Battle Report: 500 point tournament

Following on from my post yesterday about the list I used, here's some details on how I went in my three games. The tournament was held at Maelstrom Games in Mansfield, and it's a really great gaming venue which will be even better when the whole area is open:



Game 1: Vs Space Marines

I was facing off here against two 10 man tactical squads, with heavy bolters and melta guns and one Rhino, led by a librarian with Might of the Ancients and Gate of Infinity.
This one was a table quarter's scenario, and the Space Marine ability to combat squad meant he was able to hold two quarters and contest a third. I only held one quarter by the end of the game but I scored an extra point for getting more victory points (a minor victory). This was mainly due to a good round of shooting from my Rhino and it's occupant destroying a whole combat squad and a librarian. Overall, a draw but a reasonable start.

Game 2: Vs Imperial Guard

In this game, I faced off against a Company Command Squad with an Autocannon and grenade launcher, and couple of veteran squads, one with Harken and two armoured sentinels.
The was the King of the Hill mission from 4th edition, so we had to capture the centre of the table. I got my marines onto the objective quite quickly and then had to whether the fire from the IG army. My Lord started well, breaking a veteran squad and then killing the command squad in assault. From this good start for me, the IG pulled it back round. My ability to destroy either of his armoured sentinels was gone thanks to a Get's Hot! roll on my plasma gun so I was relying on krak grenades. This meant the IG could get in close to the objective with his Sentinel and a scoring unit to contest. The other sentinel charged my Lord in assault as I'd taken the bait and got near it and slowly wore him down. The IG won this one on victory points, so a very narrow loss.

This was the final battle around the central objective:



Game 3: Vs Imperial Guard

I had a strong game in this one. The mission was capture and control, so I parked a Marine squad on my objective. The second squad in a rhino and the Lord advanced down my left. Harken then appeared on that flank right next to them with a veteran squad and destroyed the Rhino with a demo charge, and then charged the occupants and the Lord in combat. The IG were rapidly destroyed by the Lord's Daemon Weapon. That squad then advanced on his objective, destroying another veteran squad in assault. His Chimera advanced on my objective, but I got a lucky roll and blew it up with my plasma gun. The game ended with me holding both objectives (for full battle points), and a massacre result in victory points.


Overall, I managed to finish in first place, which was a real surprise to me. I had a blast in this, and I'll definitely want to play in some more tournaments in future.

With three games under it's belt, the short comings of my final list were clear (I should really have playtested it, but I didn't get time).

It's main problem was I only had one way of destroying armour of any kind: one plasma gun. That meant that in game 2, I was really struggling to take on the armoured sentinels after the loss of the PG. The second problem with it was it only has two scoring units, meaning that at most I was going to hold two objectives. This cost me in game 1. On the plus side, the rhinos with havoc launchers worked well causing quite a lot of casualties, and making my army quite mobile.

500 point Chaos Space Marine tournament list

Yesterday I played in the first UK Freebootaz Open Tournament. I played in the one day 500 point tournament, which had list restrictions similar to the Adepticon combat patrol rules:

Only ONE HQ allowed
2-3 Troops
0-1 Elites
0-1 Fast Attack
0-1 Heavy Support
Maximum of 3+ armour save
Maximum Armour Value of 33 on any individual vehicle (front + side +rear)
Maximum of 2 Psychic Powers
Monstrous Creatures are NOT allowed


I spent an age throwing lists together before I finally settled on this one:


Chaos Lord, Mark of Slaanesh, Wings, Daemon Weapon, Melta Bombs

7 Chaos Space Marines, one flamer, Icon of Chaos Glory, Rhino with Havoc Launcher
7 Chaos Space Marines, one plasma gun, Rhino with Havoc Launcher

Total: 500 points

My thinking for this was that the Lord would be there to hit things hard in CC, plus use his instant death causing Daemon Weapon to deal with multi-wound models like Nobz or Tyranid Warriors. He'd be supported in this by the flamer squad who I gave an icon to as I thought they'd be getting into combat more often and might need the re-roll. The other squad was an objective holder. The two rhino would use their havoc launchers as long range support to thin out units.

The tournament was a mixture of different scenarios, including the table quarters and king of the hill missions from 4th edition.

I'm just writing up some details for the battle reports, so stay tuned.

WIP: Wings in Progress

This is a WIP shot of one of the wings from my Nurgle Daemon Prince (here's some earlier WIP shots of him during the conversion phase). The wings are fairly heavily cut down ones from the LoTR balrog.

The "fingers" are just basecoated currently, I'll be highlighting them a little lighter when I get chance. I really happy with the way the wing membrane has come out, as this was a little experiment using stippling, something I've never tried before.

I wanted the wings to have a mottled, organic feel to them so I thought stippling would look a little more natural than trying to blend the two colour together.

The wing was basecoated with Kommando Khaki in several thin coats as on such a large, visible area I wanted the paint to be as smooth as possible. Next, a wash with Devlan Mud to try and pick out the ridges in the wing folds. At this point I was unsure of where to go with it, and it was then I hit upon the stippling idea.

I used an old small drybrush to do this, but GW do make a nylon stippling brush. Really, it just needs to be a relatively stiff brush. Beware than doing this will ruin brushes as you'll end up splaying the bristles out

I started by stippling the area close the wing fingers with Bestial Brown, so this was the lighter of the two browns. Once this was done, I then repeated the process with Scorched Earth, this time going even closer to the finger. When stippling, take off most of the paint before you put it on the model, otherwise it'll just blob on to it, not stipple.

The final step was a quick drybrush of the whole wing with Kommando Khaki to pick up the ridges of the skin.

The final result looks pretty pleasing for me, I'll definitely try this again. This could be a good way of adding textures to any organic surface, for example a Tyranid carapace.

Chaos Lord of Slaanesh

I just got some time to finish up this miniature last night. I planning on running this guy in the tournament at the weekend:

Chaos Lord, Mark of Slaanesh, Daemon Weapon, Wings, Melta Bombs

I had originally planned to use him as a Sorcerer but I decided against that plan. I've gone with daemon weapon as it gives +D6 attacks (provided you don't roll a one), and the Slaanesh version inflicts Instant Death. This combined with the wings and melta bombs mean I'm going to be using him to take down tough, multi-wound models (Nobz, Tyranid Warriors, though no monstrous creatures are allowed in the tournie), plus use his melta bombs to destroy any light armour that I come across.

In terms of painting, I really struggled with this. I find the pastel pinks and blues difficult to paint. The snake tail blending is a little rough, and the shoulders are a bit too blue really. I'm quite pleased with the wings, they look OK.

15th already....

Blimey, it's got to the 15th of the month and I've managed a sum total of zero posts...

Work and home have been pretty manic so far this month so not much hobbying has been done. I've managed to paint for about an hour but that's it really.

This is going to have to change this week, as I've got a tournament coming up this week (UK Freebootaz Open). I'm playing in the one day 500 point tournament, which follows similar list restrictions to the Adepticon combat patrol rules. I'm going to be playing Chaos Space Marines, but the list I'm going to be using isn't actually painted fully yet. Between now and the weekend I need to finish off a new Slaanesh Chaos Lord (formerly a Sorcerer then I changed my mind and just went for a Lord with wings) and magnetize two Havoc Launchers to two rhinos. Painting this Slaanesh Lord has reminded me why I've always failed with painting Slaanesh stuff before: I suck at it.