Ultramarine vs Relictors 2000 point battle

With a returning Siph, and a Jedi back home from another week away, the mighty forces of the Ultramarines and Relictors clashed over the remains of the once majestic capital city, both armies searching the ruins for 5 key objectives scattered around the city. The battle took place around the heart of the capital, the imperial temple, once a proud monument of the glorious Imperium now destroyed and plundered. The temple was located in the centre of the board, just to the south of the temple stood the prominent watch tower, which in the past was used to defend the temple, and two further imperial ruins. To the north of the temple was a large medical facility, however this facility wouldn't be treating the injured and the casualties -it would become the home of more fatalities. Close by this facility there was a small ruin , on one side, and on the opposite side were two tank wrecks from a previous meeting.

The objectives were placed so that 2 were located within each deployment zone, the first within the tank wrecks, and the second in on the watch tower. The remaining three within 'no-mans-land' the third objective was located in the large crater within the temple, a forth in the medical facility and the final objective sat in one of the ruins to the south of the temple

## ... Transmission, mighty Captain Sicarius, Sergeant Daxius here, we have scouted ahead- Relictors have been spotted moving towards the capital city- towards your location, it is felt that interception may be required, ### Confirmed, we will move into position## Captain, be warned, a redeemer has been.... aarrgghhhhh---- ## sergeant!! sergeant!!###

## transmission - Relictor chaplain, the location of the critical objectives are known- proceed to the imperial temple - we believe that within these objectives is information relating to the location of further chaos weapons.. ## confirmed, we will proceed, any defence forces?## positive, we have confirmed sightings of the loyal Ultramarines.. ## will we engage?## ~~~#

The scene was set, so space marine on space marine action, Ultramarines Vs Relictors, with a 2000 point battle. We went for an objective based format battle, with the Ultramarines starting to the west of the temple, and the Relictors to the East. Both armies having new additions to the force - Siph bringing forth his Landraider Redeemer 'Zeus' and Jedi, with a 10man Vanguard squad armed with Jump packs power weapons, relic blade, thunderhammer and storm shields - how would these new units fair? Would the flamestorm cannons unleash death to all power armoured marines and how much death would the 'flying terminators' vanguards inflict?

Deployment,
Both forces deployed tactically, the Relictors positioned both vindicators either side of the temple ruins, and the Redeemer with the a terminator squad and Librarian sat next to the vindicator to the south of the Temple. Tactical squads were deployed across the field, a five man squad hiding within the ruined tanks, and a second combat squad waiting just outside the temple. A scout squad took position in the temple, larking on the balcony. An assault squad of 6 and the jump pack chaplain were positioned by the ruined tanks, and Finally two combat squads in rhinos were positioned either side of the temple- ready to motor towards the objectives. In reserves a drop pod full of a 10 man sternguard squad. The ultramarines were deployed in similar fashion, a scout squad took their place within the watch tower, combat squads were deployed in the ruins in front of the medical facility and just below the watch tower, as well as by the entrance to the temple and on the upper floors of the ruined imperial building. A vindicator was positioned to face towards the medical building, and a predator destructor facing the opposite direction. In reserve was a drop pod full of sternguard, a 5 man terminator assault squad, and then the uber unit of 10 vanguards with jump packs, as well as a captain and a chaplain with jump packs- 7 power weapons, 1 thunderhammer, 5 storm shields and 2 relic blades- potentially over 50 attacks in close combat-
Turn 1

The first turn for the Relictors saw the rhinos move forward towards the objectives on either side of the temple. The assault marines and chaplain fired up the jump packs and moved towards the medical facility, taking position by the doors. The Land Raider also rumbled forward- next from a roar in the sky, signaled the arrival of the Relictors drop pod, landing in between the vindicator and the predator. The shooting phase started with the scouts firing a krak missile into the combat squad on the top floor of the temple on the opposite side, taking down one marine, then the following bolter shots took out a second- unfortunately the squad broke and ran. The Relictors vindicator fired at the opposing Vindicator, scoring a hit, and shaking the crew. The missile launchers within the combat squads took aim at the tanks visible - each scoring hits, the first stunning the predator, the second failing to penetrate the armour of the vindicator. The newly arrived sternguard, now split into combat squads took aim at the combat squad waiting by the doors to the temple- taking aim and unleashing 10 vengeance rounds into the squad, the shooting took one marine out, however two were lost to overheating! (Siph's dice rolls returned to normal service- 1's and 2's!!)

In return the Ultramarines started with a DP of their own, with 10 sternguards ready to join the fray, landing just behind the assault marines and chaplain. the combat squads on either flank moved forward into positions to view the objectives. The vindicator moved forward slightly into a position to view the rhino by the medical lab- ready to shot next turn.. The combat squad by the ruins in front of the medical facility moved forward towards the objective. The shooting phase saw the sternguard taking out 2 assault marines, and wounding the chaplain. The combat squad by the temple doors, turned a fired the flamer into the Relictors sternguard prior to charging into them for some close combat, taking 2 marines down in flames! The squad then charged into combat, 3 marines on 3, however the UM lost the combat, failed their morale test and were wiped out by the Relictors! (oops!!, Jedi)
Turn 2

Turn 2 saw the Relictors taking a hold of the battle, with redeemer moving forward to allow the terminator squad to disembark and be in a position to charge the predator. The rhinos moved further forward towards the objectives, and the combat squads in each disembarked towards the respective objectives, each using the rhinos for cover. A combat squad of sternguards ran towards the scouts in the tower, and the assault marines and chaplain fired up their jump packs and moved away from the sternguard that had just arrived via dp, and into a position to potentially charge the UM combat squad moving towards the medical objective. Finally in the center the combat squad standing by the doors to the temple rushed through the claim the objective in the middle. the shooting phase saw the scouts taking aim at the same combat squad that they had fired upon before, and killed another member of the squad, with the redeemers assault cannons taking down the survivors. The vindicators opened fire to, the first missed its target, however the second hit, killing five of the sternguard in a massive fireball of death!
The sternguard and terminators charged into combat with the vindicator and the predator respectfully. The sternguard failed to penetrate the tank, however the tank was stunned again, and the terminators destroyed the predator in an vicious explosion caused by thunderhammers connecting with armour.
In response the UM's terminators in reserve arrived, on their table edge, moved straight away towards the sternguard moving towards the tower, the sternguards moved away from the dp, to allow them a sight of the assault marines, the tactical squad below the scouts moved slightly forward, allowing them a slight look at the tactical Relictors by the objective. The shooting phase saw the sternguards open up against the assault squad- killing another 2. The assault terminators then charged into the 3 sternguards, wiping the squad out, for the lost of one of their number.

Turn 3

The Relictors had a form grip on the battle at this point, turn three saw the Relictors consolidate their position, firstly the terminators moved from the predator wreck towards and through the temple doors, towards the central objective, also the vindicator to the south of the temple moved towards the table edge to get a better view of the sternguard situation to the north of the temple. The redeemer moved backwards also, however the assault cannons were aimed solely at the 4 man terminator squad. Other movement saw the scouts move from their position to the front of the temple on the Relictors table edge. Both tactical squads took firm positions around the objects. During the shooting phase, Siph had more luck with taking out an entire combat squad moving towards the medical facility with the combined effort of bolter, missile launcher from the combat squad, storm bolter from the rhino and the vindicator, (leaving 2 squads of troops left on the UM front) next the redeemer opened fire and killed a terminator- the terminators rolled and failed there morale test, and duly ran off the board! things were looking bad for the UM's now! to compound that the UM's were in a bad situation the sternguard destroyed the vindicator with some well placed krak grenades! The assault marines and chaplain charged into combat with the sternguards and killed another member of the squad too.
Turn 3 for the UM's saw the arrival of the uber unit comprising of a 10 man vanguard unit, attached with a captain and chaplain. The unit arrived on the Relictors table edge and straight away separated into 3 separate units- the vanguard driving in towards the scouts, the captain charged towards the tactical squad behind the land raider, and the chaplain towards the assault marines and the opposing chaplain. There was little other movement on the UM front due to lack of numbers! the only movement were the tactical combat squad moving from cover from beneath the watch tower to oppose the tactical squad by the objective, in a deadly standoff. The shooting phase saw little in the way of shooting, the marines at the foot of the watch tower fired at the Relictors, taking down one marine. The assault phase saw all the action taking place, the captain dived into the tactical squad, killing all five marines with his relic blade, likewise the combined effort of the chaplain and sternguard finished of the assault squad leaving just two chaplains alive, locked in combat. The vanguard charged into the scouts, over 35 dice were rolled just for the vanguards, with a mix of chain and power weapons, plus a thunderhammer and relic blade. the poor scouts died, with no defence. the vanguard consolidate to spread out, as Siph had pointed out that the squad was standing between two vindicators - both within range.
Turn 4

Turn 4, started with the terminators moving towards the Redeemer and embarking, the landraider then moved towards the Vanguard lurking behind the doors to the temple, in a move to prevent them from charging into the tactical squad holding the objective. The tactical squad holding the objective moved to face the opposing space marines, and the rhino moved in to a position to be able to blast them with its storm bolter. The redeemer started the shooting phase by shooting through the door at the vanguards, thankfully the storm shields of the vanguard prevented any harm, then the dice gods looked kindly at the UM's, as both vindicator shots missed the vanguards completely from point blank range! (an opening for the UM's??) The tactical squad fired across at the UM tactical marines, taking a sole kill for their effort. The combat phase saw the terminators assaulting out of the land raider and into the vanguard, could the vanguard hold fast? the combat saw bucket loads of dice rolling, and as the dust settled, the UM's had more marines standing- the terminators failed their morale check and fled towards the table edge, leaving the tactical marines in the center open to attack. The chaplain of the UM bested the Relictors chaplain, killing him with a mighty blow from his power weapon.

The UM turn 4, potentially the final turn, the vanguard swooped into the tactical squad holding the central objective, likewise the chaplain and captain reunited and charged into the medical facility into the marines holding the objective. There was shooting the north of the temple as the tactical squad destroyed the rhino with a multi melta shot, then the key moments of the battle, could the combine effort of the chaplain, captain and vanguard kill the two tactical squads holding the objectives? firstly the vanguard piled in, killing the tactical squad with power weapon ease, the captain and chaplain similarly made light work of the tactical squad in the medical facility, leaving only one marine standing.


The conclusion of turn 4 saw a roll off, to see whether the game finished- a 5, thus the game was over, a thrilling draw! The UM Scouts holding the tower obj, the Relictor combat sqd holding the southern ruins.

WIP Relictors Assault Squad II pt2

Well, progress with the Weemen has been real slow recently, however not without progress. Here is the sum total of the 2nd Assault Sqd to date. They were started off ages ago here however I will finish them eventually.

I prefer these guys dark and moody appearance to the first Sqd here. But I guess both have their merits, but these look meaner - black vents, weapons and heavy metal skulls! I'm away at the moment so i'll post more once back and settled - hopefully Pornstarjedi is still plodding along with his entire Ultramarines Battle Company repaint, or he's bought some new shiney toys...

Ultramarine Dreadnoughts WIP

Hi All!

Just a quick update on my (almost) finished dreadnoughts. I've had these guys waiting for some TLC for a while. There are 6 finished dreadnoughts (2 still to be finished)
The first is a FW chaplain dreadnought, armed with a Multi-Melta, power fist combo. I opted for a plastic Power Fist with a flamer. I prefer the larger plastic power fist to the FW one, I really like the positioning of the model, with the gun lowered-as if he is surveying for the next target. The power fist gives a sense of size and power to the model. The model did suffer a major hit during construction, with the iron halo breaking due to a fall, thus the plan is to use the iron halo off a new venerable dreadnought.The second and third dreadnoughts are box standard plastic ones, one is the dread for assault on black reach box set, the third a heavily armed plastic dreadnought.
The fourth is the original furiso dreadnought. I loved this model when it was released, thus had to have one. I class this dread as an Ironclad armed with two close combat weapons.
The fifth is another Ironclad dreadnought. This dread has a special place in my collect due in part to the annihilation of Siph's warhound at the start of the year. I've Incorporated two 'titan markings from the reaver kit, one a purity seal with a titan legion T motif, and a honour mark. I have built this dread with interchangeable arms, thus all four weapon options are available.The sixth dread is a new venerable dreadnought. Again, all weapon options have been constructed to allow the weapons to be swapped due to the tactical situation.I've also finished a couple of tanks- I'll post these up over the weekend!

Titan Banner for Reaver Honorum - Legio Astorum

Finally got round to fixing the Banner I had Ron from FtW produce for me. It was discussed at length for Inner Geek's Titan Lucius, follow the link here . I liked this so much, I commissioned Ron to do one for me too.

In the design he has incorporated the Name, obviously, but also my Initials and the Number 10. This was the Forgeworld Reaver Number 10, I ordered him on the day they were released for sale. Coincidentally, the Warhound Canis Bellum is also FW Number 10 (weird). The rear image is to tie in with my Relictors, who use a lot of skulls and their Chapter Badge is a skull, again Ron has used the numeral 10.

Creating a Unified Theme - FtW Collaborative Post

Ron at FtW posed the question 'How do you create a unified theme for your army outside of using army composition?

My Relictor's are a cohesive looking bunch through 2 things (maybe 3). They follow the vanilla codex, so no gizmos there like Deathwing or Ravenwing, but the things making them look the part are:-

1. Painted Minis. They are all coloured similar with dashes of an accent colour to tie them in. Look at the following mini's. They are clearly all Relictors, but notice the slight accent bone colour on all three's weapons to tie them in, as well as the obvious Chapter Markings.

2. Based. They are all based and weathered the same. The basing article i wrote at the beginning of this blog is still the recipe i use today giving a consistent theme throughout. Here are some earlier mini's and the latest - different paint techniques and standards but bases the same.And vehicles, same Calthan Brown coloured stipple as the bases. And, often overlooked is the edging on the bases, mine echoes the actual earth colour but the whole army has the same edging.

3. I've just thought of a third theme... mine have Wargear or slight conversions throughout to unify - mine signify the dubious links with Relictors using Chaos for fighting Chaos, hence you will see Chaos bits throughout, spikes on Dred, Chaos Smoke Launchers and Chain Links on Tanks, Fallen Backpacks on Sternguard, ample skulls and whotnot...

Ultramarine WIP Vanguard Veterans and Land Raider Terminus

Hi one and all!!

Finally I've got my camera talking to my computer, so I can share some of my recent WIP's..

Firstly I've got my converted Vanguard Veterans. These bad boys are tooled up to the max for some hardcore close combat. After reviewing the rules, and wargear available I decided to go for an extra uber unit, designed to go either go after characters or elite units. After seeing how potent Assault Terminators armed with a combination of power weapons and thunder hammer/storm shields, I decided to combine both of these into one unit, thus a combat squad (to be increased to 10) of Vanguards armed with power weapons and storm shields with jump packs. Thus an extremely hard hitting unit, with a very high survivability factor- Add on top the great rules for deep striking and assaulting on the same turn, this unit becomes quiet a scary unit!
For these guys I decided to use the forgeworld Red Scorpions Assault troops for the bodies, as the torsos have more parifiala on them, in keeping with the 'veteran' look. I also went for the bear head look, for some reason I associate bear heads with veteranness (Is that a word??!) Thus I selected five heads, two from the command sprue- one with a bionic eye, the other with respirator, one from the tactical sprue with half a metal head, and the final two from the Space Wolves sprue. My favour head has to be the Space Wolve head with the long beard/bionic eye, this guy reminds me of my favour character from Flash Gordon, Prince Vultan the Hawkman- played by Brain Blessed. To make the squad stand out further I didn't clip the legs completely of the sprue on one foot, thus making the models appear to be in flight/landing. Power Weapons are taken from a number of sources, the bionic arm from the commander sprue is used, with a Power Sword from the Dark Angels sprue, a Power Axe from both the Assault sprue and Black Templar's sprue are both used. The Sergeants Thunder hammer is taken from the deamonhunter Corteaz. The Storm Shields are second gen terminators Shields, these are slightly smaller than the new Terminator shields, All marines have been given the shoulder pads with terminator honours, and the 'U' symbols bought from GW direct. I hope you like!

My second major project is my Land Raider Terminus Ultra- 'Invictus'. The original Terminus looks great, and fits perfectly within a Space Marine force, however I- along with many aren't keen on the way the sponsons sit. The major problem is that the GodHammer Lascannons can not point directly forward due to the signal sponson Lascannon. I had seen the image that Siph had uploaded of the Terminus with a triple barrelled GodHammer- I love the look, however I wanted some thing different. I toyed with various options until I found the answer in my draws- I had gone into the draw to find another model, and discovered starring straight back at me a landraider with an Mk 2 predator turret sat on top of the chassis! I quickly grabbed two predator annihilator turrets and the landy-and wow! the look I wanted for my Terminus!
The raised portion of the chassis was sanded down to one level, and then raised using 3 top hull doors off a couple of rhinos. These parts were either sliced in to thin strips, or had the connecting teeth cut off. All parts were sanded down once finished. Two predator turrets were also sliced down, with the vent part cut away. It was then a case of trail and error to find the perfect spot for the turrets to sit. Once the position was finalised I then added the doors from the interior of the Land Raider to just sit in between the turrets, thus covering up the sanded away details of the original chassis. The next area of interest was the sponsons- whether to have the annihilator turret and single lascannon sponson, or the GodHammer sponson, and a converted turret.. In my eyes there was only winner- the Land Raider without the famous GodHammer sponsons would be a sacrilege! Thus the Autocannon predator turret was chopped up and the cannon replaced with a lascannon. I really like the look of the single lascannon, as the weapon mount has a sensor inbuilt- perfect for the machine spirt! The other part to note is Chronos, whats better than 5 lascannons, 3 twin linked? easy-5 lascannons, 3 twin linked at BS5!!
Like the Vanguards, the Land Raider needs to be completed, with a view to be completed this weekend!

Relictors Landraider Redeemer 'Zeus'

Meet the latest addition to the ever expanding Relictors Battle Company. 'Zeus' the Landraider Redeemer. This will give me some well earned firepower against the bad dice rolls I usually have. Since I play Pornstarjedi's Ultramarines mostly, the Strength 6, AP3, Template weapon the Flamestorm cannons give is a must for up close and personal death to the loyal lapdogs. Of course he know's that too so the plan is still to build another two Landraiders, a Crusader for the immense transport capacity, and a Godhammer 'normal' Landraider - because I can.

I've painted the inside of this one, however on completion, the doors are fiddly and don't operate correctly, so I reckon the next two will not get painted inside - see previous post - but at least I know it's done.

All the Gemstones, lenses and scopes have been 'Ard Coated to simulate glass and the Multi-Melta was mounted on a carved up HK missile I wasn't using. I thought the spindle on the turret mounted MM was too flimsy and I didn't want anyone poking out the hatches on my first Landraider. Maybe the next. With the Machine Spirit, a MM is a must I reckon - well, that or the Assault Cannons... depends how many marines survive the Flamestorm...The real Zeus can be found here in the previous WIP post.I used the Forgeworld Red Scorpion doors for this Landraider Redeemer with a skull to match some of my Rhino's doors taken from the bright green wound markers in AOBR, I have a set of Terminator Honour FW doors for the Crusader and finally I might do a bog standard set of doors on the third. Oh.. there is always a Terminus for Apoc...

Hope you like, bigger pics in the Finished Relictors Web Album in the right hand bar>>>