The Fall of Hive Gaia

We had our first mission or stage 1 of phase 1 in the Octarius Campaign today. The Tyranids and Thousand Sons have invaded Gydisk Sigma and descended upon the Hive City of Gaia. Against them stand the Encarmine Angels and Draconian Imperial Guard armored regiments.

The Hive Fleet of Tyranids launched a planetary assault and ravaged the hive. One splinter force consisted of a horrifying Hive Tyrant, leading two broods of Termagaunts, a Carnifex, a Tyranid Warrior Prime, 3 Tyranid Warriors, a Ravenor swarm and a Maleceptor. They crashed into the steel lines of the Draconians, a column of Leman Russ tanks facing them with plasma cannons and las. A single retainer from House Yato accompanied them, piloting an Armiger Warglaive.

Alas, despite taking down the Maleceptor, they were annihilated by the ravenous Tyranid swarms. Hilariously enough, the Hive Tyrant killed himself through perils of the warp by rolling 2 1s and then 2 6s after a Command reroll. To add insult to injury, his smite only did 1 mortal wound to his Leman Russ tank target when rolling the D6 and...yeah. Well, at least he took out the Armiger Warglaive in combat, and admittedly, the Armiger Warglaive's meltagun did a ton of damage to him (as did his reaper chain cleaver). The Leman Russ tanks did kill the Maleceptor and a bunch of Termagaunts (as well as a single Tyranid Warrior) before the Carnifex, Termagaunts and Raveners crashed into them and locked them in combat.

Funnily enough, thanks to their Toughness 8, it took all 5 turns to kill all the Leman Russ tanks, despite the Carnifex's claws. Oh, and the Leman Russ tank that the Hive Tyrant failed to kill? Dakka-ed to death by Termagaunts. No, I'm not kidding. In any event, the Leman Russ tanks could do little but fight it out with the Tyranids in close quarters, though they did roll over a few Ravenors and did like 6 damage to the Carnifex from lascannon shots and an explosion from a destroyed tank. Ouch.

Victory to the Tyranids! Hive Fleet Leviathan devoured the poor Guardsmen and tore apart the poor tanks. Well...it happens. Probably my fault for deploying my tanks too far forward and allowing them to get caught up in combat so soon. If I had another round of shooting, perhaps it would have made a lot more difference, but...yeah. A lesson learned for next time.

On the other side, the Thousand Sons crushed the Blood Angels. Successors, if you want to be pedantic because they are the Encarmine Angels. Anyway, I'm not sure what happened, but apparently the Encarmine Angels managed to slay the Daemon Prince Anktu (?), as well as a couple of Rubric Marines and a few Chaos Spawn. But with 15 Chaos Spawn on the table (dropping down to 8), they overwhelmed the poor Space Marines, killing Mephiston and wiping them out until only a Contemptor Dreadnought and a Leviathan Dreadnought were left. Whoa...I did not expect that, but yeah, that was pretty brutal. In any case, the Encarmine Angels withdrew because they believed this was not a battle they could not win, leaving the remaining Guardsmen to be slaughtered by the Tyranids after the Thousand Sons opened a hole in the defenses. Apparently they were summoning Daemons (I saw a Chariot), and that sowed more discord in the defenders' ranks.

Stage 1 of Phase 1 ended in crushing defeat for the Imperium and an overwhelming victory for the xenos invaders and scheming Thousand Sons. Yikes. Hopefully the Imperium will do better next week, but we'll see. Apparently more Tyranids are coming, along with another Imperial Guard regiment and T'au. Maybe Death Guard and Sisters will show, but I dunno how that will turn out...we'll see!

And so Hive Gaia falls. Next week, we'll see the Imperium try to salvage what's left of the hive and attempt to retake it while the Tyranids and Chaos warbands carry out their plans to lay the once great Hive City to utter ruin and deny the Imperium from reclaiming a population center.

New Octarius Crusade Campaign

The Octarius Sector is in flames...well, y'all know the usual dramatic start to Warhammer 40,000 stuff by now. Not going into the theatrics, just want to get right down to the details.

Anyway, the Tyranids and the Orks are breaking out of the Cordon Impenetra, and Imperial Forces are struggling to contain them. For now, the Imperium has failed and the xenos are surging into Imperial territory to wreak havoc on Warden planets. To make matters worse, the Archenemy has also chosen this time to strike, a warband belonging to the Thousand Sons carrying out their insidious schemes to destabilize the sector and plunge the Imperium into further, uh, chaos.

This particular campaign will be taking place in the Gydisk System, which has already fallen to Hive Fleet Leviathan (I assume the Tyranid players will be using Hive Fleet Leviathan, but there's room for their own Hive Fleets if they prefer that).

The Gydisk System has been declared lost by the Imperium, but pockets of resistance continue to fight defiantly against the ravenous hordes. On Gydisk Sigma, a hive world in the Gydisk System, several armored regiments of Astra Militarum and the Knight retainers (known as bondsmen) of House Yato have gathered within Hive Gaia in order to make a last stand against the teeming swarms of Hive Fleet Leviathan. The Angels Encarmine, battered after successfully repelling a Death Guard invasion from their home world, have answered their call for aid, dashing through the void after a near-suicidal trip through the warp. Unbeknownst to them, a thrallband of the Thousand Sons under the Sorcerer Ian Michaels (subject to change) has also launched an invasion of their own, probably to conduct some sort of ritual. Maybe to summon Daemons into real space?

Apparently there might be Sisters of Battle and Death Guard on the way, but neither would make it for the opening stage of the campaign. We'll see how it goes and who shows up on Gydisk Sigma! The report of the first stage of the first phase to come later!

Ironhammer Match 6

I had my final and sixth Ironhammer match today! This time, my opponent played Death Guard. He's a friend of mine - I played him a couple of times before, during a RTT at Phoenix and also at Waaaghfest, but he usually fielded Chaos Knights. My poor Imperial Knights got destroyed by his Chaos Knights both times (usually with Skitarii support). Well, I tried, and it was fun. I don't really care about winning or losing, as long as I get to play Warhammer 40,000, I'm happy. :D

Anyway, his Death Guard list looked something like this:

Lord of Contagion (or was it Virulence?) with an aura that makes my dudes count as not charging

Typhus

Malignant Plaguecaster

Tallyman

2 squads of 5 Plague Marines

10 Blightlord Terminators

2 squads of 3 Deathshroud Terminators

19 Poxwalkers

20 Poxwalkers (I guess it has something to do with points?)

2 squads of 10 Cultists

2 Plagueburst Crawlers

I think that was it, I can't remember. I could be mistaken. Anyway, I decided to replace the Adeptus Mechanicus or Skitarii portion of my Imperial Knight list with Black Templars. My Skitarii were kind of fragile, so I wanted something more durable, and Black Templars had their new codex drop, so I really wanted to play my Black Templars whose models I had lying around for over a year but didn't do anything with. I mean, I started them with the Indomitus box, got all those Terminators (so that they can double as Templar Brethren for Horus Heresy), but I never played them because...well, yeah. Anyway, the new codex supplement gave me an excuse to try them out and they were really fun to play with. So my new list looked something like this:

Imperial Knights super-heavy detachment (Mechanicus, Blessed Arms, Glorified History)

Dominus Knight Castellan with Cold Eradication and Cawl's Wrath

2 Armigers Moirax with graviton pulsars

Black Templars Vanguard Detachment

Marshal in Terminator Armor with relic blade and storm shield, Frontline Commander (yeah, he's a Captain, but Black Templars use Marshal, heh...so I'm sticking to Marshal)

5 Assault Terminators with storm shields and thunder hammers

5 Terminators with storm bolters, power fists, power sword and heavy flamer, and teleport homer

4 Bladeguard Veterans, neo-volkite pistol

Bladeguard Ancient

2 Contemptor Dreadnoughts with multi-melta and fist

Take note, I am not using the Relic Contemptor Dreadnoughts from the Imperial Armor Compendium. I'm using the standard "normal" Contemptor Dreadnoughts from the base Space Marines codex itself. Yes, that means I'm "stuck" with the multi-melta and fist loadout, but seriously, that's what I want. I don't care about the dual volkite culverins Relic Contemptor Dreadnoughts that everyone else is fielding. My Black Templars want to charge and get into combat, so I want the Contemptor Fists! Heh.

Anyway, this was...Retrieval Mission. Yup, so hold one objective, hold two objectives and hold more. There were 6 objectives spread across the map, so it might seem a little hard for a Knight army to get points. Furthermore, my army is a very elite army. I literally had 21 models. Almost the same number of models as my opponent had in one Poxwalker squad, heh. Well, this was going to be a grind, or so I thought. We rolled off, my opponent picked the deployment zone and deployed first. I didn't have many models, especially since I put my Marshal and Assault Terminators in deep strike. I actually wanted to put the normal Terminators (well, they are Tartaros but I play them as normal, like how my Assault Terminators are Cataphractii) in deep strike too, but I needed them on the table to grab objectives. Damn. Fortunately, when we rolled off again, I got first. Oh, nice. I didn't expect that - that was a nice little bonus.

I had my Bladeguard Veterans, Bladeguard Ancient and Terminators run out to grab three objectives and place banners on them, since that was the secondary I took. Then my Knights fired - thanks to the graviton pulsars and a multimelta from my Contemptor Dreadnought, I took out one squad of Plague Marines. The other Armiger Moirax ad Contemptor Dreadnought killed about 4 Blightlord Terminators. My Knight Castellan killed a bunch of Poxwalkers with his siegebreaker cannons, but his volcano lance only did 6 wounds (7, reduced by 1) to a Plagueburst Crawler. Can't remember where the plasma decimator went, probably to the Blightlord Terminators and contributed to killing a couple of the 4. Phew.

The Death Guard moved up, mostly advancing, to grab objectives and put banners. The Plagueburst Crawlers killed maybe one Bladeguard Veteran and did a lot of damage to my Armiger Moirax Knights. One went down to 7 wounds and the other had 2 left (I think). Ouch. Unfortunately, most of his army remained out of range, so they couldn't shoot or charge.

My Contemptor Dreadnoughts continued moving upward and one of them killed a Deathshroud Terminator with his multimelta while the other probably killed one Blightlord Terminator. The Armiger Moriax Knights helped out and maybe killed another two or so Blightlord Terminators (reducing them to three) while the other wiped out the remaining two Deathshroud Terminators. The Terminators didn't do much with their stormbolters, maybe killing a couple of Poxwalkers? The Assault Terminators and Marshal teleported behind the wounded Plagueburst Crawler...only to fail their charge despite rerolls. The Knight Catesllan fired on the other one and did another 6 wounds (7 reduced by 1). I think he also fired on the Blightlord Terminators with his plasma and contributed to the 3 or so killed, I can't remember. Then my Contemptor Dreadnoughts charged into the Poxwalkers and maybe killed 2 or so each. Not a very good roll because I rolled lots of 1s. Ouch. One Contemptor Dreadnought took a wound in return.

My opponent moved the Cultists to block the Assault Terminators and screen the wounded Plagueburst Crawler. Failing that charge was huge. Meanwhile the Poxwalkers wrapped around the Contemptor Dreadnought and the Cultists advanced. The Death Guard psykers failed all of their casts for some reason, which made me feel sorry for my opponent, but it didn't stop there. The Plagueburst Crawlers fired and did almost nothing to my two Armiger Moirax Knights. They missed most of their shots or failed to wound, and when they did wound, I rolled a couple of 6s for the ion shield saves to shrug them off. Holy Terra...

Sorry, Rob. I don't know what to say.

The remaining three Blightlord Terminators charged my Contemptor Dreadnought and did nothing. I think I killed one in combat, I can't remember. On the other side, my Contemptor Dreadnought continued killing a few more Poxwalkers and slowly ground them down, but they failed to do anything to him.

The third turn continued to swing my way. I moved my Bladeguard Veterans up so that they could charge the Poxwalkers, while my Knight Castellan wiped out the Cultists and finally destroyed one Plagueburst Crawler with his volcano lance while bringing the other down to just two wounds with the plasma decimator. The Armiger Moirax Knight killed the surviving Plagueburst Crawler with his graviton pulsars, but the other couldn't fire on anything because he popped the Stratagem on his Plague Marines. Oh, well. On the bright side, my Contemptor Dreadnought killed a single Blightlord Terminator with his multimelta while the other fried 2 Poxwalkers. The Assault Terminators massacred the poor Cultists who were screening the now destroyed Plagueburst Crawler while the Bladeguard Veterans moved up to support the Contemptor Dreadnoughts and helped to kill one Blightlord Terminator with their power swords. The Contemptor Dreadnought then killed the last remaining Blightlord Terminator...which meant my opponent could no longer score To The Last. The Tartaros Terminators charged and helped the Contemptor Dreadnought wipe out all of the Poxwalkers to claim the objective for my side.

Now this was where things got really, really strange.

My opponent had his Poxwalkers fall back and move to snatch the objective from my Armiger Moirax and Bladeguard Ancient, who failed his charge. His Deathshroud Terminators moved up and then charged my Contemptor Dreadnought and my Bladeguard Veterans, but before that, they tried to shoot them with their plagueflamers. The Strength 3 flamers killed one of them because I rolled 3 1s despite having a 2+ save with storm shields. I was like, "oh, okay, they are dead." Then the big plague flamers and other stuff came in and I literally rolled a bunch of 4++ invulnerable saves. The Bladeguard Veterans literally tanked everything - from the big plague flamer and the deathshroud scythes. They just stood there and survived everything. I think I failed a save from one of the scythes, but other than that, yeah. The 2 remaining dudes made almost all but 1 of their 4++ invulnerable saves against the heavy weapon and the scythes and survived.

Needless to say, they and the Contemptor Dreadnought proceeded to beat the hell out of the poor Deathshroud Terminators. Maybe I killed 1 or 2, but I can't remember. On the bright side (for my opponent), Typhus made his charge into my Bladeguard Ancient, killed him, and then consolidated into my Armiger Moirax. Oh, well. After all those saves I made, I can't complain. That was really absurd. Those Bladeguard Veterans are going down as heroes in their Crusade Force.

Sorry, I can't stop laughing at how incredible that was. They really defied all odds (too bad they had no vows, but that would have been so fitting) to survive that amount of attacks.

Anyway, I had my Armiger Moirax fall back, and my Knight Castellan unloaded everything into Typhus, including his Shieldbreaker missiles that did 4 (5 reduced by 1) damage. Good thing Glorified History allowed me to reroll misses, because I rolled a 2. Yikes. But I rerolled and got a 5, and then Typhus got blown up. Even though the Shieldbreaker missile didn't kill him, the volcano lance certainly finished him off. The Contemptor Dreadnought's multimelta killed a Deathshroud Terminator (I think), and maybe the Bladeguard Sergeant's neo-volkite pistol wounded a Terminator, but I think that's about it. Oh, right, I used a Stratagem to make my Contemptor Dreadnought Objective Secured (he has the Core keyword), so I stole the objective from right under the Deathshroud Terminators and Characters' noses. Black Templars ftw! As for the Tartaros Terminators, they planted a banner on the objective they seized from the Poxwalkers, and my Cataphractii Terminator assault squad advanced toward the Plague Marines, moving 10". Woo. I think that's about it, other than my losing a Bladeguard Veteran to scythes (finally), but the Sergeant and the Contemptor Dreadnought finally wiped out the Deathshroud Terminators. The other Armiger Moirax got lucky and wiped out the Poxwalkers with his graviton pulsars, allowing the other Armiger Moirax who fell back from Typhus to claim the objective.

At this point, my opponent almost had nothing left, save his Malignant Plaguecaster, Tallyman, Lord of Virulence/Contagion and 5 Plague Marines who were within charge range of my Assault Cataphractii Terminators. He did smite my Sergeant and killed him with mortal wounds, the Warded 5+++ Feel No Pain against mortal wounds not working (I rolled 2 1s and a 2). Can't complain, he literally tanked the plague flamers and scythes with his 4++ invulnerable saves earlier, so that death was long overdue. Still a hero in my book, that entire Bladeguard squad. But yeah, he couldn't get any objectives other than the one with his Plague Marines and his Characters...so he pretty much conceded. Most likely I would shoot one of his Characters off the board with my Knights, and my Assault Terminators would charge the Plague Marines and kill them with thunder hammers. So...I pretty much maxed out No Prisoners with 12 (he had a total of 127 wounds in his army). Also, other than the first turn, I had Engage on All Fronts for 4 turns, so that was 12 points for that secondary too. I maxed out banners, having 3 in my half of the table and grabbing a 4th in the 4th turn.

In the end, the score was 94-44, victory to the Knights in black! I can't believe it either, I got really lucky with my rolls and my opponent's rolls were...awful, to put it bluntly. He managed to kill like 5 models (all the Bladeguard Veterans and the Ancient). But my Knights survived, the Contemptor Dreadnoughts survived, and so did the Terminators...whoa. That's actually incredible. How did that happen? I think it was the rolls - normally he should have killed my Armiger Moirax Knights with his Plagueburst Crawlers, so I wasn't sure what happened there. Then again, I wasn't able to kill his Plagueburst Crawlers in the first 2 turns with the volcano lance, so there is that...

Anyway, a great final game for Ironhammer! I will keep an eye out and sign up for the next one. Looking forward to trying out Knights and Black Templars. We'll see how it goes!

A Teaser from Warzone Octarius: Rising Tide

Don't get your hopes up because I'm clutching at straws here, but when reading the new Warzone Octarius: Rising Tide, I saw this:

Basically they mentioned the Legio Cybernetica and how the Adeptus Mechanicus fielded assets such as Thanatar, Domitar and Vorax battle robots. Wait, what? Yeah, 30K Mechanicum automata from the Horus Heresy...showing up in the 41st Millennium!

Does this mean we will be getting 9th edition rules for Mechanicum units that currently only exist in Horus Heresy? Well, don't hold your breath...we've been disappointed since Fires of Cyraxus, and you know what they say about hope, especially in the grim dark future of the 41st Millennium. Even so, I was pleased to see the Mechanicum automata show up right now, and I pray to the Omnissiah that this will herald things to come. Forge World is aware of how popular their Mechanicum units are, and given that there's set to be a new Horus Heresy box set and supposed soft reboot (?), it won't be strange to see them get new rules for 40K/9th edition. But, as they say, there is nothing crueler than hope, so...

Just thought you guys would want to know. They could just be teasing us, only to dash our hopes, so I wouldn't put too much weight on that. That said, it's still pretty exciting to see them appear in the lore. They haven't been forgotten!

Oh, yeah, and it mentions that the Knight Houses have Household Cohorts. We have cohorts of Household Tech-Moritors, Household Iron Guard, Household Companion Guard, and Household Triarii. What does this mean for the future of Imperial Knights? Will these cohorts be included in our army list? Or perhaps we will be allowed to take a detachment of Imperial Guard (for Questor Imperialis) or Skitarii (for Questor Mechanicus) without breaking the all-army bonus for Knights or something? That would be awesome! But I don't know what the future holds, so...yeah. We'll see. Till then!

Black Templars

Oh, right. I bought the new Black Templars Army Set because I wanted the limited edition Black Templars codex with the classic John Blanche art. Totally worth it. Also, the Marshal, Primaris Crusaders and Emperor's Champion look really rad, so I wanted them even though...well, frankly, I could use them. I only have 2 squads of Assault Intercessors, and having Primaris Crusaders finally give me the third Troops slot I need for a Battalion. Also...pyre blasters and pyre pistols. 'nuff said.

Right, not to mention that having a second Redemptor Dreadnought would be good. I didn't think I would be getting one, but since he came with the box, I'm happy with that. Can't wait to run them, especially after they wrecked my poor Knights in that last game. Ouch. I did get a second Contemptor Dreadnought, though, and he's easy to build, so I snapped him together and even magnetized his arms in under 10 minutes. I think. Didn't keep track of time, but you know how easy he is and how few parts the plastic version has. I'll be using him alongside my Terminators and other Contemptor Dreadnought, and they double as Horus Heresy Templar Brethren or Imperial Fists first company veterans.

For now, I've only assembled the infantry and the Contemptor Dreadnought. I don't have the time to assemble the Redemptor Dreadnought yet because I have graduate school stuff to do. Quite frankly, it has been an awful week for me. I was hard-pressed for time because I need to work on grant proposals, rush out a 25-page chapter draft, my prospectus and its impending presentation on Tuesday, and a bunch of other stuff. I'm half-dead at the moment, but I'll survive. Warhammer 40,000 is the only thing keeping me alive now, heh. I sort of gave up on writing because nobody reads my stories anyway, and I had a bad experience with writing websites. To be fair, it's usually my fault, I end up offending everyone I talk to. I'm quite a toxic guy, so it's best if I stay away from writing websites. That's also why I don't really use Discord - I pretty much got exiled after offending so many people with my negativity and toxic behavior. Sorry.

Anyway, I did spray paint my infantry, and when I have the time, I'll paint them. Can't wait to field them in a game. I'm going to run a Crusade campaign with the new Warzone Octarius book, but quite frankly, it's more appealing for me to run an Imperial Guard army. I have lots of tanks, and the new Cadian supplement and the stuff in the Octarius Crusade makes it a lot more thematic and narrative-focused for me to field a Spearhead Detachment of Imperial Guard tanks. I also want to experiment with the new Imperial Guard rules. We'll see. This will be fun!

Looking forward to playing Imperial Guard versus Tyranids!

Adeptus Titanicus game

I managed to play an Adeptus Titancus game today, so yay. My opponent brought his usual Legio Tempestus Battle Group, which featured quite a bit of stuff. I can't remember which maniple he used, but these were his Titans and Knights:

Warlord Titan with gatling blasters, Belicosa volcano cannon and Sunfury plasma annihilator.

Reaver Titan with gatling blaster, melta cannon and turbo laser (I think?)

Warhound with inferno cannon and Vulcan mega-bolter

Warhound with plasma blastgun and turbo laser

Nemesis Warbringer Titan with Mori quake cannon, volcano cannon and gatling blaster (I think?)

Cerastus Knight banner with 1 Knight Lancer and 2 Knights Acheron

I brought my Knight Household Army because...well, I'm the Knight guy. What else do you expect me to play, if not Knights? Anyway, my list looked like this:

Imperial Knight Lance

Cerastus Knight banner with 4 Knights Lancer

Questoris Knight banner with 3 Knights Paladin with stormspear rocket pods

Questoris Knight banner with 3 Knights Errant with stormspear rocket pods

Mechanicum Knight Lance

Cerastus Knight banner with 2 Knights Atrapos

2 Questoris Knight banners with 2 Knights Styrix each

2 Acastus Knight banners with 2 Knights Porphyrion each

I gave the Acastus Knights lascannons because I literally have 50 points leftover, so might as well. Anyway, the mission was to kill the army, and you get 5 Victory points for every 25% of your opponent's army destroyed - so if you destroyed 75% of your opponent's army, you get like 15 victory points.

Anyway, I managed to seize the initiative and...the game begins! I activated the plasma mines and blew up 2 of the Knights Acheron in my opponent's Knight banner (heh). I lost quite a lot of Knights Lancer to my opponent's shooting, and I think a Knight Atrapos, while I didn't do much. I think I managed to bring down the shields of the Reaver Titan and one of the Warhound through shooting from the Mechanicum Knight banner and Acastus Knights, but because I rolled a damned 1 for my command checks for my Knight Lance, I couldn't give any orders, so the Imperial Knight Lance did absolutely f all because they didn't have Full Stride or the range. That left them open to shooting and I lost a few of my Questoris Knights as well. Ouch.

However, I did manage to destroy the Reaver Titan in the second turn thanks to my  Acastus Knights, but I eventually lost my Imperial Knight Lance save for a couple of Knights Errant, and I lost my Knights Atrapos. I did manage to destroy 2 Warhounds eventually and then wounded the Nemesis Warbringer, but while I did structually compromise him, I failed to destroy him. Hilariously enough, the Acastus Knights destroyed the enemy Knight Lancer with Strength 6 lascannons. Heh. The Warlord Titan survived and took out a lot of my Knights, and I was only left with 2 Knights Porphyrion - 1 in each banner. My Knight Errant tried to trap the Nemesis Warbringer, but I wasn't able to keep him alive and he eventually got destroyed by the Warlord Titan. Who remained at full health, no less. Ouch.

Eventually my opponent won because he destroyed more than 75% of my army, but I only destroyed over 50% of his army. Well, it was still a good game, though. Enjoyed it tremendously, heh. Had a lot of fun today, and that's what matters. Also, considering that I was running pure Knights, it was actually a lot closer than I thought it would be. My Knights actually destroyed 3 Titans and structurally compronised another. If the rolls went my way, I might have destroyed 4 Titans, but alas, it is what it is. Oh, well.

Anyway, I hope to play another Adeptus Titanicus game soon! It was really fun!

Ironhammer Game 5

I played my 5th Ironhammer game today, and this time my opponent was Deathwatch. He had quite the cool list:

Deathwatch Battalion Detachment

Deathwatch Primaris Captain with some aegis that gave him a 4++ invulnerable save and 4+++ Feel No Pain against mortal wounds

Primaris Lieutenant with some aegis that gives units within 6" a 5++ invulnerable save

Techmarine Master of the Forge

5 Incursors

5 Deathwatch Veterans (I think?)

3 Proteus Kill Teams - each with 5 Deathwatch Veterans, 4 bikers and a single Vanguard Veteran with storm shield and jump pack

3 Redemptor Dreadnoughts with marco plasma incinerator

2 relic Contemptor Dreadnoughts with twin volkite culverins

With all the relics and warlord traits he crammed into his list, he had like 5 Command Points left. For some reason...well, I got lazy, to be honest, I decided to just throw together a pure Imperial Knights list even though I brought my Black Templars. Should have fielded my Black Templars, but it was late and I got lazy and I was tired anyway, so I wanted to make it a quick game.

It was a pretty quick game. Anyway, my list was my usual Mechanicus Knights list with:

Super-heavy Detachment (Mechanicus, Glorified History, Blessed Arms)

Dominus Knight Castellan with Cold Eradication and Cawl's Wrath

Questoris Knight Crusader with Ion Bulwark and Endless Fury

Questoris Knight Preceptor

2 Armiger Knights Moirax with graviton pulsars

Armiger Warglaive

Decided to give the graviton pulsars a try - they would do well particularly against Terminators and bikers (non-Primaris bikers have 3 wounds each, it seems). Anyway, the mission was Piority Target, we rolled off and my opponent went first. He had all his bikers and everyone advance, and then his 3 Redemptor Dreadnoughts and 2 Contemptor Dreadnoughts destroyed my poor Knight Preceptor. Ouch. I retaliated by destroying one Redemptor Dreadnought, killing a bunch of bikers (I think I took out like 2 squads of bikers in a single turn), wounded the other two Redemptor Dreadnoughts and that was about it. Oh, my Armiger Warglaive charged into a Veteran squad while my Knight Crusader stomped the Incursor squad, leaving just 1 guy in each squad. Damn. My opponent then destroyed my Knight Crusader in the second turn. Yikes. Fortunately, I rolled a 6 and nuked 3 bikes with 6 mortal wounds and wiped out the surviving Incursor. I think he also destroyed one Armiger Moirax Knight, and yeah. That's about it. I managed to take out both Redemptor Dreadnoughts in the second turn with my Knight Castellan, but with the surviving Armiger Knight Moirax stuck in combat with a bunch of Veterans, I couldn't do much. Also, one Veteran survived combat against my Armiger Warglaive by rolling 2 6s. Holy Terra. I finally killed him with a meltagun, but that was about it. The Contemptor Dreadnoughts then destroyed my Armiger Warglaive, leaving me with just 2 Knights. Sigh.

I eventually destroyed the two Contemptor Dreadnoughts with my Knight Castellan, but there was very little I could do. I was behind on points. I then had my Armiger Moirax fall back so that I could wipe out the Veterans and kill a squad, and then I slew his Primaris Captain with the Knight Castellan's meltaguns. It wasn't enough. Even though my opponent had only a Primaris Lieutenant and a techmarine left on the table, almost tabled, while I had my Knight Castellan still at full health and an Armiger Moirax Knight who was slowly regaining his wounds, I was too far behind on points.

Alas, I lost the game 60-78. Oh, well. It happens. Probably shouldn't have played pure Knights, but I didn't regret it. Had fun, saw my giant robots stomp about and shoot stuff on the table and almost tabled my opponent. That's fine with me. It went closer than I thought, especially since my opponent was scoring 15 for primary in the first 4 turns (not counting turn 1).

I'll try using Black Templars allies next game or something.

Acastus Knight Asterius

Good news! We're finally getting the Acastus Knight Asterius from Adeptus Titanicus!

This little detail might be easily missed in Warhammer Community's Sunday preview today, but since it's the only release that matters to me (I don't play Age of Sigmar or Middle-Earth or Blood Bowl), it was the only one I latched onto. It also helped that I was just watching a couple of demo games for Adeptus Titanicus yesterday and plan to have a game with my Knight Household Army sometime next week, but yeah. More Knights! WOOHOO! It's been a while, indeed! Almost 2 years since the release of the Acastus Knight Porphyrion...more than 2 years, in fact, but you know what I mean. Can't wait to get a couple just to add them to my collection!

I wonder if they'll eventually add the Dominus Knights...but more than that, I'm sure everyone is more interested in seeing the Imperator Titan...eventually. If they do plan on releasing an Imperator Titan, that is. Also, I think we'll need Ork Titans and Baneblades/Shadowswords/Stormblades to turn this game into Epic. It actually makes no sense that we can't field super-heavy tanks in Adeptus Titanicus, considering that Shadowswords and Stormblades are supposed to be Titan killers, but hey...we can hope. We have Aeronautica, after all, so why not tanks eventually? Titan killing super-heavy tank squadrons feature heavily in the Horus Heresy (and regular 40K) lore, so...yeah.

Adeptus Tankicus, in addition to Adeptus Knighticus? Heh.

My Collection of Knights, big and small

Here's my current collection of Imperial Knights, both big and small! Since I play both normal Warhammer 40,000 9th edition and Adeptus Titanicus, I thought I might as well put my Knight Household Army together with my Knight Lances, and yeah. YAY!

Knights of the Imperium, we march! For the honor of House Yato! Long Live the Emperor!

What do I have so far? Here's a list.

1 Cerastus Knight Lancer (4 for Adeptus Titanicus)

3 Questoris Knights (6 for Adeptus Titanicus)

1 Cerastus Knight Atrapos (2 for Adeptus Titanicus)

2 Armigers Warglaives

2 Armiger Moirax Knights

1 Dominus Knight Castellan

(4 Questoris Knights Styrix for Adeptus Titanicus)

(4 Acastus Knights Porphyrion for Adeptus Titanicus)

That's a lot of Knights! I guess. I can play both regular 9th edition and Adeptus Titanicus, which is pretty cool. I'll see how it goes, and I look forward to fielding them again in future!

First Kill Team Game

I finally got to play the new Kill Team for the first time today. Or yesterday, given that it's past midnight. Oh, well. It flows much better and is more fun than the original Kill Team.

Anyway, because this is my first game, we decided to go simple and try the first Open Play mission, disregarding the Tactical Ops cards and building a deck for secondaries. We just wanted to roll dice and get a feel of the game, you know what I'm saying?

Funnily enough, my opponent and I decided to field the contents of the new Kill Team box - my opponent brought his Ork Kommandoes that he bought from me, while I brought my Death Korps of Krieg, which I would be fielding as Draconians (we wear similar uniforms, I guess). Veteran Guardsmen, just in case I'm not clear enough, since I literally built it out of the Kill Team box set.

I managed to get first for initiative, and thanks to strafing run plus a sniper shot from my sniper, I killed the Burnaboyz, only for him to get sniped off in return by the Ork sniper. Ouch. The coms guy ran to secure an objective, as did a Veteran trooper, but the poor coms guy and medic got blown apart by the bomb squig. Ouch. On the other hand, the meltagunner did 10 wounds to the Nob, leaving him with 3. Most of the Ork Kommandoes were concealed, so I couldn't do much, though I managed to kill another Kommando - the slugga one - with combined shots from a flamer and krak grenade as revenge after the slugga ripped apart my Veteran Trooper apart (he did get injured by a krak grenade thrown from him earlier, so he was also taking revenge). The hot-shot lasgunner and plasma gunner killed the rokkit launcher Ork before he could get a shot off, so I lost like 4 guys or so in the first turn, but at least I managed to kill 3 Kommandoes and wound the Nob. The Veteran Sergeant secured the objective, so I had 2 objectives, while one of the Kommandoes secured one objective for my opponent.

Fortunately, in the second turn, my meltagunner was able to finish off the Nob, but he got charged by the blade guy and got locked in combat for a bit. The Zealot rushed to secure objective, then charged the other Kommando. Meanwhile, my surviving Trooper secured the other objective again. The Sergeant, plasma gunner and flamer charged the coms Kommando, or rather the flamer got charged by him after he killed the Kommando Grot with his flamer before my Sergeant and plasma gunner charged the coms Ork - which meant the Ork sniper couldn't shoot any of my guys. Heh. For about two turns, the Orks and Veteran Guardsmen were locked in combat, but my plasma gunner rolled 3 1s and died to the coms Ork, while he survived the Veteran Sergeant's power sword. Damn.

At least I was leading by objectives 4-1 at this point.

In the third turn, everything fell apart for me. The Ork sniper sniped and killed my Veteran Trooper, and though I did a few wounds to the Ork bladesman, he and the other Kommando killed the meltagunner and Zealot in melee. On the other hand, the flamer guy fell to the coms Ork in combat, but my Sergeant finally killed the damed coms Ork with his power sword, though he took 5 wounds in return. Ouch.

At that point, I only had one guy left. The Veteran Sergeant. That was painful. And he only had 2 wounds left. My opponent had the blades Ork, the sniper Ork and 1 Kommando Ork. This wasn't looking good for me. Fortunately, the last turn - turn 4 - came, and the sniper Ork couldn't see my Sergeant because he was hidden behind a building. So I moved to secure an objective while the sniper Ork and the blade Ork secured 2 objectives.

Funnily enough, by the time the game ended, I won by objectives, scoring 5 victory points to my opponent's 3. Even though I literally only had one Veteran Sergeant with 2 wounds left when compared to the 3 Kommandoes - 2 of whom were at full health. If the game continued to turn 5, I would have lost. That was close! Phew! I almost got tabled, ha ha. But I actually won by objectives! It reminded me of the awesome cinematic where the poor Kriegsmen got wiped out by the Ork Kommandoes, only for them to succeed in their mission and "win" anyway. Oh, and the Nob getting killed in the cinematic (though by a chainsword instead of taking two meltagun blasts in the face). Heh. That was just hilarious.

This new edition of Kill Team was really fun to play. I can't wait to try it again in future!

Painted Praetor

I painted my Imperial Fists Praetor in Terminator armor. Granted, he's not exactly Imperial Fists but Black Templars instead...but hey, we have Templar Brethren during the Horus Heresy, so if I field him in Horus Heresy, I'll be treating him as Templar Brethren.

Some people on Frozen North have been asking me what size the new Praetor miniature is, so here's a comparison. I put him beside both the Cataphractii and Tartaros Terminators...and even the Contemptor Dreadnought for good measure. Also, the Armiger Moirax Knight.

I have a Kill Team battle report that I will be writing up shortly, so look forward to that one! I hope...

Ironhammer match 4

The fourth round of Ironhammer has begun, and my next opponent was an Adepta Sororitas player. That's not good. I have a history of doing badly against them, so I was already prepared to lose. That's fine, though. I'm always up for a Warhammer 40,000 game, win or lose.

I stuck to a similar list to the Imperial Knights and Ryza Skitarii that I brought the last time, only swapping the 3 squads of Vanguard, Skitarii Marshal and 2 Skorpius Duneriders for 2 Sydonian Dragoons and 2 Armigers Warglaives. Somehow I don't think that was a good idea...but hey, I tried.

The Sisters of Battle army comprised of two Orders - Bloody Rose and Valorous Heart. I think Bloody Rose had 3 squads of 10 Sacrascents (the girls with the spears and shields), 2 squads of 9 Sisters Repentia, a Repentia Superior, a Canoness and...I think that's about it. Valorous Heart had a Morven Vahl, a Dogmata, 2 squads of 20 Battle Sisters, 2 squads of Retributors wiith 4 multimeltas, 5 Celestians, and I think that's about it. Still a pretty sizable number of units, though. And very scary.

The mission is Scorched Earth. We rolled off, I managed to get first turn. Yay...I hope.

My shooting was pretty ineffective, though I did manage to kill one Retributor squad and a squads of Sacrascents. I also took out a few models of Sacrascents in another squad and a few Sisters, but they were far and few in between.

My opponent, on the other hand, came crashing through my forces, tearing through my Sydonian Dragoons with his Sisters Repentia, destroyed one Armiger Moirax with the Retributors, and then mortal wound plus stormbolter-ed and boltgun-ed one Armiger Warglaive to death. The other Armiger Warglaive was charged and destroyed by the Sacrascents. Ouch. He also killed 2 Serberys Sulphurhounds in each squad, which hurt even more. I tried to fight back as best as I could in the second turn, but I only killed the second Retributor squad, wiped out the Sisters Repentia with my Knight Castellan, and a bunch of Sacrascents (but not nearly enough). I think I managed to annihilate the third Sacrascents with my Sicarian Ruststalkers, who had walked off the board the previous turn and came from behind. Yay.

Then the second Sisters Repentia proceeded to kill the Ruststalkers, Morven Vahl killed my Knight Castellan in combat because she can fight twice (what the f?!). I...don't know what to say. My first Onager Dunecrawler wounded Morven Vahl down to 2 wounds, while the other killed the Sacrascents. My Serberys Sulphurhounds were shot off the table eventually, but I managed to kill the Sisters Repentia with my last, remaining Armiger Moirax. Not that it helped, for Morven Vahl walked in and killed both the Tech-priest Enginseer and my Onager Dunecrawler. The other one tried to fire at her and did absolutely f all (well, he did one wound to her, so that's good), only for her to destroy him in combat. I then used Machine Spirit's Revenge to do two mortal wounds to her, and she died. Yay, at least I have 4 points for Assassinate. Before that happened, though, my second squad of Ruststalkers came from behind...only to fail the charge and got shot off the board by the Battle Sisters. Anyway, with just the Armiger Moirax remaining, I was all but tabled, and I lost the game.

The final score was 100 to 49. I'm surprised I even managed to get 49 points, but...hey, I'll take what I can get. Painful defeat, but I did my best. Maybe next time I'll switch things up. I might swap the Ryza Skitarii out for Black Templars Terminators, for the sole reason because I have them painted up and sitting around doing nothing, and I want to at least try them out in a game.

Anyway, learning experience, so...yeah. Well, it is what it is...on to the next round, I suppose!