First Games of 8th

I've managed to get a couple of Games in so far, one with my Alpha Legion and one with my Nids. Short version: Both are vastly improved from where they stood in 7th, and the Nids in particular felt way more like they should. This is mostly just going to be a quick summary, not actual BatReps, and all I have is crappy cellphone pics, but hopefully it will still entertain:

Look! It's actually a Land Raider. Full of Chaos Terminators no less! When was the last time you saw that?

The Monolith dropping in here really killed my advance on this flank, and took enough to deal with that it stalled out everywhere else, too

CSM chopping their way through Scarabs before getting gunned down by Warriors. Culties just sat on an Objective all Game, which seems about right.

Terminators! Jumping out of their Land Raider!

The empty spot where my Helbrute had been a moment before. Big bricks of Warriors can really dish out the hurt.

Aided by the Sorcerer's Warp Time, the Termies advance into Melta Range and then Charge, as so the remaining Bikes...

...Only for the Bikers to be banished by the Portal of Exile!

Not quite having finished off the Monolith, the Terminators get bogged down by some Immortals

 The Game ended about there. I had wasted too much time firing Lascannon at Ghost Arks, with their damnable Quantum Shielding, and had given up too much of my own force in exchange for too little gain to be able to push onto enough Objectives to make a difference.

My overall impression was that CSM are once again solid, but lost a lot of the flavour that they'd just gained back with the Legions book. Here's hoping that returns again when they get an actual Codex. I want to play Chaos Marines, not Spiky Marines.

Swarm o' Nids! And they don't have to worry about spreading out for Blasts, so they actually look like the wave of chitin that they should be!

The other end of the line.

Unsurprisingly, the Hormagaunts bounced off, but the Tyrant scythed right through

Warriors with a Prime advance, screened by still more Hormies

The Raveners burst from the ground, completing a pincer movement with the Screamer-Killer on this Squad of DeathWing. The handful of remaining Gargs are sitting on an Objective.

Termagants and the Haruspex swarming through the central building

The Tyrant duels with Belial, while the Screamer Killer holds an Objective, despite the presence of the Terminators, due to the Big Guns Never Tire Scenario

The Duel ends poorly for the Nids, with the result that a Ravener ends up fleeing when left without the will of the Hive Mind forcing it on.

Better angle, but worse shot, of the Fex holding the Objective

Termagants swarm another Objective...

while the Warriors, Prime, and Haruspex secure the final one

I was very happy with how the Nids performed. They may well come back to being my main Army again for a time. The Haruspex wasn't great, but was definitely better than before, and didn't really get to any of the targets that might have let it shine, since that side of the board got too clogged up. I haven't seen Warriors or a walking Tyrant do that well since the 4th Ed Dex.

Pocket GT Report: DreadTober Style!

Last weekend, I went to a local "Pocket GT". 1000 Points, 5 Games, one day. Since I haven't been playing a whole lot lately, and I've wanted to run something like this for a while anyhow, and not least because it's DreadTober, I decided to take the following:

Company of the Great Wolf
HQ: Bjorn the Fell Handed, Hellfrost Cannon, Drop Pod
EL: Murderfang, Lucius Pattern Drop Pod
EL: Space Wolves Contemptor, Kheres Assault Cannon, Heavy Flamer, Saga of the Black Cull, Drop Pod
EL: Venerable Dread, Fenrisian Greataxe and Blizzard Shield, Drop Pod
EL: Dread, Drop Pod

If I'd really been pushing to win, I would have taken Chaos Daemons, but I wanted something that was just more relaxed and fun, and that would hopefully be quick enough to play that I'd actually finish all my Games on time for once.

The Missions were mostly Annihilation-style Maelstrom (The re-roll tokens were dropped since that post, but otherwise pretty much the same), and I was a bit surprised to find that we were going to be playing on 4x6 tables, despite the low Points value. I forgot to take many pictures, and many of the ones I did take weren't very good, because I didn't have my proper camera, and I'm getting used to the camera on my new phone, but I got a couple of decent ones for most of the Games.

My first Game was against the new Stealer Cult, massively MSU and played by the store's ringer, since there was an odd number of Players, and I was the last to check in. They are very effective in this format, being able to bounce around to score Maelstrom with ease, and the large table gave them lots of room to stay away from my relatively slow Units. I was still almost able to pull a draw, but Murderfang took a Rending Claw to the knee while trying to use a CC to slingshot to an Objective and got Immobilized a couple of inches too far away. This one was also a bit of a disappointment, since I failed at my goal of finishing all of my Games ahead of the time limit, but in fairness, it totally wasn't my fault. Stealer Cult takes a lot of time to play, especially when someone's still a bit new to it (as everyone is right now). I did manage to pick up a point when he underestimated Bjorn's ability to carve through the Unit guarding his Warlord, but still a 9-1 loss.

The initial drop. Bjorn was trying to take the Objective on the lower left, but managed a 12" scatter directly away from it

Bjorn braces for the counter-attack after slaying the Cult's Magus

Murderfang, Immobilized only a couple of inches outside of claiming distance from the Objective I needed to win the Turn

Second Game was against an old-school Ork army. A bit of a mis-match for him, since he had a bunch of Units that could barely hurt my Dreads, and it was the one non-Maelstrom Mission: Kill Points. There were still some great moments, like Murderfang Charging through the wreckage of his Drop Pod to wipe out a Mob of Boyz, only to get taken out by the Nob's Klaw, and in turn take out half another Mob when he exploded, and the time when the Warboss managed to beat the odds and take out my Contemptor, only to fall to my Axe Dread. 9-1 win for me, he got a point for his Lobbaz slogging across the board to get Linebreaker, since they literally couldn't hurt any of my stuff.

Even with his PowerFist crushed into uselessness, the Contemptor battles against the Ork Warboss

Kvedulf Ironhand avenges the Contemptor

Bjorn oversees the destruction of the last enemy from the very center of their stronghold

Round three was another odd one, against a dude who I'm pretty sure was very, very stoned, with a mostly bare-bones Ultramarine Gladius Strike Force, with the Points spent on Sicarius and an Armoured Task force instead of Special Weapons for the Tacs or Bikes. Ended up being a much closer game than I expected, because his mass Obsec let him score a lot of Maelstrom points, even tho he couldn't do much damage to me. It could have been a draw if I'd failed a 7" Charge in the last Turn, but I pulled it out. He did drag down Bjorn as well, but I still got a 9-1 win. My stock Dread finally redeemed himself, rolling something other than a 1 to Hit with his Multi-Melta for the first time of the day, and single-handedly scoring me First Blood and enough Maelstrom to win Turn 1.

The only pic I got of this Game. Behind the regular Pod is the Multi-Melta Dread, who just redeemed himself by taking out the other Vindicator

Round 4 was against a RavenWing Player who had been on the next table in Round 2, and said at the time that he thought my Army was pretty cool, and he wanted to play against it. I was worried, going into this, because his mobility could be a big advantage, but he had a ton of his Points sunk into a Command Squad and HQs, and I was able to clear out all his MSU stuff, assisted by a Sabotaged Mysterious Objective that took out a lone Attack Bike for First Blood :D We volleyed back and forth, but once I cleared out his little stuff, he pretty much couldn't score more than one Point per Turn, and I was able to pull out another 9-1 win.

I was going for that Speeder for First Blood, but couldn't quite pull it off

Kvedulf bunkers in the ruins of the building where his Pod landed. If I had remembered the re-roll on the damage chart for Venerable, it might have been enough to save him

I scored most of my VPs over here. Murderfang wasn't very happy about that, as few of them involved The Murderin'

Going in to round 5, I was honestly kind of astonished to be at 3-1. As an even better surprise, my Opponent was a guy I used to play all the time back in the 90s, who had moved away for years, and just moved back to town. Great dude, always a blast to play against, and equally surprised to be at 3-1. Unfortunately for him, his fantastic-looking Tallarn Guard also had few answers to my Dreads, and I was able to wrap it up for an 8-1 win.

Bjorn tries to wipe out the Ratlings for First Strike, but one survives. In the background, the Contemptor is barely visible securing the center of the field

The Tallarn Deployment. Unfortunately for them, they didn't advance aggressively enough, and I was able to keep them penned in

So yeah, I took a joke list, and managed to submarine my way to something like 5-6th place out of 30-ish Players over the course of a very fun, if extremely draining day. My knees are still feeling it. As a side note, there were a ton of Draws among the top players in a couple of early rounds, so the winner (Stealer Cult!) was actually 4-0-1 after beating the only 4-0 Player (Orks!!!) in Round 5.

Thokt Awakens

I got my first two Games in the Escalation League in with my Necrons. Won the first one, and pulled a Draw in the second, ascending to the second tier of the Challenge Pyramid and then defending my place on it.

For the 500 Point week, I was running:
Nemesor Zahndrek
2x5 Immortals with Gauss
3 Tomb Blades with Particle Beamers
Annihilation Barge

Not mine, I haven't had time to take more pics. Just something I found on a google image search

- First Game was against Nids. The guy running them is planning on going through the various stages of a Tyranid Invasion, so he's running all Vanguard stuff right now:
DeathLeaper
2x8 Stealers
3 Lictors

I was pretty sure I had him outmatched here, so I was generous with the Cover Saves, playing a bunch of stuff as Ruins that most people just call rough ground. Unfortunately for him, a couple of bad rolls meant even that wasn't enough. Both his Reserves failed Turn 2, so I had two full Turns to pound away at the nearer Genestealer Brood with basically my whole force. Then when they did turn up, I got a bit jammy and he whiffed on a couple of Saves and I managed to gun down DeathLeaper. The final nail in the coffin was when Zahndrek, his retinue shorn away and on his last Wound, gleaned the knowledge of how to Hit and Run from the Lictors assailing him, passed the Init Test, and dashed 13" over to link up with the other Immortal Squad, who then joined with the Annihilation Barge in cutting down the Lictors who were left in the open.

- Second Game was much more of a challenge. Blood Angels with:
Librarian Dread
5 Tacs with a Meltagun in an Assault Cannon Razorback
5 Tacs with Meltabombs on the Sarge in a Lascannon Razorback

This one was a Maelstrom Mission. Started out with him shooting the Tesla Destructor off my Annihilation Barge (actually a screwup, I was looking in the wrong place and didn't realize it was open-topped, so it should have been Immobilized. This was actually in his favour, tho, since I never moved it anyhow, and failed all my Jink Saves with it, while it would have been Immobilized pointed right where he needed to run his Razorbacks through a gap in the Terrain.), but he didn't manage to kill it, and I got the Razorback in return, picking up First Blood and a point for a "Destroy a Unit" card.

The next couple of Turns featured some desultory firefights, finally Wrecking the Annihilation Barge, and each of us picking up a couple more Points for holding Objectives. I got an extra one by switching Zahndrek's Warlord Trait to one from the Tactical table that let me score double if he  or his Unit were holding an Objective I needed.

Then pretty much everything got stuck in combat. After several Turns of truly terrible Charge Rolls, his Librarian Dread managed to make it to Zahndrek's Squad and wipe them out, but not before I picked up a couple more Points for having two cards that required me to declare a Challenge. My last Tomb Blade Turbo-boosted across the board for Behind Enemy Lines, and then got gunned down by the surviving Razorback. The other Immortal Squad and the other Tac Squad just sat around playing cards or something. They were Locked in combat for like 3 full Game Turns without a single casualty on either side.

At the end, we each had 4 cards scored, he had Warlord and Linebreaker, while I had First Blood and the bonus point from the Warlord Trait I used for a draw.

- Zahndrek was key in both Games, using his special rules to get away from the Lictors and pick me up an extra VP by switching his Warlord Trait. I think I need to make up some cards with the Warlord Traits I'm likely to use for him, so it's easier to keep track and I don't have to keep my rulebook open to that page.

- For this week, I'm looking at adding a minimal Canoptek Harvest and upgrading my Tomb blades with Nebuloscopes, because that means the least screwing around with basing materials, since the crackle putty I use for my Necron bases takes forever to cure. I'm prepping up a bunch of bases to help things go more smoothly in future weeks, but right now, I kind of have to focus on stuff that doesn't need more basing done.

Necron Days and RavenWing Knights

One of my regular Opponents wanted to try a Game against a fairly hard RavenWing list, so I pulled out all my half-finished and unpainted Bikes to give it a go. No pics, because like I said, unfinished Models and Proxies and such (plus poor lighting at his apartment), so this isn't really a BatRep, but more of a review of the RavenWing Knights, Support Squadron, and Nephilim Jetfighter.

Even using my unfinished Bikes, and proxying Storm Talons as a couple of Nephilims, I didn't have quite enough to fill out 2K properly, so I tooled up the Black Knights all the way: Full Squad, Champion, Apothecary, Banner, 1 Grenade Launcher.

My first Turn, I had a pretty long Charge lined up for them, so I didn't bother shooting. Did cast Righteous Repugnance on them, tho, and made the Charge thanks to Sammael's Warlord Trait. Necron Wraiths are tough. Even with 30 S5 Attacks on the Charge, plus a few more from Sammael and a couple of Hammer of Wraths, I only managed to drop two of the three. Next Turn, I put one Wound on the last one, which was perfect, because then I got to Hit & Run 19" out of there thanks to the RavenWing Banner!

Second Turn, I lined up on Orikan and his Squad, wanting to take him down before he hulked out. Other than my Librarian killing himself with his second Perils in three Powers (I totally forgot that I could have taken FNP against those), and forgetting to fire the Stasis Grenade first (only Orikan was left by that point, and it scattered off him. If I'd fired it when there were still 10 Immortals spread around him, it would have been almost impossible to miss), it went off perfectly. Gunned down all the Immortals, and then it took all those Attacks to drag Orikan down.

This then left my Knights sitting in the open near a bunch of Warriors. Think basic firepower wouldn't do more than drop a couple, I didn't bother Jinking, but then my Opponent got ridiculously jammy (14 Saves forced by a single Squad of 10 Warriors!), and I screwed up my positioning by leaving my Apothecary closest, and he managed to wipe the Squad just with massed Gauss fire.

Overall, I was very impressed. They basically died because I got overconfident with them, but they did a pretty ridiculous amount of damage, given the insane durability of Decurion Necrons.

The Nephilims were kind of underwhelming. Not bad, but I feel like three Storm Talons would have done rather better, for just 5 Points more. Being able to re-roll their Jink Saves thanks to RavenWing is very nice, but because almost none of their firepower is Twin-Linked, it really hurts them in the Turn after. The firepower is also kind of lacking as Anti-Vehicle/Anti-Air. Certainly better than it was in the previous Edition, but not really where it needs to be. It took both of them to down a single Night Scythe, even with my Opponent failing all his Jink Saves. Did rather better as Anti-Infantry Ground Attack; Strafing Run plus that loadout makes it pretty good at taking on Necron Warriors. If they could get the TL Lascannon as a replacement for the Heavy Bolters instead of the Bolt Cannon, I think it would be a much more effective dogfighter.

(Double checking that just now, I realize that I accidentally cheated. I thought both variations had Hover, but I see now that only the Dark Talon does. Oops.)

The Support Squadron was excellent. I never did get a chance to use RavenShield, but the ability to keep the regular Speeders screening the DarkShroud was great. I would have lost that thing way sooner without that. Three Typhoons is a pretty nice load of firepower, but I think I may want to go with Assault Cannon Tornadoes instead. To get good use out of the DarkShroud, I need to get up close, and the Typhoons want to hang back.


In general, I lost the Game because I've been playing my DK and SW too much lately. I got way too aggressive, and ended up spending too much time in that short-ranged firefight zone that Necrons like so much. I should have used my speed more to hang back at the edges of my Range and pick away for a couple of Turns, and then rushed in Turn 3 or so. I also probably should have Combat Squadded. With only 5 Units and a couple of Flyers, I was really inefficient at dealing with my Opponent's greater number of Units, and he had a bunch of things left at the end that were just 1-3 Models strong, but I couldn't justify throwing an entire Bike Squad at them. If I'd had a few solo Attack Bikes and a bunch of 3-man Bike Squads, that would have let me clear off a bunch of those little dudes, and clear off the Objectives they were holding.

Time to get back to work on painting up this Company Master. Hopefully I'll have him done in time to do a Modeling Monday post.