Imperial Fists Legion Terminator Praetor

I finally got down to assembling the Imperial Fists Legion Terminator Praetor that I bought from Forge World. He had been sitting in the box for about a week or two now, but I was too busy with other stuff (cough, Aliens: Fireteam Elte, cough) to build him. So I ended up procrastinating for quite a bit.

Fortunately, I finally squeezeed out some time to assemble him today, along with 4 graviton pulsars for my Armiger Knight Moirax. I plan to magnetize the graviton pulsars and then try them out in a game. They look really good, and I think they will do well against Terminators, Death Guard, Adeptus Custodes and Sisters of Battle. I'm not sure, but we will see. I can't wait to see how it goes.

As for my Terminator Praetor, I'm painting him as Black Templars. If I do somehow end up fielding him in Horus Heresy, I will be fielding him as Templar Brethren, so yeah. Hopefully I'll be able to get more Cataphractii Terminators and Contemptor Dreadnoughts to form a good Imperial Fists core for Horus Heresy, but otherwise I'm kind of pleased with Black Templars Terminators fighting alongside my Imperial Guard. I'm not sure how my list will look like eventually, but it'll be fun. I hope. Well, in any event, I'll post again once I get them all painted!

Ironhammer Game 3

I actually meant to write this battle report yesterday night, but when I got home, I was so hungry and tired that I ended up falling asleep after dinner. Whoops. That's not healthy. I was supposed to have this game on Thursday, not yesterday, but I fell sick on Thursday because I ate something bad and suffered from nausea. Stupid chilli. Anyway, I managed to get in a game for Ironhammer on Sunday (yesterday), so it all ended up fine in the end.

By the way, if any of you guys are going to Next Level Wargames, take note that they blocked all the roads for some stupid reason. I think they're constructing something? Or repairing the roads? I don't know, but it was absolutely frustrating. I had to take a Lyft there because I don't have a car, and the driver and I ended up circling the place for about 15 to 20 minutes because we simply couldn't find a way in. I ended up making my opponent wait for me, which was bad. As of right now, the only route in is through the east, so turn into Tamarak and into Commerce Drive. Or you could just drop off at the Target like I did today and walk the rest of the way in. Ugh.

Anyway, onto the game itself. My opponent was Blood Angels, so I was pretty excited about it because it meant I could swap from my vehicle-heavy Data-hoard Forge World to my Ryza-styled Forge World. You know, because Ryza versus Blood Angels is just fun. Both of us have +1 to our charge rolls and +1 to our wound rolls when we charge, get charged or perform a Heroic Intervention. So I just had to use Ryza for this game. But enough of that, let's get to my opponent's Blood Angels list.

Blood Angels Battatlion

Chapter Master with jumppack and thunder hammer (and storm shield, I think?)

Sanguinary Priest

5 Assault Intercessors

2x5 Incursors

10 Vanguard Veterans (I think they mostly have thunder hammers and storm shields, and he combat squaded them)

5 Vanguard Veterans with thunder hammers and storm shields

Sanguinary Ancient

5 Assault Terminators with thunder hammers and storm shields (I think you're beginning to see a theme here)

2 Relic Contemptor Dreadnoughts with dual volkite culverins

Whirlwind

3 Eliminators

I think that was...it? I don't know what else he had. Yeah, he didn't have any Fast Attack stuff and only 3 vehicles (which made me sad because I couldn't do Bring it Down). In contrast, I brought my usual Mechanicus Knights list, but with slight adjustments to my accompanying Adeptus Mechanicus detachment.

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

Dominus Knight Castellan, Cawl's Wrath and Cold Eradication

2 Armiger Moirax Knights with dual volkite veuglaires (a good mirror to the Relic Contemptor Dreadnoughts)

Adeptus Mechanicus Patrol Detachment (Slaved Systems Forge World: Ryza)

Skitarii Marshal

Tech-priest Enginseer

3x5 Skitarii Vanguard with phosphor blast pistol, power sword, omnispex, plasma caliver

2x5 Sicarian Ruststalkers with transonic blades

2x3 Serberys Sulphurhounds with phosphor blast carbine

2 Onager Dunecrawlers with heavy phosphor blasters

2 Skorpius Duneriders

Yeah, I wanted my Skitarii to go mano-a-mano with Blood Angels, so I chose Ryza for my Forge World this time. Strange? Perhaps. Fun? Most definitely.

The mission was Overrun, and my opponent picked Bring it Down (obviously), Engage on all Fronts and Octarius Data. Surprisingly enough, he didn't pick Oath of Moment, but I guess he had a plan. I chose No Prisoners, Engage on all Fronts and Raise the Banners. We rolled off, he got first turn, and let the fun begin.

Apparently he started off strong, with his Eliminators dealing 2 wounds to my Tech-priest Enginseer. Damn, I hate those snipers. His Relic Contemptors put almost all of their volkite into one of my Skorpius Duneriders, and despite taking a lot of damage and not having the 6+++ Feel No Pain that my Data-hoard Forge World normally has, he survived with just 1 wound remaining. I...don't believe it. I was incredbly lucky this game, except for some shooting. But yeah, that was brutal. Oh, the second Contemptor Dreadnought had elected to shoot one of his volkite culverins into my Serberys Sulphurhounds instead, which was how my Skorpius Dunerider survived, and I lost 2 of them - one to a couple of mortal wounds and the other to a single failed save. The Whirlwind then killed another Serberys Sulphurhound in my second squad. And that was it.

My Knight Castellan proceeded to delete the first Relic Contemptor Dreadnought off the board and killed all but 1 Vanguard Veteran (though they already lost one or two from my Armiger Moirax's volkite - and unlike my opponent, I didn't roll any 6s for the mortal wounds, ugh) while damaging the second Relic Contemptor Dreadnought by a measly 3 wounds. That Duty Eternal thing is amazing. My lone Serberys Sulphurhound Alpha ran up to hide in the building so he wouldn't get shot off the table, while the second squad charged up and flamed the Incursors...only for the sulphur breath to roll no 4+s and do absolutely f all. At least I killed like 1 or 2 with my phosphor blast pistol and blast carbine, but that was still lackluster. I told you my rolling for shooting was pretty bad. My first Onager Dunecrawler couldn't quite kill one Vanguard Veteran squad, with at least 3 surviving, and I also killed just one Eliminator with the second one, thanks to them having a bonus 2+ cover save negating the phosphor blasters' AP -2. Ugh. Oh, well...at least my 3 Skitarii squads raised the banners. Oh, and one Sicarian Ruststalker squad walked off the board thanks to Circuitous Assassins or whatever that Stratagem is called. I love that Stratagem. My Serberys Sulphurhounds charged into the Incursors, and despite killing maybe 1 or 2 in combat, the remaining 2 beat them to death. In melee. Whoops. So much for my Skitarii going mano-a-mano with Blood Angels. Hilariously enough, despite being Space Marines, the single Vanguard Veteran who survived the obliteration of his squad failed morale and ran away. Bye!

Then my opponent's second turn came and this was when s hit the fan. His Assault Terminators teleported in my backline, behind my Onager Dunecrawlers and Skitarii Vanguard squad while the Vanguard Veterans charged up the table, along with his Smash Captain and Sanguinary Priest, who accompanied the Contemptor Dreadnought up the table. The Smash Captain, Sanguinary Guard and Contemptor Dreadnought charged my Knight Castellan, with the Contemptor Dreadnought having done considerable damage because I somehow failed all my saves and took like 8 or 9 damage, along with the mortal wounds. Meanwhile the Whirlwind elected to fire upon my Armiger Knight Moirax instead, so that his Vanguard Veterans get +1 to their hit rolls. His Eliminators proceeded to eliminate my Tech-priest Enginseer, which hurts. Ouch. That sucks. His Vanguard Veterans then charged my Armiger Moirax and Onager Dunecrawler, along with the Sanguinary Ancient, and then the Assault Terminators charged my Skitarii Vanguard and wiped them out, taking away my banner while at it. Damn. The Smash Captain proceeded to smash my Knight and brought him down to 10 wounds. Double ouch. The Contemptor Dreadnought succeeded in destroying my Skorpius Dunerider. Like, finally. Meanwhile, the 5 Vanguard Veterans missed like a whole bunch of their swings and only dead like 6 wounds to my Armiger Moirax. Damn, my opponent was rolling just as badly as I was! Hilariously enough, the surviving 3 Vanguard Veterans who survived the fire from the Onager Dunecrawler swung in and did a lot more wounds...only for me to make 5 5++ invulnerable saves and took only 3 or so damage. What the hell...hey, I guess that's where all my rolling fortune went. Couldn't make a save for my Knight Castellan or wound rolls for sulphur breaths, but at least I saved my Onager Dunecrawler! I'll take that. My Knight stomped back and did like 2 wounds to the Smash Captain. Everything else...well, despite being Ryza, vehicles aren't that great in combat. Not even the Onager Dunecrawlers. The Skitarii Marshall put a single wound on the Terminators, but that was about it.

My turn was better, my Knight Castellan blitzed the Smash Captain with his four meltaguns and shieldbreaker missile (apparently he had a 5+++ Feel No Pain and survived 7 damage from the meltaguns). He proceeded to destroy both the Whirlwind and second Relic Contemptor Dreadnought with his volcano lance and plasma decimator. Yes! The Skitarii Vanguard then shot the sanguinary priest off the board...the guy actually failing a bunch of saves from the radium carbines. I did not expect that. The plasma caliver didn't even get to do anything...at least I don't think it did. Oh, I rolled 2 1s, so the plasma caliver didn't hit. Never mind. I think it was the second Skitarii Vanguard squad who actually killed him with radium rounds. Seriously. On the other side of the table, my Armiger Moirax erased the Vanguard Veterans locked in combat with them because of their Big Guns Never Tire rule, which allows them to shoot in combat with a -1 to their hit rolls. Still good enough, for I managed to do a few mortal wounds and enough Damage 2 shots that forced my opponent to roll at least a couple of failed saves. The three Vanguard Veterans locked in combat with my Onager Dunecrawler survived with just 1 guy remaining after I fired my heavy phosphor blasters into them, while the second one deleted the Sanguinary Ancient. The remaining Skorpius Dunerider didn't do much to the Eliminators despite having 16 cognis heavy stubber shots. Oh, well. The Skitarii Marshal died in combat, not much to say there. Oh, and I moved my last Serberys Sulphurhound up to shoot the last squad of Incursors, but didn't do much either. Well, I tried. Because he advanced, he couldn't charge them, but he got me Engage on All Fronts, which was what I was aiming for anyway. Once again, I whiffed his sulphur breath with not a single 4+ wound roll. Damn. My Ruststalkers appeared on the corner of the table, made their 8" charge and annihilated the Assault Intercessors to grab that objective. Yay.

My opponent didn't have many units left on the table, and his Vanguard Veteran was slowly chipping away at my Onager Dunecrawler, with him only making one wound a turn and me failing my save (a 4 instead of the 5++ I needed - and this happened for 3 consecutive turns). His Eliminators tried to shoot my Armiger Moirax but didn't do much because...you know, Toughness 7 vehicles. Hey, but it means his Assault Terminators got a +1 to their hit rolls against him. Meanwhile the 2 surviving Incursors moved up to steal the objective from my Ruststalkers because Objective Secured. On the other side of the table, the Incursors simply shot my lone Serberys Sulphurhound off the board. That was...a bad idea. I should have moved him to obscure him from view to keep him with Engage on All Fronts, but whatever. The Assault Terminators, unsurprisingly enough, destroyed one of my Armiger Moirax in combat, and they ran back into the building to hide from my Knight Castellan. Of course.

My surviving Knight Armiger Moirax moved up to shoot the Incursors to death, with some help from the Skorpius Dunerider, and the Onager Dunecrawler only killed one Eliminator, leaving just one guy. Also, my wounded Onager Dunecrawler's shooting was ineffective and the sole surviving Vanguard Veteran made all his saves anyway. Damn. Fortunately, I charged the Eliminator with my Armiger Moirax and actually killed him in combat. Nice. On the other hand, I had my second squad of Sicarian Ruststalkers walk off the board with the Stratagem once more.

My opponent, in the fourth turn, had his Assault Terminators do Octarius Data because..quite frankly, it would give him more points and it would put him in a dangerous place where my Knight Castellan could see him. Also, he could theoretically move up to destroy my Armiger Moirax, but that would give him 2 points for Bring it Down instead of 4 from Octarius Data (that would be his 3rd and he would get 8 points instead of 4). Fortunately for him, his Vanguard Veteran finally destroyed my Onager Dunecrawler in combat this turn. Well, that guy lasted far longer than he had any right to, to be honest, so I can't complain. Making 5 5++ saves and the Vanguard Veteran just doing 1 wound every turn was statistically improbable. I actually felt sorry for my opponent.

My Knight Castellan then moved up so that he could finally get a clear line of view to his Assault Terminators. The Ruststalkers showed up, made their 8" charge and ripped apart the last squad of Incursors, and my Knight Castellan proceeeded to shoot the Assault Terminators to death with his volcano lance and plasma decimator. I actually only killed like maybe one or two Terminators with the plasma decimator, while the siegebreaker cannons killed the wounded Terminator (the one who took a single wound from the Skitarii Marshal earlier) but the volcano lance was more than enough to clean out the rest. Phew. Actually, I think one Assault Terminator survived. Yeah, I think that's what happened. And I couldn't shoot him because he was hiding in the building. As for the lone Vanguard Veteran...let's just say he got blown off the board by the Armiger Moirax, who had moved ahead to grab the objective. Okay, he actually did 2 mortal wounds with his volkite veuglaires, which were enough to kill the poor dude outright before he even started making his saves. Oh, and my Sicarian Ruststalkers raised the banner on their objective.

In turn 5, the lone Assault Terminator moved up to assault the Skorpius Dunerider, and I think he didn't quite kill him. Oh, well. Then my guys shot him off the table while my second squad of Sicarian Ruststalkers also raised the banner.

By this point, my opponent was effectively tabled. Wow. I did not expect that to happen. That was ouch. I mean, I know the Knight Castellan was devastating, but quite frankly, the Onager Dunecrawler surviving for over 4 turns in combat was just statistically improbable. Then again, my shooting was mostly ineffective in the first few turns in particular, so...yeah. In the end, I won the game 81 to 44, I think. Actually, I realized I forgot my 3rd banner, so I should have gotten 2 more points, but who cares. I'm not going to rub salt into my opponent's wound. And it's not like a couple of points matter in the grand scheme of things, I'm not expecting to finish high in the rankings. Still, that was a great game. I'm delighted to see my Knight Castellan working out for me. He's my MVP. The Onager Dunecrawlers too, they are just amazing, I'm glad I put them in my list.

I still don't know which Adeptus Mechanicus support I prefer - the vehicle heavy list or the melee specialists Ryza list. I guess it depends on the opponent. But this being Ironhammer, I'll continue experimenting with my lists, see what works and what doesn't, and have a lot of fun while doing it. I think.

Return of the Imperial Guard

I actually expected to play Kill Team today, so I didn't bring my Chapter Approved book or Matched Play Scoring Sheet. I didn't even bring my Imperial Armor Compendium because my bag was full of the Kill Team books. That was why I was kind of surprised when I was asked to play a Matched Play game instead. I was completely unprepared. Whoops. My opponent brought a Thousand Sons list, and I was more than happy to play, but I thought I would get hammered. Well, we'll see! It's always fun to play, and I can never say no to a game of Warhammer 40,000!

We were playing Matched Play, a Strike Force Game, and we chose Retrieval because it was the easiest and I didn't bring my Chapter Approved book. My opponent brought a Thousand Sons list that looks like this:

Thousand Sons Battalion Detachment (Cult of Duplicity)

Exalted Sorcerer on Disc

Exalted Sorcerer

Daemon Prince with wings

2 Sorcerers

2x10 Rubric Marines with warpflame pistol, 8 warpflamers and 1 soulreaper cannon each

2x10 Tzaangors

2 Rhinos

Leviathan Dreadnought with cyclonic melta

5 Scarab Occult Terminators

I think that's about it. Huh, for some reason, I thought there were more, but I guess I'm mistaken. Against that insane number of psychic powers, I brought my Imperial Guard. Again, I was thinking that I was going to play Kill Team, so to my horror I realized I actually didn't have enough points to field a pure Imperial Guard list. Ouch. Anyway, I managed to scrape together 2,000 points by throwing in a single Vanguard Detachment of Assassins. And the Assassins were awesome. No, really.

Imperial Guard Patrol Detachment (Gunnery Experts, Jury Rigged Repairs)

Tank Commander (Tank Ace, extra order, Leman Russ Executioner tank with lascannon and plasma cannon sponsons)

Tank Commander (Leman Russ Executioner tank with lascannon and plasma cannon sponsons)

10 Guardsmen with plasma pistol, power sword and plasma gun

3 Armored Sentinels with sentinel chainsaws and plasma cannons

2 Leman Russ Executioner tanks with lascannon and plasma cannon sponsons

Imperial Guard Super-heavy Auxiliary Detachment (Gunnery Experts, Jury Rigged Repairs)

Stormblade with lascannon and twin heavy bolters, Tank Ace Steadfast Leviathan

Assassins Vanguard Detachment

Eversor Assassin

Vindicare Assassin

Culexus Assassin

Battlescribe didn't update the points for the Stormblade for some reason. He's 400 points now, not 440. Somebody please inform Battlescribe about the errors. Anyway, that cost me 5 Command Points because I spent an extra CP for Tank Ace, 1 for the Super-heavy Auxiliary Detachment, and 3 for the Assassins' Vanguard Detachment. Ouch.

For secondaries, my opponent picked Bring It Down, Engage on all Fronts and Mutate Landscape. I chose Abhor the Witch, Assassinate and Engage on all Fronts.

Anyway, we rolled off and I was lucky enough to get first turn. That meant I could blow up the two Rhinos and wipe out one Tzaangor squad. That led to the Daemon Prince being right in front, inside a building, and so I nuked him with the Stormblade. The poor Daemon Prince never stood a chance. 2 Tzaangors died in the first Rhino, only to be wiped out, while the 2nd squad of Tzaangors lost 4 when their Rhino was wrecked. Yeah, my opponent was unfortunate enough to roll 4 1s. The Vendetta gunship flew to the other side of the table to get me Engage on all Fronts, but did f all with his 6 lascannons. Whoops. The Vindicare Assassin also rolled a 1 for his shot, which sucks. He did nothing with his Exitus rifle. Oh, well.

He then teleported two of his Rubric Marine squads to my backline and flamed my Stormblade and Leman Russ tank. My Stormblade took 2 measly wounds from all that flaming while my Leman Russ tank was down to 2 wounds. Ouch. The Leviathan Dreadnought nuked the poor Vendetta gunship out of the sky and it was my turn to roll 4 1s, so only 6 Guardsmen survived. Ouch. They lost another 2 to the Exalted Sorcerer and Sorcerer's inferno boltgun and plasma pistol, but I rolled a 1 for morale, so they were fine. Phew. A few tanks took a few mortal wounds here and there, but by and large, they largely survived. The Rubric Marines then charged my Stormblade and made it into combat, piling into my Armored Sentinels to get into combat with them too, but the 2nd squad of Rubric Marines failed to make it into my wounded Leman Russ tank. Then they did maybe 2 or so wounds to my Stormblade. Ouch. Meanwhile I didn't do anything at all.

I tried to shoot them at pointblank range, but they made their saves against my heavy bolters. On the other hand, one died to a lascannon shot. Yay! Meanwhile the plasma went to the other Rubric Marines, and despite popping Unwavering Phalanx (I think that's the name), I eventually killed all of them, with my wounded Leman Russ tank (and going back to 4 wounds thanks to Jury Rigged Repairs and the Jury Rigged Stratagem) and second Leman Russ tank in the backline also firing into them. The tank commander fired into the Exalted Sorcerer on disc who moved up to grab an objective, and killed him. On the other side, the other Tank Commander killed the remaining six Tzaangors. This time, the Vindicare Assassin did land a shot, but the Exalted Sorcerer made his save. Well...it is what it is. The Eversor Assassin, on the other hand, wounded the Exalted Sorcerer with his pistol before charging into him and a regular Assassin to kill the Exalted Sorcerer in combat. Yes! The Guardsmen did 2 wounds or so with their lasguns and plasma gun (he rolled a 1 for the armor save against a lasgun, ha ha). The Culexus Assassin didn't do much, I don't think, because he rolled his saves against the spectrum animus or whatever his weapon is called, but his -2 modifier to psychic spells really helped. The WS 6+ of the Stormblade and the Armored Sentinels' Damage 1 chainsaws did nothing to the Rubric Marines, and my Stormblade ate another couple of wounds. Ouch.

For some reason, my opponent decided to teleport his Rubric Marines away, to the front of my Armored Sentinels. He also had his Scarab Occult Terminators deep strike in front of my Tank Commander, while his Leviathan Dreadnought moved up, only to realize that he wasn't within range of my wounded Leman Russ tank. Not to worry, his volkite was, and with 2 mortal wounds and me failing a single save and taking 2 damage straight, the Leman Russ tank blew up and did 3 mortal wounds to my Tank Commander. Ouch. Meanwhile the warpflamer Rubric Marines destroyed one Armored Sentinel and did only 1 wound to a second, which kind of sucked. The Scarab Occult Terminators tried to shoot my Tank Commander, but he made his save against a Hellfyre missile, and then most of his saves against their inferno combibolters and soulreaper cannon - well, wounding on 6s aand 5s meant that they hardly wounded him at all, so he took a total of...one wound. On the other hand, the regular Sorcerer killed my Eversor Assassin, only for him to go into biomeltdown and do 3 mortal wounds to him as revenge. Heh.

My Vindicare Assassin finished off the Sorcerer, finally doing something. Then the Stormblade and surviving Leman Russ tanks and Armored Sentinels killed the Rubric Marines (who popped off Unwavering Phalanx once more) and the Scarab Occult Terminators, as well as putting maybe a couple of wounds on the Leviathan Dreadnought, who had moved forward earlier to claim the objective, as well as get within cyclonic melta range. But not enough to kill him. That meant my opponent had a total of 2 models left on the table...

The Sorcerer failed to do anything because of my Culexus Assassin affecting his psychic spells, but the Leviathan Dreadnought moved forward and killed my Tank Commander in a single blast. Melta. That's all I can say. That was all he could do, unfortunately, for in the next turn, my Stormblade and surviving Leman Russ tanks' firepower obliterated him from existence. Then my Vindicare Assassin sniped the last Sorcerer off the table, his Exitus round dealing 3 wounds, and me rolling a 4 for the Deadshot (or was it Headshot?) and doing a mortal wound. Yes! That's awesome! That meant my opponent was effectively tabled on the top of turn 4. Well...yeah. That was unexpected. Very unexpected. I couldn't believe it either.

Total score: Since I scored 8 for Engage on All Fronts, 35 for primary, and maxed out Abhor the Witch and Assassinate, I had a total of 73 points. My opponent got 15 for primary, 6 for Engage on all Fronts, 7 for Bring it Down (he killed my Vendetta, 2 Leman Russ tanks and an Armored Sentinel) and 0 for Mutate the Landscape for a total of 28 points. That was...quite one-sided, and very unexpected. I think what happened was that my opponent brought an anti-infantry list against my tank-heavy armor list and I was lucky enough to go first, so...yeah. He also didn't have Magnus. If Magnus was in his list, it would be a whole different ball game altogether. Assuming I don't shoot Magnus off the table with my Stormblade and other tanks in the first turn, of course. Also, my opponent made a mistake by teleporting his Rubric Marines away. If he kept them locked in combat with my Stormblade and Armored Sentinels, I wouldn't be able to shoot at them with so much plasma. Oh, well. Lessons learned. Looking forward to playing with my armored Imperial Guard list again! But I need more...stuff. The Assassins really helped out a lot, and I'm tempted to keep them in the list just for the laughs. And firepower. The Vindicare killed both regular Sorcerers and the Eversor Assassin killed an Exalted Sorcerer, so they more than made back their points. The Culexus was also pretty damaging to my opponent's psychic spells. We'll see. Till then!

Krieg Kill Team

 I finally assembled my Krieg Kill Team.

10 guys. The Sergeant has a plasma pistol and power sword, there are 3 gunners with a flamer, plasma gun and meltagun, one guy has a comns device, we hae a medic and a zealot, as well as a sniper. That leaves just 2 normal Veteran Troopers. Cool. I wonder if I can field them in regular 40K...well, I can. I'll just have to pretend the medic and comns guy are regular guardsmen, the flamer is a heavy flamer, and the sniper rifle, meltagun and plasma gun are the 3 special weapons. There you go, Veteran squad. I already have a Vendetta gunship prepped for them. That will be fun, my very own Draconian Veteran squad flying around in their own personalized Vendetta gunship.

Yeah, they are Draconians. I'll be playing them as Draconians. They just took the same uniform and respirators from Krieg because...I don't know, it's not like I can customize or kitbash them until I get Samurai stuff. Unfortunately, Games Workshop has banned third party stuff, so I can't get third party samurai heads, which sort of sucks, but it is what it is. Also wouldn't fit with the trenchcoats or Cadian armor anyway, so I'm not too annoyed with that. We'll see. Besides, the bulk of my Imperial Guard army is composed of tanks, so I don't need that many Guardsmen.

Can't wait to try these guys out in a Kill Team game and see how it goes!

Fun Game

Someone was traveling cross-country and happened to drop by Minnesota for the week, and he was looking for a game. Of course, I'm always up for a Warhammer 40,000 game and I volunteered to play him at Gamezenter. Totally worth the hour trip there.

Anyway, he brought a Space Marines list. Salamanders Successor Chapter, but Inheritors of the Primarch Chapter Tactics, so re-roll a single wound roll. He had this list:

Adeptus Astartes Battalion Detachment (Salamanders Successor Chapter)

Primaris Captain with storm shield

Primaris Chaplain, Master of Sanctity

Primaris Lieutenant in Phobos Armor

3x5 Intercessors

5 Reivers

5 Aggressors

4 Bladeguard Veterans

Invictor Tactical Warsuit

Venerable Dreadnought

Primaris Apocethary

2 Company Veterans

3 Outriders

3 Eradicators

5 Devastators with lascannons

Rhino

Basically, something like that. I brought my usual Imperial Knights and Adeptus Mechanicus list, but replaced my Knight Castellan with a Knight Crusader, and swapped out an Ironstrider Ballistarii and the remaining points for a second squad of Skitarii Rangers and a second Skorpius Dunerider. Didn't want to bring an overly competitive list because this was meant to be a friendly game, but I didn't have any other stuff to bring. Maybe Thousand Sons, but I like Knights more. Anyway, we chose to play Battle Lines, and he got first turn.

Pretty awesome terrain setup, by the way. Kudos to my opponent, I love the way he set up the terrain. Looks very thematic and fun.

Anyway, he got first turn, moved up his Invictor Warsuit. I think he had an ineffectual shooting turn, with his Venerable Dreadnought failing to wound my Knight Crusader. The Invictor Warsuit did about 4 wounds to him, and failed the charge, so...yeah. That kind of sucks.

I proceeded to fly my Archeopters across the table. My shooting was ineffective as well because I rolled lots of 1s and 2s for my cognis lascannons' wound rolls despite hitting them. Ouch. Anyway, my Knight Crusader did most of the heavy lifting, killing the Venerable Dreadnought and Invictor Warsuit. I think I also took out an Intercessor squad, wiped out the Outriders, and did a few wounds to the Aggressors, and killed a single Bladeguard Veteran, but other than that, I didn't do much.

The Aggressors, with the Salamanders' Tactical Doctrine in effect, destroyed one of my Stratoraptors with their flamers while the Eradicators and Devastators nuked my poor Knight Crusader in the second turn. From then on, I was on the back foot. But I was ahead in objectives because my Skorpius Duneriders had moved up to grab both objectives not in my deployment zone. I also took Vital Ground as my secondary, so that gave me extra 2 points per objective though my opponent was able to deny me one when he charged his Bladeguard into my Skorpius Dunerider. The Reivers showed up in my deployment zone to do Ocatrius Data and stayed out of sight from my Onager Dunecrawlers.

His Bladeguard Veterans survived several rounds with my Armiger Warglaive, but my other Armiger Warglaive wiped out the Eradicators. Between the Onager Dunecrawlers, remaining Stratoraptor and second Skorpius Dunerider, I was able to kill 3 Devastators and maybe a couple of Intercessors here and there. I did destroy the Rhino eventually, but I was rolling lots of 1s and 2s for the wound rolls for the cognis lascannons, which was...bad. Ouch.

Eventually, the Aggressors killed my second Stratoraptor with their flamers, still on Tactical Doctrine, while the Lieutenant in Phobos Armor and the Primaris Chaplain charged my Armiger Warglaive and Skitarii. The other Armiger Warglaive ate a lascannon shot from the surviving Devastator, and that's probably about it. Oh, the Reivers charged my Onager Dunecrawlers, locking them in combat. The Lieutenant in Phobos Armor survived everything I threw at him, but I managed to kill the Primaris Chaplain with a lucky meltagun shot (I think?) and eventually took out the Bladeguard Veteran. On the other side of the table, I finally killed one squad of Intercessors and finished off the Devastators. My Armiger Warglaive then charged the Primaris Captain, and because my opponent failed a bunch of saves, he took 9 damage and bit the dust. Ouch.

The Lieutenant in Phobos Armor continued to trade blows with my Skitarii Rangers and Marshal, but the Aggressors had enough. They destroyed one of my Ironstrider Ballistarii, and then wrecked my Skorpius Dunerider in combat. On the other hand, my Armiger Warglaive killed the Primaris Apocethary with a meltagun shot, and then the surviving Ironstrider Ballistarii killed the Company Veterans. I charged the Aggressors and killed like 3 of them, but eventually they destroyed the poor Armiger Warglaive. That was fine, the rest of my army opened up to kill him in my next turn, but prior to that, my second Armiger Warglaive had slain the last Intercessor squad to grab me the objective in my opponent's deployment zone, and also score me points for Vital Ground. Not bad. I actually maxed out on Vital Ground by the end of the game, surprisingly enough.

I was way ahead on points at this point, so I didn't bother counting No Prisoners. I think it finished 77-48 in my favor (and that was me excluding the points I would have gotten from No Prisoners, and I think I forgot to add Engage on All Fronts for my last turn or so - not that it mattered, this was a friendly game and we were playing for fun, so I'm fine with not counting those). Pretty fun game! Closer than we thought it would be, though lots of it was me sending my Stratoraptors kamikaze into his Aggressors so that they wouldn't charge my Skitarii (and hence I scored Primary and Vital Ground because they have Objective Secured, ha ha).

Hope to play more games! We'll see what happens during Crusade on Friday!

Servitor Appreciation GT and Ironhammer

On to the second day of the Servitor Appreciation GT run by Renegade! Today is the last day, and also the day of the final round. After winning 2 games and drawing 1, I knew my luck was going to run out, and it did!

Well...I shouldn't spoil you guys from the get go, ha ha. Not that anyone is reading this, so I doubt it'll make any difference anyway. But yeah, I managed to get a final game in, and this time my opponent was Adepta Sororitas! If I'm not mistaken, he had Argent Shroud and Bloody Rose, and a ton of Characters. Two squads of Retributors, a Rhino, and I think a couple of Sister Repentia squads (9 each). Oh, and a bunch of Penitent Engines. I think he also had 2 Battle Sister squads, a squad of Dominions...and what was that other thing? Celestian Sacresants? The ones with shields. He also had a bunch of Zerriphym (or Seraphim?) in Deep Strike, along with 1 Sister Repentia squad. They were accompaned by a Canoness, a Dogmata, Morvenn Vahl, Celestine and her Geminae twins, and...huh, I think that's about it. Maybe there was another Character in there somewhere, but I didn't see any Hospitaller. Weird. Anyway, that's about it.

It was a pretty brutal game. The Mission was Surround and Destroy. I was very lucky to start first, and I proceeded by having my Stratoraptors fly across the table to get me Engage on All Fronts, and then I wiped out the first squad of Retributors. Unfortunately, my other Stratoraptors and the Ironstrider Ballistarii failed to destroy the Rhino, and the second squad of Retributors remained safe. The Onager Dunecrawlers killed a squad of Battle Sisters and several Sacresants, and...I think that's about it. The shooting was fierce, and I think he destroyed both Stratoraptors with the Retributors and Celestine, had the Dominions do a couple of mortal wounds to my Armiger Warglaive, and destroyed my single Ironstrider Ballistarii. I think the Penitent Engines also advanced forward and destroyed my Skorpius Dunerider. Um...was that it?

I then killed the Retributors with my Knight Castellan, along with the Penitent Engines. The Sisters Repentia then killed my Armiger Warglaive, while the Sisters Repentia rushed forward and charged my Onager Dunecrawler, only for him to make a bunch of invulnerable saves and Feel No Pain. Man, I love Data-hoard Forge World. That was clutch. I then killed the Sisters Repentia in shooting, heh. Also wiped out the Sisters Repentia in combat with my Knight before they swung back on death...ouch. Killed the Dominions and...I think that's about it. The Seraphim then showed up to destroy my Ironstrider Ballistarii, only to fall to my Knight Castellan. Celestine also charged my Onager Dunecrawlers, who survived most of the combat, only to kill the Geminae sisters in shooting to get me points for Assassinate. The Canoness charged and killed the Skitarii Rangers. Ouch.

In the end, I was left with only the Knight Castellan and Skitarii Marshal, while my opponent had all his Characters, a bunch of Battle Sisters and Sacresants all on the other side of the map. He won on points and objectives, and the game ended 90-73. Hey, I can't complain. I did my best, had ton of fun, and had amazing rolls as well as good luck yesterday. I was expecting to lose this game, and I didn't think I would score that many points. That was insane. I did a lot better than I thought. That game with James Kelling really taught me a lot, and I learned what I could do and what I couldn't do with my Knights plus Adeptus Mechanicus list. Thanks to that, I managed to score more on Objectives and do relatively better. Also, the Onager Dunecrawlers work much better than the Skorpius Disintegrators. No surprise there. Also, the Cognis re-rolls were...amazing. They helped me so much, a lot of the missed shots I had, I could re-roll them when within half range...and also in close combat! The Skorpius Dunerider could re-roll all Cognis heavy stubbers in engagemnt range and being assault weapons he hits on full ballistic skill. That was crazy. Maybe I should take more of them, ha ha. 16 Strength 4 shots is nothing to scoff at.

Also, for some reason, nobody attacked my Knight Castellan other than the Dreadknight yesterday. Either they ignore him or hide from him. The Knight Castellan is probably my MVP. He just deletes a unit or two every turn, with the sheer amount of firepower he puts out. Just...wow. Everyone targets everything else I have, like the Ironstrider Ballistarii, the Stratoraptors, etc., but they just leave the Castellan alone. It was...hilarious. The Data-hoard Forge World dogma was also another thing that really saved me. There were at least three times when I made a clutch 6+++ save for my Stratoraptors. Against Grey Knights, White Scars, I think Death Guard, and even against Adeptus Mechanicus (for Ironhammer). The chaff launchers renders overcharged plasma useless, and they make a lot of their 6+++ saves, to the point where it's hilarious. I think the White Scars player was pretty frustrated over how my Stratoraptors refused to die, and I think the Adeptus Mechanicus player was amused by it too, so much so he probably intends to try out a Skitarii mech list in future. Now that will be fun! The Stratoraptors are also the main reason why I can rack up so many points for Engage on All Fronts. Just zoom them across the table and voila! Free Engage on All Fronts points! Yay! That's a Secondary that's easy for me to score!

Speaking of Ironhammer, as my opponent was also participating in the Servitor Appreciation GT, and the turnout wasn't great - only 17 people showed up instead of 60, which meant we only had 4 rounds instead of 5, we had time to play a second game after the Renegade tournament today. The Ironhammer's second mission was Vital Intelligence, and we both went for Data Intercept, which was funny.

I think you guys might be familiar with my opponent's Adeptus Mechanicus list that I lost a couple of times to. It's a Lucius list that looks somewhat like this:

Adeptus Mechanicus Battalion (Lucius):

Skitarii Marshal

2 Tech-priests Manipulus

2x20 Skitarii Rangers

5 Skitarii Rangers

20 Skitarii Vanguard

2x5 Skitarii Vanguard

Skorpius Dunerider

5 Sicarian Infiltrators

10 Sicarian Ruststalkers

10 Pteraxii Sterylizors

2x3 Ironstrider Ballistarii (twin cognis lascannons, of course)

Oh, wow...I think that's about it, surprisingly enough. Anyway, I went first, which was a huge advantage, and I proceeded to...uh, kill 3 Ironstrider Ballitarii, about 8 Ruststalkers, 3 Infiltrators, a few Rangers here and there, reduced the Skorpius Dunerider to 1 wound, and...I think that's about it.

My opponent then destroyed one Stratoraptor (aw...), who promptly blew up, killed the Skorpius Dunerider with 1 wound left with mortal wounds, and did quite a lot of damage to the Sterylizors, the Vanguard squads, the Rangers and I think maybe a Character (Tech-priest Manipulus?). The Skorpius Dunerider also blew up and did even more mortal wounds, though they were mostly just 1 mortal wounds, so it wasn't too bad. Still pretty hilarious, though. The other Stratoraptor just refused to die, no matter how many shots went into him, but I lost one Ironstrider Ballistarii from my opponents' surviving ones, and my Armiger Warglaive fell to the Ruststalkers. Ouch.

The Sterylizors had charged my Skorpius Dunerider and one of my Onager Dunecrawlers, and they got shot to death in close combat (the new vehicle rules are just amazing). Well, a few of them survived, actually. Really...I don't know what to say other than they are awesome. I wiped out the Ironstrider Ballistarii and then I think I reduced one of the Ranger squads to like 5 or so, while killing the Ruststalkers. The second Onager Dunecrawler also killed the Infiltrators by shooting them in engagement range, while the Armiger Warglaive killed a bunch of Vanguard with melta before he charged in to finish off the Sterylizors in close combat. From there on, the game just went downhill for my opponent. Once again, he failed to kill my Stratoraptor. But he did succeed in destroying both of my Ironstrider Ballistarii. With nothing that could threaten my Toughness 7 or 8 vehicles, he wasn't able to do much while my Onager Dunecrawlers and Skorpius Dunerider tore through the surviving Vanguard, leaving like 3 or so, my Armiger Warglaive killed the Rangers and then charged the Skitarii Marshal, taking 3 wounds off him. The Knight Castellan killed a bunch of Skitarii Rangers - the last 20-men blob, and though they had the Lucius Transhuman buff on them, he reduced them to such numbers there were like 5 or less left. They had to teleport out of there with Solar Flare and grab an objective, but my Knight simply walked over and killed them. Meanwhile, the Armiger Warglaive killed the last Ranger squad (5 dudes) and the Skitarii Marshal, while my Onager Dunecrawler killed the Tech-priest Manipulus, while the rest killed the surviving Vanguard. They aren't going to do much, that's for sure. The Knight Castellan proceeded to kill a few more Rangers, leaving like 3, and then he stomped on the Tech-priest Manipulus, killing him. All this while, my Stratoraptor flew around, refusing to die, and contiued to kill a few models here and there. Cognis re-rolls and Machine Spirit Resurgent Stratagem for the win.

At that point, my opponent was all but tabled. Ouch. He might have gotten one objective on the last turn, but it wasn't enough because he needed to hold 2 to score 5 for primary. That was brutal. They would die to my Knight Castellan during turn 5, so we pretty much called it, and yeah. Final score was 89 to 25. I think I got very, very lucky, and while I didn't do much in the first turn, the subsequent turns were brutal for my poor opponent. Also, going first helped. And I mean, really, really helped. The Ironstider Ballistarii failing to damage any of my vehicles before I started taking them off the table probably factored into this. Also...my Stratoraptor was still flying around, being a nuisance, and 6+++ Feel No Pain Data-hoard Forge World dogma is just amazing. Not gonna lie. I'm just shocked at how I made so many clutch rolls and frustrate my opponents to no end with vehicles that refused to die. Well, they all got destroyed eventually, with my Knight Castellan surviving every single game over the last two days, but it makes a difference. It really does.

Seems like I found a working list! Yay! I'll continue to see how I can improve it, but I doubt it needs any changes. I'm wondering if I should swap out the Skitarii Marshal, Skitarii Rangers and Skorpius Dunerider for a Skorpius Disintegrator, but I'm not sure. The Cognis heavy stubbers benefiting from re-rolls are just incredible. Or perhaps I should switch my Armiger Warglaives out for more Skitarii and Skorpius Duneriders, but I don't know. I prefer having the Mechanicus bonus and the Cold Eradication Warlord Trait for my Knight Castellan. They make him so much deadlier.

We'll see. In any case, I'll continue playing around with this list and hope I improve further!

Servitor Appreciation Grand Tournament

 So today I participated in the Servitor Appreciation Grand Tournament that was organized by Renegade. It was just the first day, but it was still pretty fun. Unfortunately, only 17 or so people showed up, with quite a few people having dropped or something. That's...sad. Oh, well. I'm not sure what happened. Maybe it was the Labor Day weekend, or perhaps people went to the Minnesota State Fair. Also, semester has just begin (certainly has for me), so maybe people were busy. Whatever the case, only 17 people participated today. Oh, well.

The first mission was...Overrun. I played against a Grey Knights player with three Dreadnknights (I think?), 2 Strike squads, an Interceptor squad and 2 Terminator squads. There should be an Apocethary in Terminator Armor and Kaldor Draigo and another Apocethary somewhere in there, but I can't remember. In any case, it looked to be a tough matchup for me. Ouch.

I brought my Imperial Knight list with a vehicle-heavy Adeptus Mechanicus detachment, and I took the Data-hoard Forge World with Servo-assisted Auguries, which allows me to re-roll hit rolls for cognis weapons when they are under half their max range. So my list looked something like this:

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

Dominus Knight Castellan, Cold Eradication and Cawl's Wrath

2 Armigers Warglaive with meltagun

Adeptus Mechanicus Patrol Detachment (Data-hoard Forge World, Magna-bonded Alloys, Servo-assisted Auguries)

Skitarii Marshal

Tech-priest Enginseer

5 Skitarii Rangers with omnispex, arc pistol, arc maul and arc rifle

Skorpius Dunerider

2 Onager Dunecrawlers with heavy phosphor blasters and cognis heavy stubbers

2 Archeopter Stratoraptors with chaff launcher

3 Ironstrider Ballistarii (I had to squadron two of them in one unit)

So yeah, that's pretty much my list. It's built around maximizing my points for Engage on All Fronts, and that worked. Anyway, I played against Grey Knights, and after an ineffectual first turn of shooting, I slowly began to chip away at his Strike Squads, Interceptors and eventually Terminators. I had to focus my anti-tank weaponry (the cognis lascannons, melta weapons and the Knight Castellan's stuff) into the Dreadknights, and I eventually killed all of them, though at the cost of losing 1 Armiger Warglaive and a single Archeopter. The Data-hoard Forge World really helped me save my vehicles, and the re-rolls were a big help. The amount of firepower my vehicles put out is no joke, and eventually I succeeded in tabling my opponent, but everything else tabled my poor opponent. I even managed to kill Draigo with my Rangers and Skorpius Dunerider, while the Ironstrider Ballistarii and Knight Castellan wiped out the Terminators. The surviving Warglaive helped a lot too, as did my surviving Archaeopter Stratoraptor. Phew.

So I managed to win that game 92 to 36.

The second mission was Scorched Earth, and this time I was up against a Death Guard player. He had a Daemon Prince of Nurgle, a Malignant Plaguecaster, a Tallyman, 10 Blightlord Terminators, 2x3 Deathshroud Terminators, 3x20 Poxwalkers, 2 Foetid Blight Drones and 2 Plagueburst Crawlers.

This game was quite the slog. With the high Toughness and Disgusting Resilience of the Death Guard, I found it difficult to shoot him. I lost both of my Stratoraptors eventually, but I eventually killed all of his vehicles, including one very stubborn Plagueburst Crawler who refused to die in the very last turn with my Ironstrider Ballistarii. I lost one Ironstrider Ballistarii to that Plagueburst Crawler. Between my Knight Castellan and Oanger Dunecrawlers, I succeeded in killing the Blightlord Terminators, and the Knight Castellan also killed three Deathshroud Terminators. Both Armigers Warglaives died, one to a Daemon Prince and the other to the Blightlord Terminators, I believe. But I wiped out 2 whole squads of Poxwalkers, even though they kept reviving about 7 here and there (I think he revived a total of 15 over 3 uses of the Stratagem). Eventually, I managed to hold more Objectives in the very last turn to squeak out a draw. I thought I lost. I honestly believed I lost...I never thought I stood a chance against Death Guard. As it turned out, I managed to play the mission, grab Objectives and achieved Secondaries, which allowed me to tie with my Death Guard opponent 85-85.

The third mission was Priority Target, and my next opponent was White Scars. I went first this time, and a devastating turn of shooting saw me kill 5 Hellblasters, 2 or 3 Intercessors, 6 Bladeguard Veterans and...I think that's about it. The Terminators came in and tried to kill my Armiger Warglaive, but left him with about 1 or 2 wounds. Then I wiped them out with my Knight Castellan. The Ironstrider Ballistarii fired on the Assault Terminators, and despite having a 4++ invulnerable save, they proceeded to fail 5 of them and...simply died to D3+3 damage, failing most of their Feel No Pain saves despite having an Apocethary nearby. That was...not good. My opponent also failed to kill the Stratoraptors despite shooting them with the surviving squad of Hellblasters and charging them with Vanguard Veterans with jetpacks, and...yeah, that summed up a horrible game for him. Sorry, buddy.

In the end, I basically tabled him, leaving him with just one Infiltrator Sergeant. Whoops. Thankfully, he played to the Objectives, getting Priority Target, Oath of Moment and Bring it Down, eventually bringing down both my Armigers Warglaives and Stratoraptors, but it was too little, too late. My Onager Dunecrawlers, Ironstrider Ballistarii and Knight Castellan were running rampant, almost as if they were at a shooting gallery, shooting off the other Hellblasters, Intercessors, Vanguard Veterans, Chaplain on Bike, Kossaro Khan (or however you spell his name) and the Apocethary one at a time. Ouch.

Eventually, I won the game 96-73. It was a closer game than we thought, but because my opponent played to the Objectives and killed 4 of my vehicles, he managed to rack up a lot of Secondaries. Plus he had a lot of bodies for me to chew through, so it took me a while to almost table him. Still totally worth it, though.

The first day ended with 2 wins and 1 tie for me, and we'll be playing our last game tomorrow. I think I'll probably lose my last game, but I'll do my best and see how it goes! Let's hope for the best and believe in the Omnissiah!

Vortix Prime Campaign

I joined a Crusade League that is being run by someone else this time. I really appreciate it, it's a hard thing to do, and I probably did a horrible job of attempting to run the Argent Campaign. Well, the most important thing is that everyone had fun. Well, I'm going to do my best to learn how other people run campaigns and Crusade Leagues and hopefully figure out how to do it in future. Hopefully I'll be able to improve the way I run campaigns.

Anyway, back to this particular campaign. Apparently we're visiting a world called Vortix Prime (?). It's an Imperial World, half agri-world with a few manufactorums scattered all across the planet. These fall under the jurisdiction of the Adeptus Mechanicus, of course...except that I didn't see any Adeptus Mechancus players today, strangely enough. I would have brought my Adeptus Mechanicus army, except that they didn't have enough Chaos players, so I offered to run Thousand Sons instead. Made sense to me because I always wanted to play Crusade with my Thousand Sons. You should be familiar with Ignatius by now if you've been following this blog. So Ignatius brought his Sapphire Drakes to Vortix Prime to help out one of his brothers.

The idea is that one of the ex-Corvidae Sorcerers in the Thousand Sons saw a vision of the future. Now he belongs to the Cult of Mutation (not Scheming...don't ask me why), and he sets into motion an intricate scheme that would see the Thousand Sons steal a bunch of archeotech from Vortix Prime. Vortix Prime, as I said earlier, has manufactorums under the remit of the Adeptus Mechanicus and agri-fields, but it also possesses relics from the Dark Age of Technology and a bunch of Archeotech. Now this Cult of Mutation Sorcerer has foreseen that Vortix Prime is also a Necron Tomb World, and that the slumbering Xenos would be awakening soon, and he plans to raid whatever relics he can before the Necrons fully awaken and overrun the planet.

To achieve that end, he redirected an Ork Waaagh! to assail the Imperial defenders. As the beleaguered Adepta Sororitas Preceptory fight off the Ork Waaagh!, the Thousand Sons infiltrate the planet to steal whatever relics from the Dark Age of Technology that they can find. Ignatius and his Sapphire Drakes Thrallband - of the Cult of Magic - has decided to help out the Cult of Mutation so that they can grab a share of the relics or archeotech for themselves, and that's where we find ourselves today.

So I played against a Necron player today, yay. It's the first time I've played against Necrons in 9th edition. I still remember the imbalanced games we had at the beginning of 8th edition where my Imperial Knights stomped them...to the point where I felt sorry for my opponent (and I think he sort of lost his temper, whoops). I was hoping they have better rules in their codex.

I think the Adepta Sororitas fought against the Orks and barely won, and my Thousand Sons (Cult of Magic) infiltrated the Necron Tomb to secretly help the Loyalists (my Thousand Sons are closest Loyalists), and probably screw up the Cult of Mutation's plans by destroying whatever Necrons we can so that the Imperium will survive and hold onto the planet. Heh. So Ignatius and his dudes ran into a bunch of recently awakened Necrons and we wrecked havoc in their tomb to slow down their awakening and steal some xenotech for ourselves.

Did we succeed? Well...let's findout.

The Mission was Tip of the Spear or something, an Incursion game from Plague Purge, I believe. My Holy Order was Shadow Operations, which means that if I win a battle where I performed a Shadow Operation agenda, I get extra Warzone Points for my faction/alliance. To achieve this end, I chose a Shadow Operation agenda, Secure Supply Caches, as well as Wrath of Sorcerers agenda.

Here's a quick rundown of my 50 power level Thousand Sons list:

Sorcerer in Terminator Armor, Seeker of Shadows, Arcane Focus

Exalted Sorcerer on Disc

5 Rubric Marines with inferno boltguns

10 Rubric Marines with warpflamers and warpflame pistol

5 Scarab Occult Terminators with soulreaper cannon and hellfyre missile rack

Forgefiend with Hades autocannon

My opponent brought a Necron list that looks something like this:

Overlord

Chronomancer

Technomancer

Royal Warden

10 Warriors with gauss reapers

20 Warriors with gauss flayers

5 Immortals with gauss rifles

9 Canoptek Scarabs

1 Canoptek Spyder

So yeah. My opponent went first, killed like 3 of my warpflamer Rubric Marines, and tried to grab whatever objectives she could. Then I wiped out the 10 Warriors with a combination of psychic powers and shooting from inferno boltguns, but the warpflamers failed to kill many of the 20 Warriors, with whatever I killed coming back with reanimation protocols. Ouch. I maybe killed a couple of Canoptek Scarabs in overwatch, combat and some psychic powers, but they made their invulnerable saves against the Spyder. Phew. The Exalted Sorcerer tried to kill the Chronomancer in close combat, but failed. Oh, well.

In the second turn, the Immortals tried to kill the Exalted Sorcerer, but he survived everything, only to fall to the Royal Warden. The Warriors revived back to full 20 skeletal warriors and shot my Forgefiend, only to deal a measly 4 or so wounds. The Canoptek Scarabs, Spyder and Rubric Marines continued chipping away at each other, with me making most of my invulnerable saves, so another Rubric Marine fell. So did a few Scarabs, so yay.

Then my Scarab Occult Terminators Deep Struck in the opponent's deployment zone, wiped out the Immortals and Overlord with mortal wounds from psychic powers, but their shooting didn't do much, with me only being able to kill like 6 or so, only for them to revive the next turn. And that was with the Forgefiend shooting into them too. Ouch. Oh, well.

The Forgefiend was left with 5 wounds after taking an entropic lance from the Chronomancer, while the shooting from the Warriors killed 2 and wounded 1 Rubric Marine. The Spyder and Scarabs continued trading blows with the Rubric Marines, and while I killed a couple more Scarabs, I lost more Rubric Marines to the Spyder.

Having enough, I had my Terminators move up and throw more psychic spells and shot the Warriors. This time, I managed to kill all but 3, only for them to fail morale and fail their combat attrition tests, rolling a 1 and a 2. So they were wiped out. The Forgefiend then charged and killed the Technomancer, I believe.

The Canoptek Spyder finally killed my Rubric Marines in combat and moved up to charge my surviving squad of Rubric Marines, killing another one of them, leaving just two. The Scarabs survived and stayed on the objective. The Chronomancer then attacked and destroyed my Forgefiend in combat. Ouch.

Then my Scarab Occult Terminators moved up to smite (my Sorcerer in Terminator Armor perils-ing and dealing 1 mortal wound to himself) and kill both the Royal Warden and Chronomancer with psychic spells. I used Malefic Scrolls to deal 3 straight mortal wounds with Smite from the surviving Rubric Marines locked in combat with the Spyder killing it, and then my Scarab Occult Terminators wiped out the Canoptek Scarabs with shooting.

That meant I effectively tabled my opponent on Turn 4, leaving me to complete the Secure Supply Caches Actions on Turn 5 while capturing even more Objectives. Yay. I think the game ended with 20 points for the Necrons and 50 points for Thousand Sons, with me completing 2 Shadow Operations. Phew. That was a close game. I had only 2 Rubric Marines and 6 Terminators (including Ignatius) by the end of the game, with everyone else wiped out. Not bad.

So the Necrons' awakening have been slowed down by the Thousand Sons, and the Cult of Magic grabbed whatever supplies they needed. Nice.

Oh, the Cult of Mutation ended up fighting against Tyranids, and from what I saw, they had a devastating first turn where they wiped out Genestealers, Hormagaunts and more, almost tabling the Tyranids player. I don't know how the rest of the game went, but I believe it would be a Thousand Sons victory unless the Tyranids player was somehow able to swing the game around during his turn. We'll find out, I guess!

Yeah, the Crusade game was fun and I hope to play more games again next Friday! Till then!

Onager Dunecrawlers

Added 2 Onager Dunecrawlers to my Skitarii army (would call it Skitarii Veteran Cohort, but I mainly play them with Imperial Knights, so...). Painted them up just in time for the Servitor Appreciation Tournament on Saturday and Sunday. Phew.

Yay, I guess? Gonna run them with twin heavy phosphor blasters because...dakka. I don't really need the neutron laser because I have 3 Ironstrider Ballistarii and 2 Archaeopter Stratoraptors, so...yeah. We'll see how they do during the weekend.