League Update

The league is slowly progressing towards it's end with just another month and a bit to go. Unfortunately since I last posted about it we have had a couple more players drop out for various reasons. Disappointing but understandable. We have also had some problems with one player who may or may not be cheating which is frustrating. Next time definitely going to have to cherry pick who plays next time to avoid these issues.

My money is still on Jon winning but Jason and Mark both have a chance. I really want Jon to win though. He has worked hard to achieve it and it would be cool to see Necrons win again.

Age of Sigmar

Last night at the club I had my first game of Age of Sigmar, the newest iteration of Warhammer Fantasy. You have to be aware that I was already positively disposed towards this before I had the game. It looked to me to be exactly what I wanted from a fantasy war game. My friend Brian build two lists, one ogre and the other wood elves. Both were balanced to 55 wounds total with no monsters. I chose wood elves and off we went.

Movement is now more like 40K in that your units are essentially skirmishing which is much more historically correct and you can just move as you want without all the old wheeling nonsense. Much more preferable to what we used to have.

The magic system seems nice and basic although it did screw me over severely. Brian had a magician in his list and I didn't. I had a nice tough hero though. He only did the spell once but it basically opened up the ground and devoured an entire unit of elf warriors.We had a good laugh about it but even with a 50/50 chance of ending the spell kept going and it was frustrating. I'm not going to hold it against the game for now as it was just dumb luck one way or another.

Combat was good and simple and there still are tactical decisions to be made if you end up with a multi-unit melee. In an odd sort of way it reminded me of very early Warhammer and Rogue Trader. The only issue that I had run through my head was the multi-wound ogres compared to my little elves. It was much much harder to drop a single ogre and thus their unit effectiveness, than it was for them to smash through my units. It should balance out but something still niggled.

Brian's ogres did me in ultimately as I gave up the ghost when I was down to two archers and my hero. At least my elf lord died giving the ogres a good thrashing.

I don't like the world setting and shall just ignore it, but I found the system to be just about (maybe 80%) what I want from a fantasy game. Saying that, it isn't going to be good for the traditional Warhammer Fantasy player who wants the OTT level of complexity that Fantasy had. But for casual players and newcomers to this sort of hobby, Age of Sigmar is going to be a breath of fresh air.

Battle Report - Death Guard vs Dark Angels

Last Friday evening I challenged my nephew to a game of 40K as an opportunity try out my Death Guard once again. I went in expecting to lose because I still need to learn how to play them but I was pleased at ho well they did handle themselves despite the high points cost.

My nephew made a small screw up as he was unsure how the Forge Organisation Chart worked with formations but it didn't matter for this as I was happy to play. He has three armies - Blood Angels, Dark Angels and Adeptas Sororitas. He is such a big Blood Angel fan that I expected to be facing off against a plethora of assault marines and furiouso dreadnoughts. Instead he turned up with a Dark Angel force mounted on bikes or part of a Ravenwing detachment full of land speeders. I was going to have a hell of a time.

We rolled off and got the mission where you can win each other's objectives. I know from the league games where this one has come up that it isn't all that popular and I can sort of see why. We kicked things off with him deploying his side of the table.

I don't quite remember everything he had but it includes Sammael on his jetbike, a bike command squad, a squad of bikes, and the formation that gave him three land speeders and a darkshroud land speeder.

My list was:

Sorcerer - level 3.
Mark of Nurgle. Veteran of the long war.
Powers: Force, Nurgle's rot, summoning, plague wind and the one that makes weapons "get hot".

10 man CSM squad.
Mark of Nurgle. Veterans of the long war. Champion had power fist.

10 man plague marine squad.
Veterans of the long war.
Champion had power weapon and plasma pistol. Icon of despair and two meltaguns.
Rhino with two combi-bolters.

5 man terminator squad.
Mark of Nurgle. Veterans of the long war.
Combi-bolters and one reaper autocannon. Champion had lighting claw. The rest had one power fist and the others power weapons.

Aegis defence line with quad autocannons.

I deployed mine with the sorcerer and his CSM buddies holding the autocannon. The plague marines sat off to the side in a rhino looking to get around to objectives as needed. I also talked myself into holding the terminators in reserve which proved to be a poor choice as you'll see.

Battle was then commenced. He threw everything at my CSM squad on turn one. Bolters and plasma weapons both, and I either made every armour save or passed the cover save for the defence line. One dice in particular rolled nothing lower than a 4 for half the game! It has since been promoted.

Second turn he decided to move across the table and sweep in behind me rather than risk driving over the terrain. When he realised that he had wrecked my Rhino in the gap he needed he was not a happy bunny. On my second turn no terminators arrived. Poured everything into the land speeders and did nothing. The quad cannon did smash through one bike squad though which really helped my bacon.

Turn three and still no terminators! I ended up having to summon plaguebearers to stall his advance with the bikes. They did not last long which I found very disappointing. I really wanted them to last a bit longer but a free unit (although it cost my sorcerer a wound thanks to a issue with the warp).

As the game went along my nephew did manage to kill my CSM squad but not before my sorcerer conjoured a second squad of plaguebearers to halt the bike advance and blowing his own head off with another mishap.

Eventually my terminators arrived turn four way past the point where I really needed them. They came down and took out a couple of bikes but the rest blasted them down to two terminators who then proved ineffectual other than to hold an objective.

My plague marines did fantastic though. They never did put a dent on the land speeders but they survived so much fire power and took down Sammael that I didn't care. At end of turn 5 it was getting late and my nephew was on 12 vp to my 5 so we called it there.

At the end of the day my army is going to be expensive as I want the mark of Nurgle on everything and I'd rather field plague marines than the regular chaos marines. I'd have liked some more models on the table but even so I was very pleased as to how the game played out.

League Update

The league continues and still no one can stop Jon's necron advance to the first place. With only four games left to go for him I cannot see anyone getting close but we shall play on and enjoy the league. It is pleasing to see how some players who in the past didn't do so well are actually getting some good positions on the leader board.

On a side note when this league wraps up we will be having a good break from organised play for some friendlies but come spring next year I am pondering running a small Age of Sigmar league if there is enough interest. If not, I might do a tile based campaign instead for 40K.

Death Guard update

Slowly getting there with my Death Guard painting and I am very pleased with how they are coming out. You may have seen a couple of these photos before but I just grabbed what I have at the moment.

This is Colic my sorcerer of Nurgle and his bodyguard squad of regular Nurgle chaos marines. This squad has since been completed but I don't have a photo of them. The models were 2nd or 3rd ed chaos marines which my boss found in a charity shop and bought for me. They had already been build hence the odd poses on some of them. 

This rhino was also found by my boss but it had originally been covered in pretty much every bit from the sprues which took some time to prune off of it. Any holes created have been plugged with rust (Armageddon Dust). 

Typhus (who I've just realised is also missing a photo) has a squad of terminators as his bodyguards. All five have been painted but this photo was taken as I worked on these three. You might be wondering why they and the chaos marines above are white-ish rather than green? I decided that the bodyguard squads shoukld look different and so are coloured more like the original Death Guard colours but filthy and rusted.

One twenty man squad of Plague Marines complete. Very pleased with how these have turned out. Most are the plastic chaos marine models but some of them use the plague marine parts and others have elements of the Forge World plague marines upgrade packs (thanks to a friend who bought two sets for me). I still have another twenty man squad to build and paint.

Work in progress of a plaguebearer squad I was painting last night. I've painted them different colours to make them a bit different and to have them stand out. Some of the other five are different shades of green and grey. My favourite is the standard bearer as I think he came out looking the best when you see them in the flesh.

You can see three bikes in the background of some of these. They were also part of the figures that my boss found but they are a bit poorly built. I'm having to think how I can paint the riders properly as I can't get to most of the front of the riders.

I've also got another box of plaguebearers, two boxes of raptors, one box of chaos marines, a box of cultists, a box of Warhammer Fantasy zombies to work through. I've also bought myself Cypher with plans for a box of the hooded Dark Angels to represent his chosen bodyguard. 

I decided that my army represents the Death Guard as they are during the 13th Black Crusade. The theory is that Cypher may be the mysterious "Voice of the Emperor" so I liked the idea of using the dataslate to have him as an ally in games against the Dark Angels.

League Update

It has been a couple weeks since my last posting and the league still rumbles along nicely. On our club Facebook page I have posted all the remaining dates so we can work around the summer and holidays. This goes on till September! Next time I think it will have to ensure that the league is smaller somehow.

As we currently stand Jon is still very much in first place, and it just remains to be seen who steals second and third place. For now I think Ashleigh with his Astra Militarum will take second but third is too close to call, and you never know what fate might have in store for the other players.

Update... sort of

It's been a while since I've been able to sit down and do some painting for my Death Guard army so I am glad that this week I was able to sit down one evening with Joel Tate and have a painting night. Managed to complete my first twenty man squad of Plague Marines. Going to work on some Plaguebearer allies before I attempt the next twenty man squad.

I'm pleased with how they have come out but I think it is going to be a while before I have enough built and painted to play them.

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The big old 40K league is going along still. Finalized the games and it wraps up at the start of October! The problem is we have so many players who want to partake but we just don't have the room. I don't want to be an arse in future and limit who can play. I'm afraid that I would show signs of favouritism. We shall have to see.

In the mean time one player, Adam Winstanley, has dropped out. He said that it was due to a conflict of things he also does on a Thursday evening but I've also been told he was getting bored of not winning any games. As much as I hate it when players drop out it is a fair point if you aren't enjoying it and it does help speed up the league end a little. The only problem now is players going on holiday, having evening work and the like. As much as I understand, it is driving me around the twist having to constantly update and change weeks that games are organised on. And take a deep breath. :-)

As you can see Jon Quinn is still storming ahead with his Necron army. Out of the players he has left to face I really don't think any have the ability to steal that top spot from him.