Finally up to date with Plague Marines

I got my fifth and final (for the time being) squad of Plague Marines finished last night, bringing my grand total to 35 Marines, for a total points value of just over 1000 points.

I made a bit of an error with these ones, as for 5 of them I used to cheap single pose Chaos Space Marines, which meant they were much harder to convert and ultimately didn't save me that much over a proper box (plus I'd have got bitz from that).

The Champion and icon bearer standard marine kits, with the other 5 being the single pose ones. This squad is likely going to end up as a second string squad who will more than likely only see any action in an Apocalypse game.

Speaking of Apocalypse, probably the next thing I'm going to do is expand my zombie collection so I can have a full Plague of Zombies. I've got 20 done already with another 25 on sprues, which I just need to order some round bases for. The formation requires a Chaos Lord to go with it, so I think I'll paint up the Necromancer which goes with the VC Corpse Cart to act as the Plague Lord. Once they're done, I'm hoping for another superheavy, either a Nurgle Plague Tower or Plaguereaper depending on how much time I have.

Wave Assault

It was Wednesday night club night last night, and I got a game in playing a mission from the new Battle Missions book last night. I had been a bit skeptical about the book before, but I was definitely wrong, and this game was really fun.

I was playing my usual Chaos Space Marines, and was playing against Orks. We rolled of the for mission at random and ended up with the Wave Assault mission, which is a Tyranid mission. The Orks took the role of the Tyranids as the attackers in waves, I acted in defense.

The mission is objective based, with 4 objectives on the board which are in fixed position dictated by the book, and the attackers (Nids normally, Orks in our case), come in three waves in each of the first three turns. The units in each wave are decided on by the player, but it's random as to which wave you get. The attacker does get to choose which board edges (their side, or either of the two short edges) they come on from and each wave comes on completely, ie. they aren't in reserve as such.

Tactically, it was a challenge to decide how to deploy, and I made an error at the start. I spread myself out a little too thinly to cover the objectives with my three scoring units. This meant when the second wave of 3 loads of Ork Trukk boyz and a Warboss came on in turn 2, they could get a charge in and destroy one of the units, and then go on to roll over another one, whilst the rest of my army was too far away to help.

For this mission, I should have castled up a little closer together and looked to defend three of the objectives and leave the other. That would have meant my harder hitting stuff would have been better able to support my scoring units. As it was I'd lost two of my scoring units by turn 3 which meant it was looking dicey.

Towards the end, I castled up a bit around the centre of the board where two objectives are close together and tried to protect my surviving scoring unit of Plague Marines but against the tide of remaining Orks. I was only holding on for a draw rather than a win. Had the game ended on turn 5, it would have been a draw as all the objectives were contested. Unfortunately it went to an extra turn, and my Vindicator which was contesting one of the objectives was destroyed, giving a win to the Orks.

I'm definitely looking forward to playing some more missions from the Battle Missions book.

Completed Imperial Ruin

Last night, I got some time to finish this piece of terrain (I've been on holiday hence the lack of blog updates). It's a club piece to add to the terrain collection.



Clearly, it's built from one of the standard GW kits which I really like. They're quick and easy to build which is great if you want to get a lot of terrain together quickly (like when you've got to build terrain for a club tournament), and there's a fantastic amount of detail on them if you want to go to town on painting them. The drawback is that everyone can have them, which makes your terrain less unique and special.

I prefer to base the GW buildings on hardboard for stability. I've heard differing opinions on this, with some people saying they don't need it. I for one am always knocking stuff over when gaming, so the extra stability from the base is great for that.

They're based on hardboard which I got from B&Q for about £2 for a massive sheet. I cut the shape out with a jigsaw and slope off the edges with a stanley knife and sandpaper. After that, slap on all purpose filler for a bit of texture and add sand/rubble etc to taste. I tend to use brown for the bases on these, as they need to blend in with a number of different coloured boards at the club.

White Dwarf UK365 Contents

White Dwarf arrived in the post today, unusually early, so here's a quick run down on what's in the issue:

-Cover War of the Ring Battlehosts
-New releases: Mostly War of the Ring, with some nice Ruins of Osgiliath terrain. Also the new Fantasy River Trolls and Boar Boyz.
-Design Notes on War of the Ring Battlehosts
-War of the Ring scenarios, then a short piece about painting the Ruins of Osgiliath terrain piece.
-War of the Ring Winged Nazgul conversions showing all 9 Ringwraiths
-Battle report is War of the Ring: Mordor Vs Gondor
-Fantasy article on Orcs and Goblins. Just an advert for the army really.
-40K Historical Scenario with Blood Angels Vs Tyranids
-Fantasy article on army composition. This one follow the series showing different types of army builds.
-Standard Bearer, only skimmed this, seems to be about terrain.
-Painting Masters: Golden Daemon.
-'Eavy Metal Masterclass: Black Orc Big Boss on a boar
-Next Month: Warhammer 40K Spearhead

Plenty in this issue if you play War of the Ring.

Battle Report: Witch Hunters Vs Space Wolves

I got a game in on Thursday night, and for the first time I played my Witch Hunters army.

The list was a little cobbled together, and I managed to get 1200 points together:

Canoness, Jump Pack, Cloak of St Aspira, Blessed Weapon, Frag Grenades, Bolt Pistol, Litanies of Faith

Inquistor Lord, Divine Pronoucement, Psychic Hood, Bolter
3 Gun Servitors, Heavy Bolters
Acolyte
Chirugeon

Eversor Assasin

10 Battle Sisters, VSS with Book of St Lucius, Heavy Flamer, Meltagun, Rhino with Smoke Launchers
10 Battle Sisters, VSS with Book of St Lucius, Storm Bolter, Meltagun, Rhino with Smoke Launchers

9 Seraphim, VSS with melta bombs, 2 twin hand flamers

Exorcist

My opponent was playing Space Wolves, so it was always going to be a difficult battle. His list was something like:

15 Blood Claws, Wolf Guard with power fist, Wolf Priest

10 Grey Hunters, Wolf Guard with power fist and combi-melta, one melta gun, rhino
10 Grey Hunters, Wolf Guard with power fist and combi-melta, one melta gun, rhino

6 (might have been 5) Long Fangs with missile launchers
5 Long Fangs with heavy bolters

We played Annhilation with the Spearhead deployment. He chose his quarter and chose one with a lot of cover and set his Long Fangs up in a ruin where they could see pretty much the whole battle field. My quarter had very little cover in it.

Overall, I got absolutely smashed. My Canoness and Seraphim were good, they managed to tar pit his Blood Claws and a Grey Hunter squad for three turns before their martyrdom.

The Battle Sisters I just wasted on nothing really, and the Exorcist was totally useless thanks for diabolical rolling on my part, and some poor target selection.

The Inquisitor was not much use either, the lack of synergy between his psychic power (18" range) and the heavy bolters (36" range) was clear. Back to the drawing board with him, I need to balance my desire to have a cool Inquisitor character and his usefulness in games.

Don't get me wrong, it was a fun game and a learning experience. I didn't play that well, and had some poor rolls when I really needed them (Exorcist and a melta gun failing to even scratch the paint work on a Rhino for example), so the result was an absolute tonking.

Plague Marine Squad

I built this squad for an Apocalypse game last year, and I've only just got around to painting the thing. I use them as Plague Marines, taking my inspiration from the Blind Dead movies.

In that Apocalyse game, they walked onto the table, and then a scattering asteriod thrown by Orks in space killed all of them instantly....



The paint job was more functional than fancy, but they look OK on the table.

The heads on the these are from Pig Iron Industries, and I'd definitely use them again. I don't think I'd use them again for Chaos Marines though, as the size of the heads are a little too small for marines. If I ever get round to that Traitor Guard army, these will be on those models.