknight with his flamer. One Wraithblade falls.

Turn 2.1 Iyanden
Wraighguards disembark either before or just after the Serpents move.
Serpents glide into fire position on the disemparked Grey Knight squads and saturate the targets.
I had the glorious idea to go for the Dreadnight with my Wraithknight. I knew it would be a chancy thing, but didn't realize how long my odds really were. After shooting, impact and the Wraith's I5 attacks, the Dreadknight had one HP left and then promptly skewered the Wraithknight with his Psi-Sword. Oops! =]

Turn 2.2 Grey Knights
The Dreadknight his the same target with his flamer again, without losses this time.
The Land Raider advances 12"and then floors it in the shooting phase putting distance between itself and the Wraithguards 10 S10 AP2 shots.
Grey Knights on the left shoot at the Wraithguards with Warpscythes, but fail to inflict losses.
Grey Knights on the right advance towards the objective marker.

Turn 3.1 Iyanden
The Serpent between Wraithguards and Land Raider moves out of the way to the front left.
The other three Serpents take up firing positions. Two shoot at the Grey Knights on the left but fail to eliminate models. One chucks as many shots as possible at the Dreadknight hoping for a failed save for that last HP. This hope bears fruit and the Dreadknight falls.
The Spiritseer casts the Iyanden Primaris Power Voice of Twilight in the middle of the Wraithguard groups, succeds and grants all three units Battle-Trance. The two Wraithguard units on the right move through terrain and then run to get all models into the 12" range to the Land Raider. The Land raider is wrecked but does not explode. The Grey Knight are forced to hop out.
The Land Raider behind the Wraithguards pours fire into the disembarked Purificator unit, but this is stopped cold by the Omniscience of the Scriptor who makes all of his twin-linked 2+ saves.

Turn 3.2 Grey Knights
Purificator unit attacks both Wraithguard units. Using Grey Knight special gear the Toughness is dropped from 6 to 5 and instead of hitting on 4+, the Grey Knights auto-hit. Enough 5+ DS3 wounds are dished out to completely wipe out both units remaining nine Wraithguards but leave the Spiritseer as last man standing. The Seer promptly fails his moralecheck at a penalty of 9, which isn't a shocker considering a morale value of 9. The seer legs it 10".
The Grey Knights on the left try their luck again with the Warpscythes, but fail.
The Grey Knights on the right try their luck another time to get to the objective inch by inch.

Turn 4.1 Iyanden
Warpscythes move out of the forest. The Seer moves out of the way.
Serpents glide in position to test the defenses of the Scriptor and his unit. The Scriptors luck holds - but not forever. The Inquisitor and two knights survive the onslaught.

Turn 4.2 Grey Knights
The Inquisitor and his knights chuck three grenades at the Serpent, but fail to break through the Armour. The Grey Knights on the left and their Ride shoot at the Warpscythes again, but fail to wound.

Turn 5.1 Iyanden
One Serpent fires at the knight at the objective marker, who go to ground. One knight falls.
Two Serpents knock out the Inquistor and his knights.
Warpscythes convert the surviving two knights on the left into pure ash.
The last Serpent uses it's Scatterlaser (and some luck) to knock out the Rhino.

Turn 5.2 Grey Knights
The Grey Knights are still gone to ground.

There is a round 6!

Turn 6.1 Iyanden
Serpents glide into firing position and wipe out the last Grey Knights.

Outcome
Grey Knights: 1 Warlord
Iyanden: 5, First Blood, Warlord, Objective

Iyanden Victory!

Battle report Imperial Fists vs Iyanden 2000 pts

After the first game, I played the Iyanden army again on Tuesday night with another member my local gaming club. We agreed on 2000 points. My game partner setup up the terrain before we rolled for deployment and choice of halves.

I played my wraith list again. My opponent fielded an Imperial Fists Army with Black Templar allies.

Imperial Fists
Captain + command unit with melters and apothecary + land raider
Devastors with 4x Rocketlauncher
Tactical troop with melters + Rhino
Tactical troop with plasma, split into groups of 5.
TriLas Predator
Black Templar allies
Chaplain + Crusaders + Land Raider Crusader
Tactical troop + Rhino


Parameters
The Fists Player set up the table before we rolled deployment or sides.
Mission 1: Crusade, 5 Objectives
Deployment 4: Hammerstrike
Nightfighting in Turn 1
Imperial Fists attempt to steal the initiaive, but fail.


Deployment

Turn 1.1 Iyanden
Serpents advance 6" to 12". Wraithknight jumps forward one ruin. Wraithblades disembark.
Reavers ignore nightfighting thanks to their Exarch's nightsight, but fail to damage the Templar Land Raider.
A Serpent shoots at the Predator and inflicts 2 points damage using the serpent shield.
Two serpents and the wraith knight shoot at the tactical troup at the objective and inflict losses.

Turn 1.2 Imperial Fists
Templar Land Raider uses melter and assault cannon on shield-less Serpent.
Predator targets the same Serpent. Serpent loses hull points, but survives.
Fists Land Raider fires it's twin-linked lascannons at a serpent, which also loses hull points, but survives.

Turn 2.1 Iyanden
The absolute super-hero Marine bolder and bigger than even the Fluff is the one marked in the picture below. He managed to save all 10 hits his unit took! YIPPEE!

Total carnage!
Wraithguards disembark. A unit of five shoots each land raider. Both land raiders take penetrating hits which result in explosions! The Fist's command unit takes no losses, the templars take a few losses. A serpent each hits the passengers of each exploded land raider.
Two serpents pour fire into the devastator troup and wipe it out.
Reavers pop the Predator's last hull point.
The wraith knight shoots at the other squad at the objective marker.

Turn 2.2 Imperial Fists
The squad at the objective marker takes pot-shots with plasma at the Serpent, but is ineffective.
Templar troop advances, but fails the attack range roll and takes overwatch casualties.
Rhino advances and kills a Wraithblade with it's bolter.
Command troop assaults Wraithguards and kill two of them.
Imperial Fists Rhino advancese and take cover in the land raider crater.

Turn 3.1 Iyanden
Serpents disengage to get out of melter and plasma range.
Spiritseer blesses the Wraithguards with Battletrance. The Warpscythe bearing unit manages to line up in a fire line and hoses down the crater with their S4 DS2 flamethrowers, leaving turning to ash as the marine's only option.
Wraithguards on the other side of the table pop the Templar Rhino.
Reavers use their S5 DS3 rockets to wipe out the passengers.
Two Serpents fire at the Templars, inflicting further losses.
One serpent fires at the plasma squad at the marker, wiping it out.
Fist's command team kills two more wraithguards.

Turn 3.2 Imperial Fists
Templars fail their attack range roll again and suffer withering overwatch fire.
Command troup kills the last Wraithguard and is stood alone in the middle of a lot of yellow.
A lone marine is parked behind the ruin at the objective marker.

Turn 4.1 Iyanden
WOOOSH!

Result
Victory for Iyanden.
Imperial Fists: 0
Iyanden: 2 Warlord, First Blood