Relictors Devastator Squad IX Complete

I've finally completed the rest of the Devastators, this is the final squad of the Battle Company that I needed to do - although I have numerous other Relictors, this is the final Squad to make 6 x Tactical, 2 x Assault and 2 x Devastator Codex Battle Company. Just need to finish a Command Squad and the transport pool before I declare the Company complete. But don't worry, the growing Relictor force will never be truely complete judging from the huge amount of FW goodies I keep buying...

 This is the 2nd half of the squad with the Corporal. gotta love Plasma Cannons, wildly inaccurate without the Sergeant's Signum, but hey, they kill when they hit!

And from different angles, hope you like. Thanks for reading.

Batrep – ‘Nids vs Grey Knights 1850pts

Here’s a batrep of my latest game between my Nids and GreyLambs GKs. I say batrep – but it’s not really a batrep. It’s more a record of what can only be described as a vicious hate crime against my fluffy cuddly ‘Nids that I would rather forget – but GreyLamb has never annihilated me this badly so I should probably post it up for posterity. And also to remind him how evil his army can be next time I swamp his beloved Paladins with 100 Gants...

I should probably preface this by saying I would never normally use this list, but after what seems to be almost a year of playing Swarmlord/Tervigon/Trygon/Hive Guard combo’s – I wanted to test some different units with the new 6^th Ed rules.

‘Nids

• ·         Hive Tyrant (Armoured Shell, Hive Commander, Lash Whip & Bonesword, T/L Devourer)
• ·         2 x Tyrant Guard (Lash Whips)
• ·         Tyranid Prime (2 x Boneswords, Deathspitter, Regeneration)

• ·         3 x Tyranid Warriors (Lash Whip & Bonesword, Deathspitter)
• ·         3 x Tyranid Warriors (Lash Whip & Bonesword, Deathspitter)
• ·         19 x Hormagaunts
• ·         19 x Termagants (Devourers, Mycetic Spore)
•  
• ·         2 x Zoanthrope (Mycetic Spore with T/L Deathspitter)
• ·         2 x Zoanthrope (Mycetic Spore with T/L Deathspitter)

•  ·         2 x Carnifex (2 x T/L Devourers)

Grey Knights

• ·         Coteaz

 

• ·         3 x Acolytes (Razorback with T/L Assault Cannons & Psybolt Ammo)
• ·         3 x Acolytes (Razorback with T/L Assault Cannons & Psybolt Ammo)
• ·         3 x Acolytes (Razorback with T/L Assault Cannons & Psybolt Ammo)
• ·         3 x Acolytes (Razorback with T/L Assault Cannons & Psybolt Ammo)
• ·         3 x Acolytes (Razorback with T/L Assault Cannons & Psybolt Ammo).
• ·         3 x Acolytes (Razorback with T/L Assault Cannons & Psybolt Ammo)

 

• ·         10 x Paladins (Assorted Force Weapons and Psycannons)

 

• ·         3 x Rifleman Dreadnaughts

 

• ·         Aegis Defense Line (with Quad Autocannon)

The mission was “Big Guns Don’t Tire” with Vanguard Depoyment and 4 mysterious objectives.

Coteaz swapped his psychic powers for “Prescience” and the Hive Tyrant managed to get “Iron Arm” and “Endurance”. A Zoanthrope in each brood swapped their powers – one brood getting “Puppet Master” and “Invisibility” and the other brood getting “Psychic Shriek” and one that gave it Fearless...woot.

Coteaz’s Warlord trait gave him benefits to Reserve rolls (the GKs had no Reserves) and the Tyrant would receive FNP if holding an objective...useful.

Deployment

GK’s rolled for first turn and deployed with the Paladins encircled by the Aegis Defence Line with one objective on my left and all three Rifleman (who are scoring) with an objective in cover on my right flank. Three Razorbacks accompanied each flank.

‘Nids set up in the middle of the deployment area with one objective smack in the middle of the table within my easy reach and the other on my left flank in some cover. The Gants and Zoanthropes in pods went into Reserve. I already knew I had no chance of taking out all that mech, so the plan was to overpower one flank and hope for the best – if I could get to within 18inches, this army had quite a lot of firepower.

‘Nids tried to steal initiative and failed (the first failure of many).

Turn 1

GKs: The Paladin objective turned out to be a Grav Field (?) (the one where charge rolls are halved). The Rifleman objective was something useless to them...like Fearless.

The Chimeras all got into firing positions and everything opened up on the ‘Nids. After the smoke had cleared one Carnifex was dead (First Blood), the other down was to a single wound and more than half the Hormagaunts were bullet ridden.

‘Nids: Endurance went onto the surviving Carnifex and everything pushed forward as much as possible.

The only unit in range was the Carnifex who opened fire on the closest Razorback and easily wrecked it with a multitude of Glancing hits. It then failed its “It Will Not Die” regeneration roll.

Turn 2

GKs: Coteaz cast Prescience on the Paladins (although they didn’t move). The remaining pair of Chimeras and a Rifleman took aim at the Carnifex and took it down with weight of fire. The other Rifleman then targetted the Warrior brood on the right and despite trying to juggle around the wounds onto the T5 Prime and Warriors in cover, the brood was wiped out. The Chimeras on the left flank then decimated the other Warrior brood leaving a single Warrior left on two wounds. More Hormagaunts died to fire from the Quad Autocannon.

‘Nids: Both Zoanthrope and the Gant broods entered from Reserve thanks to the Tyrants “Hive Commander” ability. The Zoanthropes with “Puppt Master” landed on the left of the Paladins (see where this is going???) and the Gants on their right. The other Zoanthropes landed near to the Riflemen.

Despite the Mycetic Spores being more than 12 inches away from Coteaz when they landed, the disembarking units dragged them into range of his stupid rule allowing out-of-sequence firing. The Paladins managed to first wipe out the Zoanthropes and then kill all but 4 of the Gants who then ran off the table (they were out of synapse at this point). Neither unit even had the chance to move...*sob*

The Tyrant cast Endurance on itself. The last three Hormagaunts jumped onto the nearest objective (giving them Shrouding I think) and the last Warrior and Tyrant pushed forward.

 

The Zoanthrope brood tried to Psychic Shriek the Acolytes from the wrecked Razorback and failed their psychic test due to the proximity of the Aegis reinforced Rifleman nearby (the reason I didn’t target them in the first place). The other Zoanthrope was more successful casting its Warp Blast, but it scattered about 11 inches, missing everything.

The Tyrant managed to strip two Hull Points from another nearby Razorback and the last Warrior killed two of three exposed Acolytes.

Turn 3

GKs: All of the Chimeras pushed forwards and opened fire, killing the last Warrior and a Tyrant Guard and putting a wound on another. The Rifleman turned round and blasted the Zoanthropes into oblivion at close range. The Hormagaunts were reduced to a single model.

‘Nids: Endurance went back on the Tyrant. All that was left was the Tyrant brood and a lone Hormagaunt – victory could still be ours!!!

The Hormagaunt charged the sole Acolyte - killing it, and the Tyrant brood charged the Razorback, easily removing its last Hull Point. No wounds were regenerated...

Turn 4

GKs: Chimeras pushed forwards and started taking objectives. The disembarked Acolytes from the recently wrecked Chimera shot the Hormagaunt who was now milling around in the open. Everything that could shoot targeted the Tyrant brood; killing the last Tyrant Guard and taking a wound off big momma.

‘Nids: The Tyrant was all that was left now. Victory was slipping through my fingers like the gloopy remains of my army.

The Tyrant cast Endurance on itself before charging the closest Dreadnaught. GreyLamb was happy to learn that twin-linked weapons still work in Snapshot – not that it actually helped him hit. I stupidly forgot my Hammer of Wrath attack and that I could Smash and was only able to take one Hull Point off the Dread... I did manage to regenerate the lost wound though (back to full strength!).

Turn 5

GKs: Being unable to shoot the Tyrant, the GKs moved into optimum firing positions for next turn. The Paladins left their objectives (after remembering they weren’t scoring without Draigo) and some Acolytes took their place.

I forgot my Smash attack again and the Tyrant/Rifleman combat went on (it’s pretty hard to hurt AV12 with an MC now without Smash...).

‘Nids: Endurance was popped again and there was no way I was killing the Dread this turn and risk being shot to hell in the GK turn so I opted to not Smash and combat continued.

We rolled to see if the game would end – it didn’t.

Turn 6

GKs: More shuffling in anticipation from the GKs. This time I used Smash and obliterated the Dread. It was nice.

‘Nids: Endurance again and the Tyrant legged it towards the nearest Rifleman and Smashed it in combat.

The game goes into Turn 7...

Turn 7

GKs: The Tyrant is now out in the open and in range of a Rifleman, Coteaz, ten Paladins and a few Razorbacks. Can you guess what happened? Lots of 2+ and FNP saves, that’s what! The Tyrant was taken down to 1 wound. GreyLamb was stunned at the amount of firepower a 2+save with FNP can take – I was less surprised having regularly played against Paladins...

‘Nids: Laughing in the face of all the puny firepower and high on life; the Tyrant cast Endurance on itself and charged the last Rifleman nearby. I could have shot it and then charged – but I wanted to see if it could make its twin-linked Overwatch shots under pressure and table me. It couldn’t (but I didn’t kill it in combat either...).

Conclusion

Somehow GK’s *just* managed to win 13/2 to my calculation (3 objectives, Linebreaker, First Blood, two Heavy kills – compared to my two Heavy kills).

Well my list was just to try out some rarely used units and what did I learn? Hive Guard are better than Zoanthropes, Deepstriking against Coteaz sucks and more cover is needed against a list with this much firepower. Oh and a 2+ Tyrant is freeking awesome!

Relictors Devastator Squad IX - First Half

So I haven't been totally idle on this overcast and grey Bank Holiday. I've finished off the first half of my 2nd Devastator Squad. The first were in MKIII Iron Armour (found here). The first two troopers with heavy weapons have been armed with Missile Launchers ahead of the FAQ regarding Flakk Missiles and who has them...  they are also the spare marines from Tactical Squad's III and VI, who now have Multi-Melta armed troops instead. So, waste not, I re-badged their Pauldrons and Knees with Devastator markings, and added an aerial to one of the helmets.

Every member of the Devastator Squad has an aerial helmet to aid the vox chatter from the Sergeant Signum readouts etc.

This is the Sergeant, my favourite of the squad so far, real badass looking I think. It's a replacement aerial and the Black Templar boltgun in a casual pose that does it I think. He is also the only Sergeant I have who doesn't have a back banner, the Signum not leaving much room for a banner, so his squad marking is on the top of the Signum in numerals instead. Operational not decorational.

Battle Report Ultramarines vs Relictors 1250 point battle

Hey!

Me and Siph recently had our first 6th Edition battle, we decided to play on my battle board, with a smallish force to get used to the new rules.

Ultramarines Mech Heavy Force

Tyberos The Red Wake

5 man lightning claws Assault Terminators

10 man Tactical squad, plus Las/Plas Razorback

StormTalon w/ Lascannons

2 Attack Bikes w/ 1x MM, 1x HB 

Dakka Predator

Contemptor - Mortis

Relictors Foot Heavy Force

Pedro Kantor

5 man Terminator Assault squad w/ 3x Claw, 2x SS/TH

8 man Sternguard Squad w/ 1x Combi Melta, 1x Hvy Flamer

5 man Tactical squad

10 man Assault squad

5 man biker squad, plus Attack bike w/ MM

Landspeeder Tornado w/ MM and HF

We were playing the objectives battle- with 5 ob's positioned around the battle field

Turn 1

Relictors turn 1

• terminators and assault squad move forward into striking positions
• random ob's determined- one skyfire, one grav wave generator

Ultramarine turn 1

• force moves forward
• random ob determined- nothing of note
• Contemptor opens fire on the assault squad, killing 4, including the sergeant!
• razorback kills a terminator

 Relictors Turn 2

• Pedro fires an orbital bombardment onto the two tanks, however this scatters on to the tactical squad- killing 3..
• bikers move into position
• assault marines charge into combat- 1 killed in the OW fire
• No winner in assault - poor rolling

 Ultramarines Turn 2

• terminators and tactical combat squad move into position
• random obj determined- skyfire
• contempter and stormtalon fire onto the bikers- killing all
• combat between the attack bikes and assault marines sees a kill each- drawn combat

 RelictorsTurn 3

• terminators charge into combat with UM terminators
• Pedro and Tyberos challenge each other to deadly CC
• Assault marines bested the attack bikes, who can't flee, thus are destroyed

Ultramairnes Turn 3

•  Predator and razorback move into position to fire onto the land speeder, causing 2 hull points of damage, and destroying it
• combat sees another tie between pedro and tyberos
• terminators on both sides are killed, 1 more UM is killed, however the terminators pass the moral check
• Contemptor and talon open fire on the sternguard, killing 3

 Relictors turn 4

• assault marines charge the tactical squad in the ruins, combat is a tie
• pedro kills tyberos in single combat
• Relictors terminators kill a further UM terminator, it is now 2 terminators a side- plus Pedro

 Ultramarines Turn 4

• Contemptor opens fire on the tactical squad holding an objective, killing 3,
• Stormtalon, predator and razorback fire onto the sternguard- killing all but 5
• tactical squad bests the assault marines in CC

• UM terminators are killed in combat, however they do take down another relictor terminator

Relictors Turn 5

• Pedro and sole Terminator move into position to contest objective

Ultramarines Turn 5

• Sternguard are wiped out due to stormtalon and predator fire
• razorback kills pedro with lascannon fire
• tactical squad open fire on the remaining terminator- who dies under bolter fire

The Result
2 objectives to PSJ, 1 to Siph, secondary ob's- PSJ first blood, and Linebreaker, Siph- kill the warlord

A well deserved win for PornStarJedi!! woo!!  I forget how much I love this game,even when having my ass handed to me on an azure plate... Siph ;)

A really good battle, which could have gone either way- Siph had some really bad luck with his dice rolling, which at times was scary- i've never seen so many 1's. And a foot list against this Mech list with flyer was always going to be an uphill struggle - Siph :( but Pornstarjedi fought well.

Terminators are even harder now, especially with power weapons now being AP3. We both forgot that bikes have Jink and Hammer of Wrath. Siph forgot that his Assault Squad have Hammer of Wrath too!

My man of the match has to be the Contemptor- the Kheres assault cannons are nasty- 2 lots of heavy 6, S6 fire w/ Rending... I might have to order a second one... and mines on the painting table as we speak, lol. Siph.

New Terrain Mat to Fight On

I am always on the look out for ideas to improve the games we Weemen have, well, goodbye underlay, green table cloths and duvets, hello customised desert / scrub / wasteland...

These playing surfaces come in at £45ish quid for a 6ft x 4ft Desert, and they have plenty of tailored size, 6x8, 5x7 etc. And in many different styles Semi-Arid, Desert, White Desert, Red Desert (this one), Brown Desert, Coastline (ideal for FoW perhaps), Gunfighter...

Not a perfect match to my bases, that was my bad, however good enough for me, and ideal for Martian landscapes. And a vast improvement on the underlay! Next one is going to be a 6ft x 8ft for Apocalypse games and I'll order the Brown Desert.

The material is hard wearing plastic similar to skip bags or masonary waste bags, with well glued woodchip detailing embedded and painted and also quite thin so you can drape over books for instant hills etc. I plan to mount it on some plywood board to make it more durable and flat. It rolls up into a tube at the moment so needs a couple of minutes with paperweights to straighten out.

If you are in the UK (or elsewhere but postage will be high as it weighs a bit), please check out the manufacturers site, http://www.terrainmat.com/ but note, they are running behind on manufacture so expect 3 months from ordering to delivery (it says 7 weeks but mine took 12). Not exactly speedy, but hey, it came as ordered and is a lot cheaper than a favourite miniature company of ours hard plastic modular version... and a lot less messy to prepare!!

Hope this helps someone out there...

Relictors Space Marine Bike Squad

Hello all, I'm back from overseas and straight back into the hobby! I wasn't totally idle whilst at work away, I did basecoat these bikes and riders but left the details until I was back on terra firma.

These complete the bike squad I had grand designs to finish way back in May 2011 when I did the Sergeant (found here) but circumstances, fickle fate and 'bike' burnout from doing 3 Attack Bikes and 1 Master of the Forge on Bike with Conversion Beamer put these on the side pile of stuff to do. With the subtle change to toughness that 6th has brought, bikes are now T5 for all purposes of instant death etc. rather than T4(5) as they used to, bikes may make a re-emergence on the table tops?...

Besides, where else as a Vanilla Marine player can I have a squad of only three marines T5, Fast and with 2 Special Weapons plus Sergeant load out - normally I need a full squad of ten just to get 1 special weapon, but with these I can have survivable mobile anti-tank / anti-termi MEQ with Melta or Plasma.

Hope you like. Normal mini service will now resume... I'm back from sea for a while. Yay!

Nuns with Guns Test Model

In the (hopefully) near future, Preston will be getting its first LFGS – Worthy Games (who are also a pretty good miniature painting service). Anyone interested can find out more on the Red Steel: Preston FB page.

Everyone is really excited to have a new store open locally and there is already talk of a 40K and WarmaHordes tournament soon after opening. There is also some buzz about getting a Necromunda campaign going (something me and GreyLamb have been talking about wanting get involved in for ages now). I used to love Necromunda when it was first released and played my Orlock Warlocks until they were so hard they could single handedly take on a 2000pts SM army. Well maybe not SMs...but probably Tau or something...

Rather than go out and buy a standard GW gang I thought it would be a great opportunity to make a counts-as gang. Whilst I was looking for ideas, I stumbled across a trailer for the new Hitman game and was inspired by the effective use of lighting on the costumes and fluid combat styles....or something. Lol.

Anyway, I have spent some time sourcing a variety of suitable models that I will be using either as-is, or after making some minor conversions (mainly just adding the correct weapons and changing a few poses) to make my kinky-nuns-with-guns gang. The great thing is that with the right models and weapons, I could pretty much use them as Eschers, Cawdors or even Redemptionists at a push.

Here is a test model I picked up to see how I liked the look of the concept. The model is “Grace the Holy Assassin” from the Chronoscope range by Reaper Miniatures.

My first Forgeworld piece (its a Flyrant!)

I have wanted a Forgeworld piece ever since I first laid my eyes on their site when started collecting again a few years back, but I always end up weighing up the price of one of of their pieces against the ever growing “to buy” list and always opted for the latter (especially because most of the ‘Nid FW pieces can’t really be played in most games).

Just before 6^th Ed dropped I managed to pick this guy up off eBay for about a quarter of the normal FW price (with the new focus on flyers, I bet it would have gone for more now) and according to the seller, the model just needed the head gluing back on, but was otherwise “pro-painted” (I really hate that term) and in perfect condition.

When it finally turned up, it needed a little more attention than the seller let on, unless it got damaged in transit and all of the broken parts mysteriously disappeared from the shipping box....

The central horn on the head was broken, as well as the Tyrants tongue – simple enough jobs to fix (I reshaped the the rear of the head and the tongue and you can’t tell unless you have another model to compare it to). Also the model was in about 20 different parts...

I left it in parts and started stripping the “pro paint job” (which was two colour minimum and looked like it had been applied with a trowel). At this point I thought the model looked nice but didn’t see what all the FW fuss was about – it had no more detail than a regular GW model...and then I stripped off the top layer of paint. And then the next. And the next. And another one...about 5 coats in all until I got to the black undercoat...and I have no idea what had been used to undercoat the thing but it was now a black tar that was so thick and viscous that it could be moved around the model and took impressions of your fingerprints when you touched it – horrible stuff! Dettol and Power Spray wouldn’t touch the stuff, so it took hours of scrubbing with hot water (trying not to warp the FW resin too much) to finally get rid of it all – and there it was...FW detail! And it was niiiice!

The model then went back together nicely and was actually relatively easy to paint – here it is:

Repainted Tyranid Warriors

I’m still going ahead with a repaint of some of my Nids; mainly the ones that look hideous and that I use regularly. 

Due to their fatal T4 flaw, the Tyranid Warriors don’t get played half as much as I would like (why can’t they be T5 2W - seeing as Hive/Tyrant Guard are T6 2W???); there is just too much S8 in decent sized games, but I have recently played them in a couple of smaller 1000pt games and they really can be awesome. 

My favourite build is Deathspitter and Lash Whip/Bonesword – a little expensive at 50pts each, but a brood of 3 can happily turn a squad of 5 Termi’s into mush in combat and you can’t turn your nose up at 15 S5 shots either...so long as you can avoid the incoming S8 shots...and GW doesn’t nerf the Boneswords in the next FAQ (which I am pretty sure they will).

With GW finally releasing the Lash Whip/Bonesword sprues, I thought these guys deserved stripping and re-equiping. This is what one of them looked like originally:

Naaaaasty...

And this is what the brood looks like now – much more pleasing to the eye (at least I think so...):