Menage a T'au

 The stars have aligned, the seals have cracked, the visionaries cry out warnings and omens while only the gods pay attention. Yes, it's again time for  Da Masta Cheef and I to play a game. My first since November of '21st actually. We decided on 850 points for this match up. 

Regular readers (or a more fitting descriptor might be "irregulars") may have followed my exploits in building and painting up my Deathwatch army. And now finally I get to give them a shakedown. Cheef wanted to only play 850 points so I worked up a list. 

The Patrol is lead by my Deathwatch Librarian. Oddly I have names for the Sergeants leading my squads but not for the chaps leading the army. An oversight I must correct soon. He is armed with a Bolter and a Force Sword. He has the relic The Tome of Malcador and has been upgraded to a Chief Librarian. This allows him to know three psi powers in addition to Smite. His three powers are Premorphic Resonance, Fortified With Contempt and Psychic Cleanse. The Tau, eschewing the Psychic Phase altogether, means I will have a phase all to myself that I can exploit against him. Or attempt too anyway...

The rest of the force was gathered up. Featuring two squads of Deathwatch Veterans (Squad Chroneth and Kill Team Neverness), a Deathwatch Terminator squad with three Assault Cannons), a Veteran Bike Squad and a Razorback. It's almost the majority of the Deathwatch models I have painted in the past six months. 

857 points of Deathwatch.

All of this was packed up and ready for transport with the intention of killing Xenos when, surprise, the Adepta Sororitas showed to cut in on the action. So we agreed to a three-way tussle. But first, let's check out the Tau. 

The Tau (or T'au to you young 'uns) are known as the Dal'yth Tau Second Line Auxiliary Cadre. They get the abilities of being part of the Dal'yth Sept. They are led by Sub-Commander 'Firestorm' in a Crisis Battlesuit. He has an array of weapons (Airbursting Fragmentation Projector and a Thermoneutronic Projector; nasty!). 

A Cadre Firebaugh and a Kroot Shaper round out the Tau HQ choices. Two Strike Teams Breacher Team, Kroot Carnivores and Hogziliary Strike Team round out his troops. A Piranha rounds out the army.  They came out to be 847 points, ten point less than the Deathwatch and vastly outnumbering them. Seems like a good challenge for my Deathwatch... also, Cheef's girlfriend's son Frankie was assisting him in his first game ever. He was going to control the two Strike Teams. You can see more details regarding the Tau perspective of this battle on Cheef's site. 

Septicons unite!

...and then the Sisters show up! Mike (formally know as Rt Voril) just got this army, less than two weeks ago, and they are just coming out of the assembly stage, so excuse the lack of paint. Mike is a great painter so I have no doubt that these will look amazing in time. His force is led by the Highlord of Terra herself, Morvenn Vahl. I had to laugh at how over the top she was. I mean, her printed out Battle Scribe entry was two and half pages long!  She was joined by two squads of Battle Sisters, a squad of Paragon Warsuits, and a Retributor Squad. 

Ecclesiarchal transports are rather crude affairs.

We found a simple three-way set up on a Google search and used it to lay out our deployment zones. We chose the Storm Their Lines mission but then we decided to do something a bit silly and pull four twist cards. We got Champion, which augmented one of our Character's Wound and Attacks by 2+, and their Strength and Toughness by 1+ , System Interference which reduced the range of Auras, Indescriminate Projectiles which rained down mortal wounds every round and finally Hatred. 

Deployment.

The Adepta Sororitas went first, then the Tau and finally the Deathwatch. The first turn was mostly a movement game. Sure there were some small fire exchanges, mostly between the Paragon Warsuits and the Kroot. The Tau on my side were fixated on taking out the Razorback which they nearly did. By the time it was my turn, that poor tank was down to just a single Wound. A single one of my bikers was killed, which is actually impressive that only one died from the hail of fire that rained down on it. 

"Bring down that tank!"

With only one Wound remaining the Librarian and Kill Team Neverness bailed out of the Razorback as it's integrity was quickly collapsing under the whittling Tau onslaught. The Kill Team took the Objective in the crater while the Librarian moved to support the nearby bikers. The Deathwatch Veterans with the four Heavy Bolters almost completely deleted a Sister squad and once Morale was rolled for, they were indeed deleted. The bikers charged into the Tau squad. The Librarian was needing to do this also and botched his charge roll. Using a CP reroll he botched it further with a roll of two 1's. He was totally exposed. To my dismay only a few of the Tau died, thanks to Cheef's notorious ability to make Saves and pass Leadership tests. 

End of Turn 1.

At the end of the first Turn the Adepta Sororitas have 1 VPs, Tau have 2 VPs and Deathwatch have 1 VPs. 

Turn Two was a blood bath compared to the previous round. The Hogziliary were wiped out by the approaching Sisters. The Kroot were also targets of these fanatical warrior women, with only one left remaining. 

Nothing can save their bacon.

The Librarian was mowed down as predicted. Being left out in the open due to a failed charge, he just couldn't survive having more than half of the tau army blasting at him. The added Toughness and two Wounds only made his demise take a little longer.  It was a bummer.

But at least the bikers got to kill some more Tau in the close combat phase.

I honestly thought the bikers would've been better than this, but eventually their foes were defeated. Again, Cheef's uncanny ability to roll successful Saves stymied my 28mm ambitions...

The Tau in the tower target the Librarian, ready to remove his final Wounds 

The Terminators arrived on my turn and they mowed down the Tau squad on the hill. Three Assault Cannons in a single squad is.... awesome!

Terminators wipe out a squad of Tau.

By the end of Turn Two, the Adepta Sororitas have 2 VPs, Tau have 4 VPs, and Deathwatch have 2 VPs. 

The single Kroot holds an objective. 

We contemplated stopping here as it was getting late and Mike and I didn't suppose that we could catch up to the Tau's current points. We agreed to play one more turn. 

Turn three. 

Beginning of Turn 3. 

Turn 3 starts off with the Sisters making a bold ploy to take an objective in Tau zone. It works, as the final Paragon Warsuit kills the final Kroot and takes the objective. 

I pushed Mike in declaring a 12 inch charge ("You got nothing to lose and you'll be claiming the objective if you kill them.") And as you can see in the pic below...

Yeah, double 6's.

...the Sisters made the charge! 

There was much slapping and scratching.

Conveniently, he was able to position those models to get some of them close enough to claim that objective. 

On the Tau turn, the Strike Team wiped out the Paragon Warsuit. And the Tau also eliminated the Veteran Bikers. The Tau leader charged the Terminators, but it didn't go his way and he took a lot more damage than he dealt .

The Warsuit charges the DW Termies.

Also of note was the charge of the Kroot Shaper (painted in a fabulous red tone) against Morvenn Vahl. Hilariously, that guy was hidden from Mike's POV for the whole battle as he pretty stayed in the same sitting area at the table for much of the game. So he didn't see it nor did he know that it was even there until it jumped out and charged his leader.. It really didn't end well for that poor Xenos bugger, but the surprise reaction was quite amusing regardless.

"Surprise!" "Was he there the whole time?!"

Not much happened on my turn other than the Deathwatch Terminators killed the Tau leader in the close combat phase. 

Thunder hammers and power fists for the win.

Killed 'em dead! 

Down with the Xenos filth! 

And that was all. The Sister took those two objectives, in addition to holding one in their own Deployment Zone to accrue 5vps in this turn taking their total score to 7vps to the Tau's 5 VPs and the Deathwatch's 3 VPs.  A win for Mike's new Adepta Sororitas army!  Even if we did have more time to play I doubt the Tau of Deathwatch could have caught him in VPs let alone surpass that score.

In hindsight, I had an uphill climb from the get go. There was no cover or LOS blocking terrain in my DZ, so I felt like a sitting duck for most of the game. My army was built around the Librarian being able to dish out buffs to the other Deathwatch units throughout the game but losing him before he got a second turn was a painful event for sure. Another factor was that Deathwatch have an ability (Chapter Tactics) called Deathwatch: Xenos Hunters which allows the Deathwatch to rerolls hit rolls of a 1 in melee, but also allows them to select a Battlefield Role  (i.e. HQ, Troops, Elites, Fast Attack, Flyer, Heavy Support, Fortification, Dedicated Transport and Lord Of War) and throughout the whole battle the Deathwatch can re-roll a wound roll of 1 against that Battlefield Role. Yeah, I totally forgot that. We were amused that my Xenos Hunters were better at killing humans than they were actual xenos...

The Tau were impressive. The Sept ability to always be treated as if they were in light cover from ranged attacks was a very beneficial thing. My Warlord trait could have removed that from at least one unit at a time had I remembered it. Or, had he lived long enough for it to matter. Frankie seemed to relish blowing up the Razorback. It's a shame we weren't playing an older edition of 40k when exploding vehicles were more dramatic, and common, thing to observe. 

And finally the Sisters did very well. They took a lot of punishment but, at the end of the day, they executed the mission parameters whereas the Tau and Deathwatch were more into killing targets than they were objective acquisition. And it cost us. 

It was a fun game, and it's got me thinking about playing more with the Deathwatch and getting a better grip on their rules. 

Games here...

As an aside, there was a huge turn out at Hobbytown that night. And it was noisy! But it was very cool to see everyone and their models. I got to observe a few very hard fought and challenging games, and there was an atmosphere of fun and enjoyment in the game hall. And that is what I missed most over the past two years of lockdown restrictions and social avoidance, and I hope to be back at it again soon.

...and games there!

Sister Of Battle (Art Monday)

 Here is a Sister Of Battle/Adepta Sororitas blasting away with her bolter. This was done after the SOB line was launched at the tail-end of Warhammer 40,000's second edition. I had explored a Sister earlier for a piece that was published in Inquisitor Magazine that was popular at the time, but I really wanted to draw this design. This was my first attempt at it. It's done in a style that I was playing around with back then, and I like how 'clean' my line work is. If I were to do this today I wouldn't have her as 'skinny' as she appears, and I doubt I would have her shooting that massive bolter one-handed as depicted here. This was done in pen & ink. It was going to be included in BMQ, a fanzine that Dr TSG and I were working on back then (don't look for it, it never made it to press).

The Neverness Crusade

Praying for you. To burn for your heresy!

Here is a post that I should have written many years ago. I have been a fan of the Adepta Sororitas since Rogue Trader, when we were presented with just a snippet of info and a glorious pic of Sister Sin snuffing out a traitorous Rainbow Warrior Space Marine. Not a peep was mentioned about this curious faction of the Imperium until Warhammer 40,000 2nd Edition when they were included in the Black Codex and in the Codex: Imperialis. Within it there was some new background but also a small John Blanche rendering. It wasn't much to go on, but it was inspiring. So much so that I used it, and the Sister Sin pic from Rogue Trader, as the inspiration and reference for the illustration that I did which was published in Armorcast's Inquisitor Magazine in the later '90s (the issue number escapes me at this time...#15 or #16?). This preceded the official miniatures and Codex release by quite a lot of months. You can see a snippet of it in the bad scan to the right. The point of all this is that clearly I had an interest in the Adepta Soroitas long before models were available for them, so it would make sense that I played them, yes? 

Oddly, no. 

But I collected them, yes. 

The first Sisters boxed sets.

Back in the late '90s GW US Mail Order used to have preorder and precast options if you just called them and asked the Trolls*. And I did in fact preorder my copy of the Codex: Sister for Battle along with the first Squad box, the Seraphim box and Immolator. I was all geared up to go! I quickly chose the Order of the Bloody Rose as my faction of choice and I was ready to proceed, but, and I don't quite recall why, I just didn't. Maybe I was trying to finish another army first? It wouldn't be the first or last time that I gave into that delusion. I think it was that I always found the metal models to be intimidating in regards to painting them. This pattern would repeat years later when they were expanded in Codex: Witch Hunters and my Crusade was expanded considerably.

Witchhunter boxed sets.

A few years ago I did finally paint a single miniature to use in a game of Dark Heresy, Sister Secunda. but that was it.

Sister Secunda. 

I was tempted many times to sell the army off. Time, interest, too many miniatures to paint, etc. But each time I got serious about it I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I love these miniatures far too much and just couldn't part with them. So I just held onto them and kept them secure.

The original Arco Flagellents.

Now with the release of the army in plastic (cue chorus of FINALLY!) my interest in them is really strong. However instead of cracking open all of the old miniatures, I bought a box of the new plastic Sisters of Battle Squad with some xmas gift money and my intention is to paint them up first. If I am still excited with them and want to play them as a full army, then the crusade will truly be launched and the frenzy shall begin. Time permitting of course.

The Warriors of Redemption set.

I probably will likely continue with my original choice of The Order of the Bloody Rose, but how I do this scheme might be a deviation from the established GW examples. With hope I can get to try some of my ideas out soon....

I drew this after their 2nd edition launch.

 *At some point, they hated to be called that and the title was dropped, much to my disappointment...

Sister Secunda

In search of heretics, it's Sister Secunda ready to purge the unclean!

Greetings my fellow fiends! Say your final prayer, and think your final thoughts: your reckoning is at hand! Behold! Sister Secunda is here to accept your penance and send your soul to receive the Emperor's merciful judgment!

Yes, I do have a decent size Sister of Battle Adepta Sororitas army, and not a single one has yet to be primed let alone painted to the degree you see above. No, this is Sister Secunda, Redbird's character in my Dark Heresy campaign. Not the campaign I'm running currently, but one of the 1st adventure's I ran awhile back. Sister Secunda was quite a lot of fun to adventure with considering the constant war of lies that the vile adept in that game was stringing against her. Seriously, it might make quite a fascinating read and probably one that would be far more enjoyable than some of the crappy Space Marine stories I've seen Black Library anthologize (I must digress to say that yes, a review of one such anthology is coming eventually). Redbird and I have an idea to do a sort of illustrated children's book on her first adventure on Iconathos but from the point of view that exposure to Imperial Propaganda must start at a very young age. However I have been too busy or distracted by other things to ever do anything with it. Keep watching this blog for an eventual update.

Well, today is Redbird's birthday, and in collaboration with the Wild Bink (her husband) I have been painting her model of Secunda, off and on, over the period of a fortnight.

The first base coat of Shadow Gray for the white bits.

 Redbird primed her black some years ago, but never did anything else to the model. I solidified the black, and added some grit to the base before applying any base coats.

 Skipping ahead a bit, we can see the next color layer, a lighter blue in the current citadel range, and dwarf flesh on top of a brown base coat.

 Here we are with lots of a dark silver color added and thinned white to the robes. And some Elf Flesh to the face.

A lighter fleshtone that I have, I think it's by Folkart, that I use to get some very 'fair' and delicate flesh tones with. It works great on elves as well. Gold is added to some of the metal bits.

Here she is, mostly done!

The studs on the robe game me a bit of trouble but I think I pretty much pulled it off.

and at another angle

Next off, to see Redbird's reaction to this unexpected gift and to see if we can ever find her backpack so I can paint it and truly finish this model.

"Time to purge some heretic scum!!!"

I had noticed while typing this blog that there was a purity seal peeking out from behind the bolt pistol. This has been painted finally, however I wasn't able to snap a pic of it, because I had to seal it and give it to her:

"Surprise!!!"

The Bink and I presented it to her, by having her close her eyes and hold out her hand. This was snapped within seconds of her opening her eyes. As you can see, she was thrilled! Which is always a thrill when you paint up something like this and see that it's well received, so I guess next year I'll have to top this...maybe paint up Secunda's rhino?

:)

-N'v'ness

When Sisters make you HOT!

Last Saturday I ventured down to the local Hobbyhole for some gaming action. My new job has kept me in a worn-out state much of the week, and by the time I get home, I am just too tired to deal with little toy soldiers, never mind writing about them! But before I forget the details, I need to record this battle for prosperity. Or something.

Edwin recently challenged me to a game of WH40K but mostly due to the fact that he has simply never played against me, not that there was any prize to earn for going to war with me or anything. Also, he just acquired a shiny "new" Sisters of battle army and wanted to give it a 2nd test run. His previous run can be viewed here. Edwin has a bit of a reputation for being a power gamer, where I tend to just throw lists together based upon some preconceived notion of balance and background. But I decided to toughen things up a bit and play around with a light "Loganwing" force, which I haven't done since 40K transitioned over to 6th edition.

My force consisted of: Logan Grimnar, 2 Wolfguard packs, each with a heavy flamer, a Long Fang pack (see previous posts for close ups), a Lone Wolf (with Fenrisian Wolf), a Vindicator, and a Grey Hunter pack with Rhino APC. The Grey hunters would be joined by Erik Axegrinder who today will count as a Wolf Guard squad leader. Logan and this Wolf Guard will be deploying via drop pod.

Edwin's Sisters of Battle were fully mechanized and kitted up to flame-bake anything that comes near it.

 The game starts with us selecting the mission Big Guns Never Tire, and the diagonal board set up. My Long Fangs started the game holding an objective. Once again my Warlord Trait was Master of Cities and once again I found myself playing on a City Fight board!



Space Wolf Deployment

Sisters of Battle deployment

Loganwing arrives on Turn 1.

 I tried to take the fight to the Sisters by throwing Logan Grimnar and this Wolfguard at them.
They were able to target the weaker armor of the Exorcist and blew it up immediately! I knew if it had the most potential to ruin my day, so made it a target priority. The unit  soaked up a lot of firepower while the drop pod took out about half of the Battle Sister squad that had jumped out of the rhino to counter-attack the Loganwing.


"Quiet girl, they won't be able to spot us!"

On turn two an Immolator rolled up and, true to it's design, torched the Lone Wolf in his cover, but both he and his Wolf survived the gout of flames...

The Lone Wolf''s retaliation was swift and he blew it up with krak grenades, Unfortunately his furry friend failed to survive the explosion. But it did give the First Blood award to the Space Wolves.

Meanwhile Logan and the lads kill the Dominion squad. but lose another of their number due to overwatch. Note that this will become a theme....;)

The Sisters execute the Lone Wolf. Who dies a glorious death.

...Perhaps paint will improve your saves?

Meanwhile in the not-so-glorious death dept., Logan and the last Wolf Guard charge the Sister's Rhino, only to fail their Overwatch saves! Logan was down to his final wound, and well, they died! We both were shocked, Edwin more so than I, as me being me, there are two fundamental laws in effect: 1.) Special Character always die hard if I use them. 2.) Terminators will fail their saves en mass! And usually when I really need them to not fail!

 Meanwhile, the Sisters advance up the flank, and dispatch Eric and his Grey Hunters with a combination of Seraphin strikes and Shooting from a supporting Sister's squad. My Rune Priest took a wound early in the game due to a Perils of the Warp result.

Prior to this next pic, a lot of stuff happened in my deployment zone.
There was a rhino and an immolator over there that both unloaded squads of Sisters that attempted to flame broil the Long Fangs, They killed three of them, however the Long Fangs charged the squad of Sisters and killed them in close combat, running the screeching witches down as they attempted to flee their grizzled assault. The other squad hopped into the Rhino (the Vindicator having blasted the Immolator apart.). And was moving closer to the Vindicator.

The Rune Priest and Wolf Guard kill the Seraphin, except for two which the Rune Priest deals with himself in the following turn.

The Living Saint, having left her Seraphin behind, destroys the Vindicator.




With my army mostly whittled down, the following rounds would prove strangely grueling for us both.

My favorite moment in the game!

 The Living Saint Charges the Long Fangs only to find herself "killed" by an overwatch  shot of super heated multi melta goodness! There she would remain for 2 more of my rounds before rising from the dead.

 The rhino is destroyed and my Rune Priest charges the Sisters, killing them.

On my Turn 7 I had the Rune Priest send living lighting psychic attacks down the field at the Sister's squad holding an objective while the remaining Long Fangs sent Frag missiles into the same squad. They failed to kill off or break the Sisters who clung greedily to their prize!

Finally on the bottom of Turn 7 (7!) the Living Saint comes to her senses, hops over the wall and contests my objective! That bitch!!! Grrr!

For WAY too many rounds, the Sisters had the drop pod circled and was trying to blow it up with krak grenades, but this proved unsuccessful, my final attempt to kill with with the drop pod missiles scattered horribly, allowing the Sisters to claim the objective...


With Big Guns never tire in effect, our Heavy Support choices could score and count toward the VP tally. We figured it was Sister 8 to Space Wolves 3.

Things I learned about the Sisters:

• For a White Dwarf liste that seemed uninspired and drafted just to get the players by, it was surprisingly resilient. The special Faith Saves really saved their bacon far more than it should've!
• Imperial Guard in power armor aren't bad! Especially with Strength 4 bolters!
• Charging flamers is never a good thing! I started to take a lot of flamers in my armies as I find that they are a good counter-attack against assaults and for those relying on cover saves. The Sisters can maximize flamers better than any army in the game!
• Space Wolves are easily distracted by cleavage. Personally, I think the Lone Wolf surrendered and faked his death...

It was a good game, one that the dice gods definitely decided to randomly foil us. Had the game ended at the bottom of turn 5, the results would have been in my favor, but the resulting two rounds were all the Sisters needed to turn things around to their favor.

I enjoyed the game, and found Edwin to be a decent chap to play against.

Wow! Someone painted those trees finally?!

On another table, Murl was tormenting Da Masta Cheef with his daemonic legions! Read the tale brief here.