Blood on the snow

How's that for a title? On April 3rd I played a game with Scott and Skylar, where Skylar and I, being aware of the Emperor's bogus claims of divinity,  teamed up to take on Scott's loathsome Imperial Guard Scions. My Worldeaters would take to the field in what I considered to be something of test run for me, as the last time they saw action they were a support element for a Daemon host. Today, I was daemon-free, but instead allied with Skylar's Traitor Guard. Skylar and I had 1,000 points each to Scott's 2,000 points. 

Due to really not wanting to write another massive battle report, I focused my photos on my own forces. 

My deployment was fairly straight forward. I had a line of Chaos Space Marines along the Aegis Defense line to provide cover, while the smaller unit (on the other side of the Vindicator in the pic below) would jump onto the first objective. The Land Raider (Blood dumpster!) would rumble up ahead and take the Khorne Bereserkers to the closest meat for them to carve. While the Vindicator would try to kill as much stuff as possible. 

Deployment

 I got something (a Warlord Trait I think?) that allowed me to infiltrate a unit of Troops, so I moved the smaller unit that had been joined by the Terminator Lord, to the ruined Land Raider.

Being sneaky

 Below was Scott;s deployment zone, looking down the line from the board edge nearest my side of the board.

Turn One, and I rushed forward as I planned. My shooting was fairly modest, taking some hull points away from a few vehicles, whereas Skylar laid waste to a good chunk of Scott's tanks. Latter in the game we would figure out that we were using Skylar's Master of Ordanance incorrectly making his barrage attack way more effective than it should have been (oops!). But at least that asshole Col Pask was dead (I swear, that guy is ALWAYS on the table when I face guard!).

Then end of Chaos Turn one, my side of the field.

Somehow I managed to overlook and underestimate the firepower of the scions and their damned hot-shot lasers. My warlord was killed along with his 5 man unit when a squad of Scions jumped out of one of those Taurox APCs and blasted them to hell. This also earned Scott a Warlord VP.

The white space between the wrecked LR and the IG is where my Warlord died . 

Also on Scott's turn he had an amusing die roll that resulted in his dice stacking! We had quite a good laugh at that, as it's a pretty uncommon sight in our club.

Stacked on the die roll!

After this I knew I had to get the Khorne Berserkers on to the table as soon as possible or else this just wasn't going to end well at all. Most of Scott's attention thus far was on making Sklyar's 2 Basilisks disappear (which he did!).

The Blood Dumpster kept whittling away at the sentinels, and Bersekers deployed from it. Of course the Berserkers surrounded the Imperial Guardsmen, and amazingly when my 3 plasma pistol wielding Berserkers fired I roll two 1's and a 2! LOL

Attempted plasmacide take one. 

Luckily they made their saves! LOL! The Worldeaters on the bunker roof however had a normal Plasma gun in the squad, and he was successful committing plasmacide, leaving only and angry vapor behind...

Anyway, the Berserkers made incredibly short work of those guardsmen and followed up on the scions, wiping most of the them out as well, but from shooting.

"BLOOD!!!"

On the round following that, they double-charged those funny looking Taurox things (I do like them better in person, even though those little tracks still confound me).

And yes, they wrecked them!

While Skylar was all but tabled, and the hour was getting late, we pressed on for a final round. The sole surviving Scion made his way back to the objective to contest it, however he got greedy and attempted to get a side armor shot on my weakened vindicator, only to roll snake-eyes on his Get's Hot check!

"Ouch!"

Yeah, this post was almost called "Plasmacide!" LOL

It was a good game, which we wobbled back and forth on in the end between figuring out who really won this blood bath. I'm sure it was Scott though. Skyler had a unit holding an objective that broke at the very end of the match, and that pretty much decided it.

Oh, and for the record this game was played without the use of cardboard. :)

"Here, you can have this Land Raider,"

It has been a depressing past 2 weeks. I will spare you the details, as obviously you clicked the link expecting to learn about a Land Raider, not to read my tales of personal woe. To sum up, I was tired. Beaten down, and really just worn out from life. And after completing a 14 hour work day, I decided to make a cameo appearance at the local game store to see what was being played. I really hadn't intended to stick around. And as I'm stumbling about the place, everyone's pal Brian (yes everyone's. If you're a local gamer and you're not at least on civil terms with Brian, the problem is probably you!) spotted me and got my attention.

The following is my inaccurate recall of how the conversation went:

"Hey Joel! Hold on--" he breaks away from whatever he was doing and goes to retrieve something. He comes back "Here, you can have this Land Raider."

Naturally, I was stunned.

"Wow, but I don't have any cash--"

"It's OK, you can have it. It's yours."

"Do you want something in trade?"

"Nah, I got this as a bonus in a trade, it just doesn't fit in with my armies. I run the newer style Land Raiders and Rhino chasis."

Naturally, only a fool wouldn't take such a generous offer. Essentially, Brian was pleased with the Land Raider I built and painted a few months ago for my World Eaters, and deciding it didn't fit his needs, would rather see what I could do with it. He included some khorne bitz as well with this generous, and unexpected gift which I am quite happy and humbled to receive!

So thanks Brian, you ROCK!

This Land Raider has been modified. The original guns are gone, the twin-linked lascannons having been replaced by a strange combination of kit bashed weapons, the origins of which I am uncertain of. So, while pondering this Land Raider, it strikes me as reasonably clean otherwise, and not too terribly damaged. Naturally, I will replace the guns, but which army will get this tank?

This just won't work with my Space Wolves as I run the newer style with them, despite all the anachronistic models in my army.

I could give the Ultra Marines a 2nd one, but that seems like overkill for the way I like to run that army.

My Celestial Lions and Dark Angels, the two armies I have hardly started, I was planning to run the newer style with them as well, and neither one really had a Land Raider in my army design. So back to Chaos. I could paint this as Black Legion (heck, it's halfway painted already if I do! hehe), another Khorne one. or Emperor's Children.

So I shall ponder this in the coming weeks as I rebuild my studio and seek out time for this hobby.

Mk1Land Raider for the Blood God part 3

As promised the other day in part 2, here is the final part of this series. This project was completed in record time (for me) and I'm excited to paint more stuff for my small World Eater force.

I had a slight hitch at this point however, when I accidently super-glued one of the twin-linked lascanons so that it wouldn't swivel, while the other one worked just fine. Well, the modeler in me wasn't having any of that, so I popped both sponsons back off, fixed that glued gun, and while I was at it I filed down the back part of the swiveling mount of the sponson so that the canons will swivel all the way. Now they both swivel out to the same degree.



"Shoot them over there,"

 Here is a close up of the scoured and scratched metal bitz of the tracks and the Destroyer Blades.

 Which I repeated to represent the chips, dents and dings to show the battlescars of war.

 Finally I mounted the rear spikes, dirge caster and smoke launchers. (why are the smokelaunchers on the Chaos kits so much cooler than the loyalist counterparts?)

(Don't ask me how they get in/out of the hatch, they just DO!)

 

And here is the finished model! Ready to start gathering skulls!

 

"BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!"



The next thing to do is to figure out how to work this into an army list, and let the locals lance it to death, but at least it will look good in it's death-throes! But before that happens I will need to figure out how to transport it. Coming up with transport, storage, and protection methods are my least favorite part of this whole hobby, but a necessary one.

MK1 Land Raider for the Blood God! Part 2

I have made a lot of progress on this beast since the last post, so much so that I'm going to break this post into 2 parts.

Here it is from the top:

I spent a lot of time getting the tracks to look as real and weathered as I could. There seems to be quite a lot of construction projects in my area at this time and it has given me a lot of opportunities to observe the big machines in action. Dirty or not, you never see "silver" or "stainless steel" looking metallic bits on these machines, unless it's the hydraulics or a freshly chipped part. I usually weather up my tank's tracks in some way, but compared to this Land Raider, those models look practically showroom finish.



You'll also see in that pic an assortment of bits that were yet to me added. The skulls and severed heads required some specific attention while the spikes that they mount on were painted along with the tracks.

Skulls for the blood god!

The weathering theme continued again on the dozer parts. I am still torn as to whether or not I want to make the shovel part of the dozer blades removable or not. However the spikey part of this particular version of the dozer blades vehicle upgrade will do nicely as a representation of Destroyer Blades.

The other bitz in that pic are the twinlinked lascannons (which have been modified to fit the Leman Russ Battle Tank sprues), Dirge Caster, smoke launchers and more trophy spikes.


Next up is a close up of the rear track section where I am dirtying and muddying up the tracks. Gluing the grit directly to the models seems to be working out well. I am tempted to had another layer of dirt but with finer granules than the grit I have already used. But that might be over-doing it for a detail that only I will care about and which will probably Chip off in time.

And on late Saturday afternoon I had made a lot of progress, adding chips to the hull and tracks. I then worked on the rear spikes, one of which, the Tau head, has been painted as a representative of from Patrick's Tau army that stymied my Chaos army's latest battle and inspired me to do this project.

Smile for the camera!

....and here it is mostly assembled!

Ready to start gathering skulls!

The next post in this series with feature pics of the finished models and showcase some of the final touches.

MK 1 Land Raider for the Blood God! -Part 1

The day after the battle with the Tau that I chronicled last time, I began construction on this beast:

Yeah, that's an original Land Raider! Granted, I modified it due mostly in part to the rough shape it was in, but also because I wanted it to function more like the modern version. With dremel in hand I widened the top round hatch so that I could fit the current Land Raider twin-linked heavy bolters into that spot. On the top hatch behind the round one I put a sheet magnet on the inside that I could be a removable havoc missile launcher in it's place. I then glued the original hatch where the spare track piece went on the original model.



And for those of you who need the quick reference, here's my original Land Raider, in it's fairly well preserved state, and the box that it came in. This should hopefully provide you with a gauge of just how modified this Chaos tank is.

I was not pleased with the joins on the tracks, nor with my attempts to fill them with greenstuff, I decided to grit them up. This will look particularly muddy and rough when I finish this project.

I primed the model using Testers spray enamel paint. Black then brown.
The brown will serve as an under coat for the red and the weathered metals.

It was a beautiful day to spray.

I had the basecoats done by the following Sunday.

Progress shot showing the Scab Red on the brown primer

Here are all the components so far.

 Next, after I was satisfied with the painting of the exposed parts that can be seen through the openings on the side area, I assembled them and the sponsons to the main hull,

 And the pic that started this post (presented here again) is the current state of this Land Raider. Fairly fast for me, but I felt particularly inspired. I mean, this is just such a cool and fun model to work on.

Next up, I need to highlight the red, add the mud and then add all the spikes, grave-yard fencing, chains and other things to hang skulls from.

Edit: Easy link to Ian's Land Raider from the comments. Ian's Land Raider.

Tau about that?

Deploying in cover.

Taking a break from painting a sea of green (more on that in a future post) I found myself scrambling an army together and marched over to HobbyTown-USA in Johnson-City where Da Masta Cheef and I decided to give his girlfriend's newly constructed Tau army a workout. It was my 1st game against the new Tau Codex, so I was expected to be gunned to death. We both took pics and are both writing battle reports  (in fact, he has beaten me to it, the-first-engagement-of-my-gfs-tau-army. (kinda of bold using 'engagement' and 'GF' in the same sentence, but that's the Cheef's fearless tendencies for you).

To make this fun for us, I have intentionally not yet read his battle report, just for the sake of perspective and to make it fun to compare and contrast the two against each other.

1500pts of Ultramarines

 So once again I mustered the ultra-flashback.army but with a few unit adjustments. This time I wanted to use both Legion of the Damned and Sternguard, but I was limited to only 5 Legion of the Damned. The whirlwind ought to make a mockery of the Tau's pathetic attempts to stay at arm's length from me. Muhahaha!

The Tau assemble.

The Tau totally camped out in this building. We suspect it is a brothel...

The Tau deploy the big guns. They never tire apparently, which is why they weren't allowed in the brothel...

"Sarge! Xenos scum have taken the brothel?! They're ruining our shore-leave!"

Once again we had diagonal deployment and once again I rolled Master of Cities for my Warlord trait! This is becoming a trend, but one that I like (so long as I am playing on this board). I tried to position the Whirlwind so it could strike deep into the Tau position but not be so easily picked out by his big guns. The Landraider was packed with Sternguard.

"Concentrate fire on the brothel, we MUST retake it!!!"

 We had 4 objective markers scattered about the board, in the pic above there is a building with black and white tiles to the right of the Land Raider. On the opposite side of it is an objective marker. On this side of it there is a squad of Tactical Marines that will quickly take it.

On the 1st turn, we just moved in a bit, taking objectives and getting our shots lined up. Tau has the first turn, where he attempted blast the Land Raider but failed to do any harm to it. He killed these marines:

The first to go to Ultramarine Valhalla!

The two on the bottom are from the squad that was stacked up in the tall building, the in the middle was in the squad under the squad in the tall building and the guy in the rear was sniped by from the squad that too the closest objective to my line.

On my first turn we killed only 3 Tau, one from a bolter shot and two from the scattering whirlwind.

Turn two would set the stage for who was going to have the toughest uphill climb...




The 1st stealthsuit unit enters the Tau's zone, while Da Cheef premeasures his target...



The 2nd Stealthsuit arrive in the Utlramarine DZ.

 These Stealthsuits changed the game for me, taking away my biggest gun by blowing up the Whirlwind! And getting the First Blood VP!!!

The Sternguard React.

On my turn two, after watching most of my other units getting picked apart by Tau firepower, my reserves arrived. More on that in a sec; check out how the Land Raider Turned around and discharged the Sternguard....

The results of the Sternguard reacting!

 ...it was a thorough and deep cleansing as they mowed the Stealthsuits down!

They arrived, with a boom box blasting 'Maiden's Children of the Damned.

The Legion of the Damned arrived, and they blew apart the Devilfish! On turn 3, they would be completely blown away by the Tau big guns! (Da Cheef hates metal and would have none of that racket in his DZ!) I think I stated that a 3+ invulnerable saves looks good on paper, but I can't roll anything higher than a 2, it doesn't matter anyway. Not seeing how they earned back their worth in points, when I might've had the same result with a lame scout squad! LOL!

The Librarian and his Terminator Squad arrives! "Focus on the brothel men, we must save those ladies!"

My Librarian shows up, focusing on dealing with the concentration of xenos filth that infests this particular zone. They dumped everything they had at the Crisis Battlesuit in the ruins, and managing only to knock out his drone...(Arrrgh! Frustrating dice!!!)
 

Imagine LOTS of tracers, lasers, missiles, bullets, women's undergarments, and obscenities blasting the terminators!

The rain of firepower that was dumped into this Terminator squad could've wiped out an Imperial Guard unit! Some how the Librarian lived, albeit with a single wound, and two terminators.

"Take the brothel! You are expendable, it is NOT!!!"

Notice in the pic above that there is only two terminators now? The other was shredded by the utterly INSANE amount of overwatch fire that this unit endured! It is a miracle that any of them survived. To add insult to injury, the Terminators failed to wipe this squad out on the charge and would be stuck in combat until the top of turn 4.

"HA! We did it!" "Sir, what about the other squad?" "...sigh.."

The Tau army warlord would come around the corner and kill the Librarian, earning the Tau a Slay the Warlord VP, while the remaining terminator would kill the Tau commander's partner and then charge the Tau commander, who in turn kills the terminator with overwatch shooting!

The sole survivor of the squad that started on the burnt out rhino.

 This guy would have his unit gunned down by Stealtsuits and Drones, but manage to dive into the door of the Shrine of the Aquila where he could see the objective on the other side of the door and the Tau squad holding it. He threw a frag grenade, which scattered and killed a Pathfinder...

"Liquidate him.:

 ...not taking that crap, that squad would line up, and gun down the trooper, who never lost sight of the goal while never seeing the odds stacking up so badly against him...

Moving up the street...

 This pic shows the crater, where for about 3 turns of the game I had a unit holding this objective. The big guns of the Tau reduced them to ash. just to the left there is another set of ruins where the surviving Sgt from the squad that was holding the tall building was hiding out, waiting for a last minute grab for this objective, however he was spotted by that gun drone and was killed.

"Sir, they just won't give up that brothel; it must really be the best in the sector!"

The Sternguard had deployed from the Landraider and tore apart the Tau that was on the upper level of the ruins, but they did not break, but instead went down stairs to claim the objective! ( !@#$% BASTARDS!!!!) while their Commander wandered over to see what the big deal was about these Sternguard. He even killed one! My Landraider killed that last Crisis suit, and turned it's attention on the Stealtsuits...

 ...while the machine spirit targeted the unit holding the objective at the Shrine of Aquila. The shots on the Stealthsuits failed to kill anything.

"Ignore him and he'll go away!"

The Sternguard ignored the tasty targets of the Tau Commander and the Stealthsuits and instead fired long range at the Tau holding the objective at the Shrine of the Aquila. Although they killed a good chunk of the unit, they just couldn't kill them all and the Tau simply refused to run away!

"We held this useless ruin for 6 rounds and NOW you tell us that the other place was a brothel?! Damn it!"

 This squad above held the objective for the whole game, taking only a single casualty on turn one. They shot down a lot of drones in this game and made a lot of saves! Well done men, you earned us our 3 VPs! While the Tau took two objectives, plus two secondary objectives to earn 8 VPs total!

So, my thoughts on Tau? They finally live up to their hype as the best guns in the galaxy! OMG -the amount of firepower! Staggering! Especially on the overwatch reactions! This would've been a sick game if I had brought the orks (which I almost did). The markerlights have always annoyed me, but in this game they didn't make too much of a difference. The shoot-around-corners missiles were a surprise but not one that felt I could do anything about. The Tau's use of cover saves was impressive as well. I look forward to seeing more of this army, and I wonder if Da Cheef's gal would let me paint a Crisis suit (simply because I have never painted a Tau model before)?

The sternguard, again, I love this unit and SO wish the Space Wolves had something this awesome!

All in all, a good game, although I kept wondering how the Space Marines earn the background they have when their in game performance would suggest otherwise? A rant for another time...

The cruel tutelage of Screech.

Over on the other table Screech has been showing Jim how to maximize the cheese in his army list while showing him that he can do the same with his. I hear it was a total bloodbath!

Honorable mention to Ben who showed up in the beginning to wow us with his High Elves! I hope to be sacrificing Orcs to him in the near future...

Till next time!