About My Blog

Ave Omnissiah!

Image result for adeptus mechanicus symbol

My blog is primarily my own personal fluff in the Warhammer 40,000 universe regarding the Draconis system such as the Knight House Yato in Ryusei, their Household Militia, the Draconian Defenders, and the Forge World of Draconis IV with its Adeptus Mechanicus priesthood, Cybernetica cohorts and Skitarii legions, and the Titan Legion, Legio Draconis, known as the Dark Dragons.

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Retrospective: Imperial Knights

Today, we're going to a Retrospective on...Imperial Knights! I mean, this is primarily an Imperial Knight blog, so obviously if I'm ...

Friday, July 29, 2016

The mighty Leman Russ Tanks

Good day, Guardsmen.

It has come to our attention that many Guardsmen in the regiment have been swayed by heretical rumors concerning the durability and reliability of the formidable Leman Russ tanks that our armored companies field in times of war. Such rumors express concern that Leman Russ tanks are vulnerable in close combat, easily ripped apart by Traitor Dreadnoughts, chewed apart by puny Termagaunts* or even hacked opened by berserk cultists with mere power weapons**.

This blasphemous image of a Contemptor Deadnought tearing off the hull of a Leman Russ tank is nothing more than a myth - Contemptor Dreadnaughts have been extinct for millennia, having been wiped out by the Loyalist forces, and in any case, there is no enemy, machine or otherwise, that possess such tremendous strength to break open a heavily armored Leman Russ tank.

Let us assure you - such blasphemous rumors are nothing more than a lie.

The Leman Russ tanks have always been a heavily armored, reliable workhorse with no weak spots. Its steel-ceramite armor is impenetrable to nothing short of the gaze of His Majesty, the Emperor. Even melta weapons have trouble burning through the invincible front armor of a Leman Russ tank, a mighty machine who has received the blessings of both the Emperor and the Omnissiah. No Traitor or xenos scum can ever hope to pierce through the unbreakable shell that the Adeptus Mechanicus designed after millennia of tireless research and experiments.***

Records of the insidious Tau Hammerhead gunships destroying our revered Leman Russ tanks with heavy railguns have often been highly exaggerated. If you claim to have witnessed one of these unlikely instances, please report to the regimental commissar, for it is possible that you have been tainted with the blasphemous delusions of Chaos, and must be "purified" immediately.

Remember our mighty Leman Russ tanks are not like the ramshackle abominations of Orks, or the fragile toys like Eldar! The Adeptus Mechanicus has designed and built the best tanks in the galaxy, and any attempt to modify them, such as adding spikes a la Traitors and Cultists, will result in the degradation of blessings by the Emperor and Omnissiah, which will render the tanks even more vulnerable to Imperial retaliation.

Quote of the day

"There is no vehicle in the galaxy that can tank damage better than the tanks of the Imperial Guard!"
- Colonel Itsuki Ikeda, 42nd Draconian Armor

*But if you do encounter a Carnifex, do NOT try ramming it with your Leman Russ tank.

**Run over the cultists if they try charging you with power weapons, but do not attempt to do the same if they are wielding arc weapons instead.

***9,924 solar years at the time of writing, to be precise.

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Freeblade Chapter 4

Chapter 4 for my story Freeblade is out! Please check it out if you're so inclined...otherwise it's fine. I know a lot of you here aren't interested in reading Warhammer 40K fanfiction anyway.

Not sure what to say, it's a chapter detailing the politics between the Knightly houses and explaining the importance of the consorts, but in a narrative fashion. Not much action, it's focused more on dialogue. World building, if you ask me. Anyway, if you've enjoyed it so far, I hope you will like the new chapter. Otherwise...well, nothing I can do about it except hop into my Knight and open fire with my rapid-fire battle cannon.

By the way, Forge World has come up with Mechanicus masks for Imperial Knights, but I can't say I'm fond of them. If you like them, stay in touch with Forge World and they'll update you when they finish the resin masks.

For the Emperor!

Saturday, July 23, 2016

Adeptus Titanicus, late to the party

Apparently, there will be a new Adeptus Titanicus edition for Epic series!

As I joined the hobby pretty recently and have no idea what Epic is all about, I can't say I'm too eager. I mean, I want my Titans to be massive...but at the same time I can't afford the gigantic Titan models from Forge World. Okay...once I get a proper job (in about 5 years, maybe?) I'll start buying all those awesome looking Cybernetica models and Warlord Titans from Forge World, but right now I just don't have the money for that.

T'is the path of poor ol' me who has chosen to further my studies instead of getting a proper job. Well, I'll keep my eye on this because I love Titans, and let you know if there's any concrete news. For now, everything's just rumors, and I'm sure there's nothing I can share that you don't already know from reading Natfka's blog, Faeit 212. He's the blog to turn to if you want news and rumors.

All I can say is that there are a bunch of new rules, just read Faeit 212 for more details. 8mm scale doesn't sound big enough for me. Oh well. We shall see.

And I should also follow the Regimental Standard, because they give awesome advice to aspiring Guardsmen like me! Too bad I don't have a Commissar in my regiment, but who needs them? We are Draconians! Pseudo Cadians, we have no need for Commissars unless they're as epic as Ciaphas Cain!

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

Solar Admiral Spire

I've finally done it.

I have completed Battlefleet Gothic: Armada and driven away the forces of Chaos. I have crippled Abaddon's flagship, The Planet Killer, and halted his 12th Black Crusade in its tracks. YES!!! FOR THE EMPEROR!

Thanks to Captain Abridal's heroic sacrifice, he saved the system from going supernova and disabled the Blackstone Fortresses. A pity they self-destructed before the Imperium could re-populate and control them again, but at least we have 3 more. I hope. Poor dude. Captain Abridal was awesome, he drove his Flame of Purity right into the converged beams of the 3 Blackstone Fortresses.

"All power to the void shields! I shall put an end to this madness once and for all! For the Emperor! For Battlefleet Gothic!"

*cue heroic roar as the Flame of Purity rams right into the converged point and blows up*

Thanks to his valiance and courage, Battlefleet Gothic destroyed the Chaos fleets and saved the countless worlds of the Imperium. Awesome. Just awesome.


Now that the campaign is completed, I'm off to try some other game or write my stories. The game was exceedingly difficult and frustrating at times. Maybe I suck at it. No, I definitely sucked at it. Anyway, I don't think I'll put myself through that grueling campaign again. Ugh. I love the cutscenes, I love the story and I love the characters, but it's not enough for me to go through the pain of fighting off 9 Ork ships with only 2 or retrying near-impossible missions like defender for Planetary Assault. So I'll just give up for now and focus on writing stories. It'll take me a while to get back to Freeblade because I'm writing stuff for my original story (I don't think anyone is interested in it anyhow), so yeah. I seek your kind understanding.

For the Emperor!

Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Battlefleet Gothic: Armada, almost there!

I've played the last chapter of Battlefeet Gothic: Armada, and I've stopped right at the last mission. I played about 3 turns, wiping the sector clean of Chaos, only for Abaddon the Despoiler to unleash the power of 3 Blackstone Fortresses to destroy the Taranis system by shooting the star and making it go supernova. Ouch. One system gone, just like that. I carried on eradicating Chaos fleets, but there was one mission that made me go nuts. Playing Planetary Assault as an attacker is hard enough, but playing it as defender is pretty much impossible. The AI somehow has the advantage, and his bombardment mission points always spawn right next to each other. So somehow he wins because he is super-lucky or the AI is simply cheating. When I'm the attacker, my bombardment points spawn right at the opposite sides of the map, which makes it frustratingly difficult for me, unless I split my ships up.

But no, the AI gets all the advantages. For some reason, his ships move faster than mine. He has many more cruisers, even though we're supposed to have the same number of points. What's with that? Worse, even though the AI is supposed to get to 3 bombardment positions before he wins, somehow I get defeated after he scores 2 out of 5 bombardment positions. There was once where he won once he got to the 1st bombardment position. What the hell is wrong with the game? Is this some sort of bug!?

In the end I cut my losses and accepted my defeat, because I have 4 deployments, and only 2 available missions. The Planetary Assault changed into Cruiser Clash, which I won with much difficulty, considering how I lost my Mars battlecruiser and almost lost my Overlord battlecruiser. Ugh. But hey, at least I won that one, it wasn't an impossible mission like the Planetary Assault Defender where I replayed it for almost an hour and still failed to win. That was irritating as hell. I would rather play other more fun missions like Breakthrough, Assassination and Cruiser Clash.

Speaking of which, I eliminated Terminus Est, the Death Guard flagship. It took me a few tries because the damned ship was always warping away for some reason. Even though my Teleportarium Strike succeeded in canceling his warp once, the guy could warp almost immediately after that, with the cooldown being inexplicably fast. That's not fair, the warp for my ships take 3 minutes, but this guy only took 1 minute or less to have his warp cool down?! Why? Well, at least I managed to destroy Terminus Est in the end, by soamming stasis bombs and torpedoes.

Now I'm right at the last mission, but I've to call it a day because it's late. I'll see if I can play it tomorrow. We'll see. For the Emperor! It's the mission where Abaddon attacks Blackstone Fortress 5 and the Eldar has offered my fleet to use the webway to get the jump on Abaddon's Chaos fleet that has the stupid Planet Killer flying around. I bet it's going to be super-difficult, and I'll need to play it a few times before I can win. We'll see. As long as it's not absurdly impossible like that Ork mission or the Planetary Assault defender mission...

Saturday, July 9, 2016

Two new battle reports!

Well, the title says battle reports, but I'll just sum them up. I'm exhausted, both physically and mentally, and in no shape to write a battle report. I also didn't take pictures this time, because I thought there was little point in doing so. Plus I was too busily having fun wargaming to take photographs.

I was fortunate to run into new friends today, who wanted to play (as did I). So I happily joined them to have a wargaming session - finally! - and have fun. They were waiting for another guy, who was supposed to come, but he turned out to be late, so we ended up playing first.

Skitarii versus Ultramarines and Imperial Fists/Black Templars

The first match was a 2v1, because apparently the other 2 guys were beginners, having started Warhammer 40K recently (about 3 months or so, I think). Fair enough, but I seldom play, so I can't say I'm good. We decided to grant them a handicap, and allow them 1,100 points because the Ultramarines player couldn't fit stuff into his list, but somehow I only ended up with 1,000 points. I thought, whatever, as long as it's fun, and so we began.

One brought Ultramarines, and the other brought Black Templars. They were using the Starter set, you know, the Start Collecting! Space Marines set with a tactical squad, a captain and a Dreadnaught. Or something. So multiply that by two, and take note that both formations have the bonus rule of shooting instead of moving (so they shoot twice in the same turn). The Ultramarines player brought an additional drop pod with a 9-man tactical squad, so he had 600 points. The other guy decided to proxy his Black Templar as Imperial Fists as the Black Templar chapter tactics were pointless without Neophytes (no idea what that is, they told me it's the Black Templar version of scouts - sorry, but I'm much more familiar with Imperial Guard and Adeptus Mechanicus, not Space Marines), so he had the Imperial Fists bonus of re-rolling to hit rolls of ones. The other guy obviously used the Ultramarines chapter tactics with devastator, tactical and assault doctrines. Yay. On the other hand, the Imperial Fists guy didn't count properly and only brought 430 points of troops, so it turned out to be 1,030 points versus 1,000. Whoops?

As for me, I brought a small Skitarii maniple with my 1,000 points. I had my 10-men Skitarii Vanguard with conversion field Alpha (turned out to be useless), 3 plasma calivers and omnispex. Then 5 Skitarii Rangers with omnispex, 5 Sicarian Infiltrators, 5 Sicarian Ruststalkers and 3 Onager Dunecrawlers with neutron lasers and an extra cognis heavy stubber. That's basically about it.

They deployed first, but I succeeded in stealing the initiative, so I went first. Turned out to be a bad choice.

The first turn didn't go well for me. My Infiltrators fluffed their flechette blaster shots, and even with Shred, they didn't put a dent in the Imperial Fists tactical squad. The Ruststalkers were too far away to do anything, my Rangers did nothing because their AP4 galvanic rifles did nothing against the Adeptus Astartes' 3+ armor save. My Vanguard again was too far to hit anyone. The only unit that actually did anything was my Onager Dunecrawlers, whose neutron lasers took out a huge chunk of the Ultramarine squad and devastated them with 5 dead or so. Or less, I think they made a couple of cover saves.

My opponents then had their Dreadnaughts move closer, the Ultramarine player had a drop pod land behind my Infiltrators. The Ultramarines chose to hide his first tactical squad in cover, so they didn't do anything. However, the Imperial Fists fired 40 boltgun shots and devastated my Infiltrators. Thanks to 4+ armor save and Feel No Pain, 2 survived, and managed to pass their morale somehow. Ugh. The newly dropped tactical squad and the Imperial Fist Dreadnaught combined to take out 3 of my Ruststalkers. The Ultramarine Dreadnaught hid behind cover to avoid getting slapped by my Onager Dunecrawlers' neutron lasers.

My turn then came again, and my Ruststalkers fluffed their haywire mindscrambler grenades against the Imperial Fist Dreadnaught, with me rolling 2 ones. Yes, snake eyes. What the hell. The Onager Dunecrawlers took a hull point off the Ultramarine Dreadnaught, but him being venerable meant that I was forced to re-roll my Explodes! result, and he was only shaken despite being down one hull point. One couldn't fire because he was hidden behind cover, and the other scattered, so it was a waste. Ouch. The Infiltrators didn't do much with their flechette blasters, and neither did the Rangers. The Vanguard remained out of range of everybody.

I had my Ruststalkers charge in, and they basically died in combat against the Venerable Dreadnaught, but did take a hull point off it thanks to haywire. Just one, though. Ugh. My Infiltrators fared better, and they reduced 9 Marines to,...I think 7 or so.

The next turn had my Vanguard decimated by the Imperial Fists Dreadnaught's heavy flamer - this was where my Alpha fluffed his invulnerable 4++ save and died to the burning promethium, while the Ultramarines Dreadnaught's multi-melta bounced off the Emanatus Forcefield that protected my Onager Dunecrawlers. The drop pod's storm bolter did nothing to my Rangers, I think. But the Imperial Fists tactical squad laid down heavy fire power that took out two of my Rangers. Ouch. The Dreadnaught failed its charge on my Vanguard. Phew. I lost an Infiltrator in combat, but I cut down another 2 or so, I think. This time, the Space Marines lost combat and ran away like babies. Funny.

My Vanguard moved back to put some distance between themselves and the Imperial Fists Dreadnaught, and fired on the Terminator Captain (Ultramarines), putting 2 wounds on him. The Onager Dunecrawlers finally blew up the advancing Ultramarines Dreadnaught, taking off all his hull points. Hooray! The Infiltrator chased after the fleeing Ultramarines tactical squad and proceeded to kick their asses, wiping them out to just the last man. Can you believe it? 2 Infiltrators kicked 9 tactical marines' asses all by themselves. The awesome thing about taser goads was that even if I fluffed several of my to hit rolls, getting 2 sixes meant I have more hits than what I originally would have anyway. Anyway, they remained locked in combat, with the Infiltrator Princeps taking on the tactical marine Sergeant (or at least I think he's the Sergeant). The Rangers once again did nothing.

The Rangers finally died to a hail of bolt fire, the surviving Imperial Fists Dreadnaught killed another 3 Vanguard to reduce them to just 2 guys with plasma calivers, and...I think that's it for shooting. The tactical squads were all advancing upon my position, but the Ultramarines' multi-melta once again bounced off the Onager Dunecrawlers' Emanatus Forcefields. Field Harmonics are awesome. The Infiltrator slew the last Ultramarine tactical marine from the drop pod and consolidated toward the Imperial Fists tactical squad, hungry for more. Neurostatic aura, combined with taser goads, is a beast. Like I said, it was unbelievable how 2 Infiltrators took on a 9-men tactical marine squad all by themselves and completely wiped them out in combat, not to mention getting them to run away in the middle of it all.

I persisted, and wiped out the Ultramarines tactical squad with my Onager Dunecrawlers, but my Vanguard failed to wound the Captain this time, with him making his storm shield saves. The guy was thinking of engaging me in combat. Ouch. So was the Imperial Fists chapter, who were determined to throw krak grenades into the poor walkers' front armor. Anyway, my Infiltrator charged and died to overwatch from the Imperial Fists tactical marines. So much for a last hurrah. Oh well.

The Dreadnaught advanced, but didn't charge because he was too far away, and so was the Captain who was slowly and steadily approaching my Onager Dunecrawlers, who had backed into a corner. The Imperial Fists tactical squad killed the 2 remaining Vanguard and proceeded to run forward.

With only my Onager Dunecrawlers left, I destroyed the Imperial Fists Dreadnaught with my neutron lasers, rolling an Explodes! result twice despite the other two shots scattering. The Ultramarine captain charged into my Onager Dunecrawlers, and only a single attack made it through as a penetrating hit, but my Onager Dunecrawlers' Emanatus Forcefields held. 4++ invulnerable saves on 3 walkers are invaluable. Unfortunately with only 1 wound left, he died to the 3 S5 attacks from the Onager Dunecrawlers. So the Ultramarines player, with the exception of his drop pod, was tabled. Yay. One down, but the other guy was coming in hot.

I killed a couple of Space Marines as they continued to charge, but I was unable to delay the inevitable. In the end, all 7 charged in and blew my Dunecrawlers up with krak grenades after several rounds of combat (it took a total of 3 turns, and 6 rounds). Ouch. There. I was tabled.

Well, it was an extremely close game, and it was fun. I completely forgot about the Cognis heavy stubbers on the Onager Dunecrawlers, but with AP6, I doubt they'll do much to 3+ Space Marines. Anyway, it was fun and that was the most important thing.

Cult Mechanicus and Ultramarines versus Space Wolves and Imperial Fists/Black Templars

The last guy had finally arrived while we were in the middle of this game, and now that all were present, we decided to have another game! This time it was 2v2, with 500 points per person. With my Skitarii being tabled, I decided to switch to Cult Mechanicus. The two Space Marine players remained with their 500 points, with the Ultramarines ditching his drop pod and extra tactical squad. The new guy, a veteran player, decided to bring his Space Wolves. Believing he would bring Thunderwolf Calvary, I equipped all my Kataphron Destroyers with heavy grav-cannons. I could only bring the bare minimum with upgrades, so 3 Kataphron Destroyers attached to my Tech-priest Dominus Warlord, and 3 Kataphron Destroyers on their own. I rolled some Exoskeleton for my Warlord Trait, which granted my Warlord Eternal Warrior. As it turned out, that was indispensable.

Anyway, we drew lots and this time I was paired with the Ultramarines player, and we being amateurs were slightly nervous about facing the veteran Space Wolves guy. As it turned out, he brought a Wolf Lord with 2 wolves, a squad of Long Fangs, a Rune Priest as his HQ and 3 Terminators with storm shields and thunder hammers. Did the guy not know what grav could do? Well, as it turned out, he had no experience with grav weaponry because Space Wolves had no access to it. Huh.

The first turn was quite devastating. My ally took out the two wolves following the Wolf Lord in Terminator armor, then killed a single Imperial Fist tactical marine with his Venerable Dreadnaught's multi-melta. I had much more success, with my Kataphron Destroyers killing 2 Longfangs, and the other 3 Kataphron Destroyers decimating the whole squad and taking out 4 or 5 tactical marines, leaving the Captain alone with less than half his squad.

The opponents' turn saw a fierce retaliation as the Wolf Lord lumbered toward the Ultramarines Dreadnaught. The Imperial Fists Dreadnaught put a wound on one of my Kataphron Destroyers while the Longfangs took revenge and killed 2 of them outright. Ugh. Only one Kataphron Destroyer with one wound left. A single tactical squad came in and did not much damage, I think.

In the second turn, I fluffed my shots with my remaining Kataphron Destroyer and my Warlord, and we absolutely dealt no damage to the tactical squad nearby. I rolled ones and twos when I needed threes and above to wound. Terrible rolling. On the bright side, between my other 3 (unscathed) Kataphron Destroyers and boltguns from the Ultramarines, we reduced the first Imperial Fist squad to nothing but 1 tactical marine and his Captain. 2 lonely survivors legging it up toward the Ultramarines Dreadnaught, who fired his multi-melta at the Wolf Lord, hit...only to roll a one with the S8 AP1 weapon. Argh.

The Space Wolves Terminators Deep Struck in, right behind an Ultramarines tactical squad, while the Longfangs fired and killed my remaining Kataphron Destroyer with their lascannons. The missile launchers then fired and hit my Warlord, but he made one save and failed the other, despite having a 2+ armor save from Artificer Armor. This is where Eternal Warrior came in! Even with toughness 4, the S8 missile didn't kill him, and only took a single wound off his 3 wounds. Eternal Warrior is awesome! The Imperial Fists tactical squad, still 5 men standing, fired on the Ultramarines tactical squad that the Space Wolves Terminators Deep Struck behind (why, I have no idea), and either the Ultramarines player made his saves or only lost 1. I think he made all his armor saves. Boltguns suck against 3+ power armor Space Marines.

The Wolf Lord charged, made it in and locked the Dreadnaught in combat for what was an eternity. The Imperial Fists Captain and lone tactical marine failed their charge and stayed where they were. I rolled for It Will Not Die (I equipped the Tech-Priest Dominus with the Arkland thingy) and failed.

In the third turn, my Kataphron Destroyers turned around and promptly terminated the Space Wolves Terminators with their 18-shot heavy grav-cannons. Even with their Storm Shields, the 3 Space Wolves Terminators were unable to withstand so many wounds on 2+, and promptly withered away. Nice. My ally fired boltguns at the tactical squad and dropped them to 3 or 4 guys, killing 1 or 2. My Tech-priest Dominus repaired himself with Master of Machines ability, then proceeded to charge the Imperial Fists Dreadnaught, who failed his Overwatch.

Thanks to Dataspike, my Warlord had Haywire attacks. His first Initiative 10 Dataspike attack took a hull point off the Dreadnaught, and then he had 2 hits at Initiative 3 because I was using Dataspike instead of the power axe. On the other hand, the Dreadnaught was using power fists, which was unwieldy. I had only 2 hits, but they were enough, and 2 glances saw the Dreadnaught go down in a heap of scrap metal. As for the Wolf Lord and Ultramarines Dreadnaught, they remained locked in combat, with neither able to damage the other.

The Longfangs put another wound on my Warlord, who made 3 saves out of 4 (2 conversion field saves against lascannons, and 1 against missile launchers...only to fluff yet another save against another missile). The Imperial Fists Captain and tactical marine failed their charge against the Ultramarines Venerable Dreadnaught yet again, and combat remained in a stalemate as the two did absolutely no damage to each other. Huh.

My Kataphron Destroyers turned around and moved up again while my Tech-priest Dominus chased the 3 or 4-men tactical squad. The Kataphron Destroyers destroyed the Imperial Fists Captain and the lone tactical marine with their grav-weaponry, as expected, and my Warlord reduced the tactical squad to just 2 men with his macrostubber. My ally proceeded to finish them off with boltgun fire. The Imperial Fists player was tabled, and he left to take part in a Star Wars Armada game or something. But the Space Wolves remained fighting, his Longfangs untouched by our weaponry. And...combat remained in a stalemate between the Wolf Lord and the Dreadnaught.

The Longfangs switched tactics and fired the missile launchers upon the Ultramarines and took out 3 to 5 of them with frag missiles. I think. He fired the lascannon at my Warlord, who took another wound. The Dreadnaught finally pummeled the Wolf Lord, with 1 S10 hit getting through and Instant Death-ing the dude. Well, the guy only had one wound anyway. It Will Not Die didn't work and my Warlord remained injured...for now.

We continued to move up, and I killed another Longfang with my Kataphron Destroyers while healing my Warlord with Master of Machines. With Eternal Warrior, Master of Machines and It Will Not Die, the guy's basically immortal against Longfangs. The Space Wolves responded by taking out another two Ultramarines with his remaining missile launchers, while he fluffed his lascannon shot against the Warlord.

The Venerable Dreadnaught finally came within range and took out a single Longfang. My Kataphron Destroyers also opened fire, and at long last the remaining 2 Longfangs and the Rune Priest fell dead, their bodies crumpled within their power armor as the grav rounds crushed them. With that, the Space Wolves were also tabled. And the Ultramarines player and I won.

For the Omnissiah!

Hmm...isn't grav weapons too strong against Space Marines? Admittedly, had my opponent been playing horde armies like Imperial Guard, Orks, Chaos Daemons and Tyranids, my Kataphron Destroyers would have been absolutely useless against them. Heh. I know Preferred Enemy no longer has effects on blast templates from plasma weapons that Gets Hot! with the new FAQ, but does Presience and Benediction of the Omnissiah still work on blast template weapons that Gets Hot!? They say Twin-linked allows for re-rolls of scatter, and the Space Wolves guy re-rolled his frag missile scatter when he thought it didn't catch enough Ultramarines under the blast template. That was thanks to Presience, the Primaris psychic power for Divination. So it should work. Preferred Enemy doesn't, though. That's so sad. I'm going to believe that Benediction of the Omnissiah will allow me to re-roll ones that I get from Gets Hot! rolls for the plasma culverins.

Friday, July 8, 2016

Freeblade chapter 3

Not sure if anyone is still interested in reading Freeblade but the 3rd chapter is out now! Have fun...I hope. I don't know. Well, it doesn't matter, I just hope you enjoy the story as much as I like writing it.

And as I told you, the battleships I have in Battlefleet Gothic: Armada make their appearance in my story! That's why I turned my fleet into an Adeptus Mechanicus fleet! For the Omnissiah!

The Imperium Resurgent

Sorry for my lack of updates so far! I should bring everyone up to speed regarding Battlefleet Gothic: Armada. Right now I've finally reached the 5th chapter, The Imperium Resurgent, and I was treated to one of the most awesome cutscenes in the game.

The Light of the Astronomican has shone again! And with it comes all the battlefleets from different sectors. I couldn't help but be overawed by the massive number of warships simply warping in above Lord Admiral Ravensburg.




"What can possibly justify interrupting me, Wigandus?"

"Lord Admiral, the light of the Astronomican shines once more. Reinforcements have been dispatched to the Gothic Sector. The warp storm...it is gone! Tremble before the majesty of the Emperor, for we all walk in His immortal shadow!"



That was just so awesome.

Anyway, back to the beginning. Since I've gotten my Retribution-class battleship, The Hammer of Marinas, I have run into the Eldar, the sneaky, deceitful Eldar prince. He needed help, and me being the nice guy I am, decided to accept and help him fight off Orks. Unfortunately that threw me right into the most frustrating and impossible missions of the game. With 2 ships (1 battleship and 1 battlecruiser), I was forced to fight off 9 Ork warships. NINE. Freaking hell. 3, if I traded the battlecruiser for a cruiser and a destroyer/frigate, but it changed nothing. The Orks had 1 battleship, 2 battlecruisers, 3 cruisers, several light cruisers and destroyers/ram ships.

The Eldar AI ally was absolutely useless. First, he almost always spawn on the other side of the map and would just charge into the fray in a suicidal (and un-Eldar like) manner, and get destroyed, leaving my 2 ships to fight off 6 to 7 ships on my own. I can tell you, that was impossible.

After loading, retrying and restarting the mission for over 2 hours, I called it quits. It wasn't fun, it wasn't even "challenging" or "difficult". It was outright frustrating and absolutely impossible. So I accepted the loss and moved on, but I did manage to secure an alliance with the Eldar. I decided to heed his warning regarding a seditious Captain who turned out to be a traitor (good thing I listened to the prince and his Farseer), helped him out with a couple more missions, and cemented the alliance.

All this while, I was focusing on weeding out Chaos from my midst. I actually won in a lot of Chaos missions, defeating Chaos fleets and freeing planets from their grasp. Awesome. On the other hand, I had terrible luck against Orks, and was always battered by them, so I tended to avoid confronting the Orks altogether. Funnily enough, this meant the Ork threat grew and soon enough they easily composed of half of the worlds under attack. At one point of time, I lost about 20 worlds, and approximately 10 of them were attacked by Orks.

That wasn't good.

However, a stroke of fortune came when intelligence detected Orks behaving suspiciously and running away instead of ramming into Imperial confrontations in their usual suicidal manner. As it turned out, I had to throw a beacon on their warboss's flagship, force him to warp out, and then track the beacon to their base. Which turned out to be a giant space hulk repurposed into a battleship, the Kolossus. In the end, I participated in the Hunt and destroyed the Kolossus, at the cost of both my battlecruisers, but it was worth it. I killed the damned stupid warboss, who either decided to blow his own space hulk up or my attacks triggered it - and the cyclonic torpedo basically wiped everything. With the Warboss dead, the Orks fell into disarray and the Imperium wasted no time in eradicating all the Orks.

In one fell swoop, one mission, I eradicated the Orks, and my sector is now completely safe from the greenskins. Hooray! For the Emperor!

Anyway, I continued fighting Abaddon after that, defeating Chaos fleets and taking out three of the nemesis flagships, gaining lots of renown points in the process. My entire fleet now has Adeptus Mechanicus flavor, which is fitting considering I'm a fan of the Adeptus Mechanicus. So all my ships of the line now are red in color, the color of Mars, and sport the Adeptus Mechanicus cog-skull icon. YAY!

For the Omnissiah! I'll play Chapter 5 tomorrow, and begin reclaiming the Gothic Sector from the Archenemy!

Monday, July 4, 2016

Freeblade chapter 2

Unexpectedly it seems that my story, Freeblade, is a little popular. Well, I've got good news for you if you're enjoying it so far.

The 2nd chapter is up. Please enjoy. Let me know what you think, and constructive criticism and an kind of feedback are appreciated. I need help as I'm not a professional writer. Sorry for the amateur writing, but as I said, I'm going to need your help in order to improve.

Or you can just enjoy it for what it is, ha ha. For the Emperor!

Final Vendetta gunship done!

Sorry, I know this took a while, but I've finally finished building my final Vendetta gunship. My 3rd one, to be precise, and also the last model I'll ever build in Singapore.

After all, I've to leave for America soon, so there's little point in me buying new models. I can't bring them along with me to Minnesota.

Anyway, in addition to fixing up my third Vendetta, I've painted all my unpainted models black. Spray painted them with Abbadon Black, to be exact. So now they're all black. Black is the new cool! According to the fluff, the Kamikaze Troopers, regular Imperial Guardsmen and Draconian tanks are all black in order to blend well with night fighting. They strike at night, taking advantage of the darkness as cover, and their black uniforms and tanks allow them to camouflage themselves within the shadows. So it's not only because it's cool, ha ha.

Anyway, here's the pictures.

Black Imperial Guard army!
I basically have 25 Kamikaze Troopers, a Leman Russ Vanquisher, a Leman Russ Main Battle Tank (both of them command variants), 2 Tech-priest Enginseers, 2 Taurox Prime APCs (1 with missile launcher and autocannons, the other with Gatling cannon and hot-shot volley gun) and a Commissar.

And yes, Mr. Wayne, they come in black.

Kamikaze Troopers
To round them up, other than the Commissar and the Tech-priest Enginseers, there are 2 storm trooper command squads - one with 4 hot-shot volley guns and the other with 4 plasma guns. They are followed by a 5-men squad and a 10-men squad, each equipped with 2 meltaguns. The usual fluff has them ride in Vendetta gunships and occasionally the Taurox Prime - the 10-men squad taking the latter because they can't fit into a Vendetta gunship.

3rd Vendetta
This is my 3rd Vendetta. It has taken a while, but I've finally finished building it. Now I can run my Emperor's Spear Aerial Company. 3 squads of 5-men Kamikaze Trooper squads holed up inside each gunship, ready for grav-chute insertion!

Arnored Offensive
And what will the Draconian Armored Defense Force be without their heavy armor? Nothing! That's right! Hence, my convoy of armored vehicles. The Taurox Prime APCs are dedicated transports for the Kamikaze Troopers, so no surprise there, but the 3 tanks are meant for the Emperor's Fist Armred Company.

Now all I need ot to test them out in a game!

Sunday, July 3, 2016

Battlefleet Gothic: Armada battleship

I've finally reached Level 8 as an Admiral and unlocked all my ships! I've managed to get my hands on a battleship! Hooray!

Here's a rundown on the ships I have on my fleet.

Battleship

Retribution, The Hammer of Marinas
Captain Draverre

Battlecruiser

Mars, The Triumph of Deliverance
Captain Jamieson

Overlord, The Divine Faith
Captain Baleren

Cruiser

Dominator, The Avenger of Khuegan
Captain Venris

Tyrant, The Avenger of Retaliation
Captain Dalin

Lunar, The Guardian of Faith
Captain Mansseravenor

Light Cruiser

Dauntless, The Sword of Boetia
Captain Moriah

Dauntless MK2, The Avenger of Light
Captain Daur

So that's my entire list of ships so far. They might apppear in my new story, Freeblade, as part of the Explorator fleet. I hope. We shall see.

For the Emperor!

Freeblade story

I almost forgot about this, but I've begun writing a new story titled Freeblade. It's about a Freeblade (ha ha, obviously). You can read it by clicking on the link. The first chapter, Armored Offensive, is up. I don't know how it'll turn out, but I hope you enjoy it.

Keep in mind that I'm merely an amateur writer, so don't expect top-notch, professional writing. Please go easy on the reviews, but if you have constructive criticism and suggestions, by all means please don't hold back!

It's about an Imperial Knight from House Yato who becomes a Freeblade after renouncing his allegiance to his house and following his oath to fight alongside the Draconian Armored Defense Force. I wanted to write something like Renegade where he chases and hunts down the renegade Chaos Knight The Living Litany, but I decided to go with a more free style (fitting for a Freeblade) and try to add my Battlefleet Gothic: Armada experience into the story. So expect space battles too!

Actually, I wanted to combine this story with an Explorator fleet, but I hope I'm not doing too much. Basically, the Draconian Imperial Guard regiment the Imperial Knight is attached to has been enlisted by an Explorator Archmagos for his exploration. So they'll be searching for archeotech and fighting alongside my other favorite faction, the Skitarii! YAY!

For the Emperor!

Friday, July 1, 2016

Mini Black Library catalogue

Hello, everyone! As I am leaving for Minnesota, America, in August, I thought I would "donate" my Warhammer 40K books and create a mini Black Library in Battle Bunker.

Battle Bunker Singapore is located at Bugis+ #03-16/17, 201 Victoria Street, Singapore 188067. The nearest MRT station is Bugis MRT Station, which you can access via the green East-West line or the blue Downtown line.

This post is meant to be a catalogue for my books that I'll leave there. Please feel free to browse, read, borrow and enjoy them. I only ask that you return them after reading so that other customers and patrons can also read them. You are allowed (I hope) to bring them home to finish reading it, as long as you remember to bring it back to return them. The books are for all ages, so please enjoy.

If you don't return my books, then may the God-Emperor protect you, for the Inquisition will hunt you down...and they will show no mercy.

Without further ado, here's my mini Black Library catalogue:

Warhammer

Lords of Valor, edited by Marc Gascoigne and Christian Dunn

Warhammer 40,000

Space Marine Battles

The World Engine, by Ben Counter

Space Marines omnibuses

The Grey Knights Onmnibus, by Ben Counter

Deathwatch: Ignition, by Ben Counter, Steve Lyons, Robbie MacNiven, Justin D Hill, Chris Dows, Ian St Martin, Peter Fehervari, Mark Clapham and Braden Campbell.

Horus Heresy

Mechanicum, by Graham McNeill

Cybernetica, by Rob Sanders

Adeptus Mechanicus

Skitarius, by Rob Sanders

Tech-Priest, by Rob Sanders

Mars Trilogy

Priests of Mars, by Graham McNeill

Lords of Mars, by Graham McNeill

Gods of Mars, by Graham McNeill

Imperial Knights

Knights of the Imperium, by Graham McNeill

Imperial Guard (Come on, who's going to call them Astra Militarum? Unless you want to sound pretentious)

Yarrick: The Pyres of Armageddon, by David Annandale

Astra Militarum: Legends of the Dark Millennium, by David Annandale, Toby Frost, Braden Campbell and Justin D Hill

Honour Imperialis, by Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Rob Sanders and Steve Lyons

Ice Guard, by Steve Lyons

Baneblade, by Guy Haley

Tempestus, by Braden Campbell

Gaunt's Ghosts omnibus

The Founding, by Dan Abnett (truthfully, this book doesn't belong to me. It belongs to a friend who gave it to me)

Ciaphas Cain omnibuses

Ciaphas Cain: Hero of the Imperium, by Sandy Mitchell

Ciaphas Cain: Defender of the Imperium, by Sandy Mitchell

Ciaphas Cain

The Emperor's Finest, by Sandy Mitchell

The Last Ditch, by Sandy Mitchell

The Greater Good, by Sandy Mitchell

Yes, there is a great biasness toward Imperial Guard, but that's because they are my favorite faction. I would have more, but I already donated Henry Zou's Flesh and Iron to my neighborhood library. I regretted that, it would have made a nice addition to my mini library. No big deal. I have 1 random Warhammer novel. And then 12 Imperial Guard books (counting the Gaunt's Ghosts and Ciaphas Cain books), versus 7 Mechanicus novels (including 2 from Horus Heresy), 1 Imperial Knight novel (sad to say, it's the only one published so far) and 3 Space Marine books (Grey Knights count as Space Marines, right? Or is the militant arm of the Ordo Malleus an entirely different force?). So yes, my Imperial Guard collection takes up the bulk of my library. Never underestimate the appeal of being an Imperial Guardsman! We die a lot, but at least we gain recognition for our sacrifices! Uh...not much use if we're dead, but still...anyway, exactly half of my collection is nothing but Imperial Guard novels. So yes, I swing toward the Imperial Guard. And why wouldn't I?

If not for us, the galaxy would have fallen apart long ago. What, you think the Space Marines can defend the Imperium of Man on their own? Dream on.

FOR THE EMPEROR!

Oh, and once again, please drop by Battle Bunker and read these books. I'll see if I can move all of them by today, but the library should be done by next week (7 July, coincidentally tanabata Festival in Japan, have fun going to the summer matsuri). I hope.

Last thing...I will continue to buy more Warhammer 40,000 novels, particularly the Imperial Guard and Adeptus Mechanicus (and I wish some Imperial Knight novels will be published soon) ones, and I'll continue posting up book reviews. This blog is not dead, even if I have to part with my tabletop army for 5 years (unless I get kicked out of grad school, but I'm not going all the way to America to get kicked out). Book reviews and video games will still be abound. I'll update more on Battlefleet Gothic: Armada as I play more, and I might even check out Dawn of War III! I will also definitely get Space Hulk: Deathwing, so look out for that too!