Death Castle (Part 8)

The Death Castle saga continues...

PART 8

Originally posted on Warhammer-Empire 8/20/2008

Progress is slowly being made. My attempt to find the fortress door sprues ended in futility so I’ve taken the Mordheim doorframes and glued slats of balsa wood to the backside to create a door effect. I’ve not figured out how to make door handles yet but I have some ideas I want to try out. There will be three of these for the tower. One at the base, one for the wall level, and one for the balcony.

Tower is capped.

The balcony itself was fairly easy to construct. I’m currently working out how to mount it into the wall, but I’m pretty sure I have an idea that will work. The hand rail for it will take some time to build but it should look nice in the end.

The woody bits.

I’ve capped the tower roof with a sheet of molded plastic card with rock embossing. I cut out a square in the center that will represent the hatch opening. This is done, although not shown, in the picture. Currently I’m at the point where I will work next on the tower battlements and crenulations.  

Death by Flashbang

Straight to Hell. 

Hello, and welcome to another Kill Team battle report. This one is very much different from the other Kill Team reports as it involves 5 players controlling 4 different factions. This would be my first multiplayer Kill Team game, and my second fielding the Celestial Lions. The Bob chose to use his Death Watch, Screech would field his Imperial Guard Vets, and Jim & Chyanne would each play a small Blood Angels Death Company squad.

With 4 preset boards to chose from we decided to once again give the fractured ground with the molten lava fissures another go. Oddly enough it was still set-up from the last game, (supply-drop) that The Bob and I played together, and we decided to leave it just like that. Since we are only playing on just a 4'X4' section of the board, it was decided that Screech's Imperial Guard models should be placed in one of the "off board" fire pits as casualties accrue mostly so that we could all keep up with who he had in reserve and who was dead. We were all carrying on and having a lot of fun, and since Screech's IG are notorious bastards, someone stated that when they die "They skip St. Peter and go straight to Hell!". We were all in agreement with this notion.

Alone in the Dark was the mission we selected, but with the 4-way rules in effect. Three objectives were placed in a line in the center of the table to hopefully encourage more cross-fighting between the four factions. (Yeah, we'll see how well that idea will worked out.) Anyway, this mission has the Nightfighting rule in effect for the whole game. In addition to that we had to roll off to see who in our respective Kill Teams would end up in Reserves.

Celestial Lions Deployment. 

Only six of my Lions would start on the table. I divided them into 2 groups, hoping for solid strike at my foes and still be able to make a mad dash at the objectives.

BA Death Co. Deployment. 

The entire Death Watch deployment. 

The field of battle, everyone deployed. 

This game had a lot of chaotic, hilarious, and crazy events taking place. Therefore the following will mostly be highlights with a few comments. The turn order was Imperial Guard, Celestial Lions, Blood Angel Death Company and Death Watch.

Turn 1, not a lot happened really, mostly missed opportunities, missed shots and movement strategies. Accept for Bob's Death Watch who picked off one of my Lions (the gravgun guy) and earned a Secondary VP for First Blood.

 Turn 2, Screech brought in the majority of his reserves and placed them in a line in my zone and behind my KT Leader and another marine. My guys lived through the flashlight hits however.

Flashlight ambush! 

He also took shots at the ravening Death Co. marines storming down the trenchline at him.

"They are coming right at us, and they look pissed!!!"

Celestial Lions Turn 2, again a folly of dice rolling ment either they didn't hit or brought clips full of dud bullets. It made sense to charge the nearest Guardsmen only to botch that as well, and the Sgt found himself locked in combat with the steadfast and determined trooper.

It was a better plan in his head.

The Celestial Lions reserves came in on the Death Watch side, attempting an ambush, and that plan flopped also. I think at that point I switched out dice. I was very frustrated with my dice at that point.

"I thought you said these guys were undefended?!"

The Death Company performed more maneuvers, seemly obsessed with getting closer to the Imperial Guard. The Death Watch retaliated against the Celestial Lions, sending two of them after my leader. It seemed as if my deployment zone was becoming a battle royal pit. They killed a lot of Guardsmen, which actually pleased me.

"Oh, this looks fun!"

The Deathwatch, being Inquisition agents afterall, purged my two Celestial Lions in his zone.

The Lions have been eliminated.

Turn 3, and IG kill a few Death Company marines despite their Feel No Pain attempts.

The shooting gallery.

Some of these following turns get a bit fuzzy, so I will go into Highlight Mode (TM):

For example, someone killed the DW shotgun guy (I think I shot him in the back but I don't recall if I killed him? Or if that was the guy Screech Flashbanged?)

(Not sure what happened in this pic)

The Celestial Lions Missile Launcher with Sharpshooter arrived,  and with an amzing snapshot killed one of the Death Watch guys, and it was apparently their KT Leader! This earned the Lions the first Kill The Leader Secondary Objective of the game.

Snapshot of doom. 

Eventually the Celestial Lions Leader killed his Guardsmen foe.

"These grunts are tough!"

The Blood Angel Death Company tangled more with the guard. More of the Death Watch Reserves arrived, killing a guardsmen in their zone.

"Get off my bunker!" *WHOOSH!*

On Turn 4 the Death Watch returned the favor and snuffed out my KT Leader.

"Eye for and eye!"

The Death Company continued their assault on the bastion controlled by the Death Company. They used their jump packs to assault the troops on the roof. Tbey killed one of the guardsmen up there but one guy refused to be killed and hold out for a few Close Combat phases.

Attacking the roof.

The Celestial Lions continued the assault on the IG held trenchline. One of the Lions was overhelmed by them and eliminated. The heavy flamer guy at the end of the trenchline was proving to be very resilient, and survived a lot of bolter rounds that were sprayed his way. Same goes for the three marines in the pic below who were also dodging las blasts. I wanted to kill the Sgt that was in this trenchline as I really wanted my revenge against his from the last time I encountered him. He, and his small cluster of men, are holding and objective in the trenchline and I was focused on getting it. The Celestial Lion on the crater is holding an objective also.

Trench warfare.

Meanwhile the Death Company continued their assault on the rooftop guardsman, only to continue to be held back by the bayonet weilding fiend.

"How is he surviving this?!"

Also out of no where, a Death Company marine in the control of Chyanne, charged the Celestial Lion holding the objective and a fierce hand melee would begin with neither warrior defeating his foe.

"The objective is mine!" "No, mine!"

Typical of the treachery that Screech is renowned for, and not having any of his troops in the fight, his Guardsman weilding the Heavy Flamer immolated the Death Company and Lion marine who were locked in combat with each other. But they cared not, and continued to clash amongst the flames!

A literal fire fight.

It was looking like it would be the last round of the game so I decided to have the Missile Launcher Marine make a dash for the objective on that side of the table. He reached it and held it while dodging bullets from the Death Watch and Death Company marines.

Taking the objective! 

In the trenchline I was happy to kill that Sgt only to discover that he was not the IG KT Leader afterall. That guy was snuffed by the Death Watch in a previous round and somehow I had not realized it! Still killing traiter guard is always fun no matter their individual relevance. Sadly one of my Celestial Lions would fall. Bring my Kill Team to it's break point and earning the IG a Secondary Objective. But at least I now had a marine on all three objectives!

Trench warfare continues.

Ultimately the guardsmen on the bastion top would be overwhelmed and slaughtered by the blood lusting Khorne worshippers in denial.  One of Chyanne's Death Company would start an assault on one of the guardman at the bastion's base that had been attacking her for most of the game. I do not recall the outcome of this clash however...

Seizing the bastion.

That was the last in-game pic I took. I am sure there was stuff I missed (or got wrong) but without a pic it's difficult to recall exactly what those events were. With a cast of the die, the game was ended at that point. The Celestial Lions held one Objective and contested the other two.

Victory Points tallied out as follows:
Blood Angel Death Company =0.
Celestial Lions- 1 Objective, Slay the Leader (DW), Break The Enemy (IG).
Death Watch- First Blood, Slay the Leader (CL), Breaking IG = 3 VPs.
Imperial Guard- Break The Enemy (DW & CL) = 2 VPs.


One of the highlights, at least for Screech, was that he got to kill a marine with a defensive grenade!

Screech: "I mean, that guy is the real MVP for the IG.  "What's worse for a Death Watch Marine than being killed by a Guardsman?  Being killed by a Guardsman with a Flashbang."

The highlight for Jim and Chyanne was the slaughtering of Screech's Imperial Guard, which they had declared early on was the only objective they cared about (it's a vendetta thing).

Jim: "Such a small and weak heretic (that looked like a guardsman) should have his name immortalized as a deceptively fearsome opponent -before ripping his head off and diembowling him!" (In regards to the guardsman that locked two Death Company marines in close combat for a few turns).

As you can see, having Screech place his dead directly in Hell was rewarding for all of us:

So many souls to stoke the fires of Hell.

Rex (a.k.a. "Veni") -Rogues Gallery Spotlight.

You may have seen him blowing up orks, or likewise blowing up in one of the other Battle Reports I have written over the years. Or perhaps you have seen him in the space-wolves-gallery-part-3, where I first showcased him. He is Rex the Venerable Space Wolf Dreadnought. He was painted and assembled during the 3rd Edition of Warhammer 40k. I don't intend to repeat what was in the earlier spotlight, but really add on to it. My camera back then wasn't as good and there are some details I wanted to focus on that I couldn't (or just didn't) originally.

Also, coincidentally, today kicks off Dreadtober, so I figured that this would be a fun way to draw a bit more attention to it.

Rex. 

When painting the Space Wolves in the late '90s and early '00s I was often hand painting areas to look like parchment and then hand drawing phrases or words to look like pseudo-viking runes, but in english. The words 'REX' seemed short and appropriate here so that's what went on him. It would be during many of our early 3rd edition games that Warfrog would call him "Veni" and the nickname stock.

Chapter Icons

The chapter icons where hand drawn, although other iconography would be created using decals. The campaign badge on his foot for example.

Spotlight is ready. 

The spotlight was from the 2nd edition Imperial Vehicle Accessory sprue. The spotlight was a fairly vital option in those early games when the Nightfighting rules were a bit more oppressive. Interesting that I put the number 7 on him. I am not sure it that means I need to build at least 6 more dreads or what? The twin-linked cannons come from the original Predator kit and I combined them in this manor to evoke the twin Las Cannon style on the original Land Raider. The rocky ruins are from the 3rd edition starter set, and this model is still the only time I have ever used them on any model.

Forward view. Gaze into the light...

Although times hard to see, there is a Grey Hunter icon on the dread close to where the arm mounts to the body of the dread. There is also the sword icon which is also often seen on Grey Hunter models.

And that's Veni. I am thinking about updating his base again as I do prefer the elevated style of the current ones. Those large dread bases where not available back then, which is why he is on a titan base. The pipe is also showing it's age as well, so I am definitely considering an update.

And remember to participate in Dreadtober! Or at least spectate; there were some fine models painted last year and it's sure to be the same this year too!

Erik Axegrinder: Rogues Gallery Spotlight

Following on from the the previous Deathwatch post, I felt the desire to work further on these guys. In particular I wanted to get their bases extended.

Erik Axegrinder, rebased.

Especially EriK Axegrinder, whose cloak was originally modeled to appear to drape below the edge of his base. Luckily I was able to model the Secret Weapon Conversion Rings in a way that made it still work.

Cloak paws still hanging free.

I also added a Tzeentch bird skull to the base. It is from the Citadel Skull box set (that you seriously need to get). In the Deathwatch RPG game that I played him in, the Kill Team he was a member of took on the Thousand Sons who, as you probably know, are minions of Tzeentch. Also the Space Wolves have a history of Tzeentch hate so the choice of that skull seemed to make sense.

Another side of Erik.

I have extended the bases of the other Deathwatch guys as well, but their progress hasn't proceeded much beyond this point so I will put off discussing them further until I can give them a proper post.

Progress is slow, but progress continues.

But in the meanwhile, Erik Axegrinder is once again done, and he offically gets his place in the Neverness Rogues Gallery.

Feeling Khorney (Part 7)

Upon returning home from our vacation to Florida and inspired by my recent purchase of the 40k 8th edition Chaos Codex while down there, I set about getting this unit of Khorne Berserkers finished.

Blood and skullz. For our big bases.

Regular readers may recall that I started on these guys way back in 2013. And although they were mostly done within that year, I was set back by trying to find a certain set of decals and with deciding whether or not to expand their bases. Well, I did decide to expand their bases, but the base extenders I use can feel like work when you have to do so many at once.

The mob of Berserkers with completed extenders.

This particular group of models have slightly smaller bases than the typical bases that come in a regular box set. These models were produced during 40k's 2nd Edition, and for a time GW was more interested in creating very simple "plug and play" models in plastic, even incorporating the base on the model's sprue. I attribute this to the slightly smaller size which makes the extenders, just barely, not want to make contact all the way around. I overcame this by glueing the ring together around the model first (see next pic below), then applying superglue to the orginal base all the way around, then adjusting the mini until it made contact to the extender where I preferred it to be.

Hulu hooping for Khorne! 

That worked out well, although there are some minis that required a bit of Greenstuff to fill in the joins.

Due to time constraints I am having to do these a few minis at a time. Here are the first 5 models, with the extender and additional gravel painted in Territorial Beige.

Terracotta Brown.

To match the existing color I washed Brown Ink over the Territorial Beige.

Brown Ink Wash.

To complete this, I matched the color by drybrushing Territorial Beige over the new section before drybrushing over the whole base with Desert Sand.

Desert Sand highlights.

And with that the bases are now extended, they just need to be flocked. All I need to do now is finish the rest of them (ten more after this) and apply decals. And some models require a bit of glue too.
I'm getting there...

Supply Drop Tussle.

Hello, and welcome to our first Battle Report in quite some time.

The Bob and I have been trying to arrange a game all summer and finally the stars aligned to make it happen. We are both easing into Warhammer 40K 8th Ed but not at a place where either of us feel like giving it a go yet. So, we chose Kill Team. This pleased me as it finally gave me the opportunity to play with my Celestial Lions Kill Team that I had spent so much time on.

We rolled up the mission, but disliked what we rolled and we instead decided to try out Supply Drop. Our wonderful game store, HobbyTown in Johnson City , recently expanded out their play area and we now have 4 tables permanently (-ish) set up there and awaiting use. We decided to give the lava board a try. We set it up to look a bit like a recently abandoned military installation.

How much do lava vents bring down property by?

Bob brought out his Dark Angels:

Another secret meeting.

...and I introduce the Celestial Lions to their first game.

"Don't eat the yellow snow guys..."

Leader Traits were generated, with the Dark Angels getting Unshakeable Dedication to Duty, which just turns him into a more zealous zealot than he already was. And the Celestial Lions got A Cunning Ruse which allowed me to split and place half my Kill Team into Reserves for some tricky infiltration tactics.

Celestial Lions Deployment.

My Specialists were the Missile Launcher with Sharpshooter (which ignores cover), Grav Gun guy with Relentless, and Scope Bolter guy with Move Through Cover.

Dark Angels deployment.

Turn 1, and we start out the game with the cover of darkness for a round. The cover bonus truly helped as it allowed one of my guys to save from an attack from the Dark Angels. My shooting was...scary-bad. I hit with most shots but wounded with nearly none. The one model that was wounded made his save. Both sides advanced towards the objective markers looking for the real objective; and it was the DA Kill Team leader who found it. It was way over on my left flank close to the DA deployment zone.

"This is the brew we are looking for!"

A Ravenwing biker would declare a charge on my Kill Team leader only to be vaporized by his plasma pistol on the Overwatch shot! First Blood goes to the Celestial Lions!

Turn 2, all but one of my outflankers arrive. This would turn out to be an exciting round of the game.

"Hey, THAT is our brew!"

A number of targets would get cut down in this round including the Dark Angel leader who was ambushed by the outflankers. One of the Ravenwing would also get picked off as well by the missile laucher whose Ignore Cover ability would deny the Ravenwing biker's ability to Jink.

"Target clear!"

Turn 3, The Dark Angels, although taken back by the Lion's effective round 2, rebounded quickly after seeing them totally fail on Turn 3. They turned their focus on to the objective killing the two Lions who had killed their leader on Turn 2.

"Vengeance!"

Back on Turn 2 my Grav Gun guy with Relentless arrived via his Ouflanking maneuver, and he and the Dark Angel on top of the bunker traded shots but either failed to hit, failed to wound or the other guy saved. Another Lion, on the otherside of the bunker, also targeted that DA and failed to eliminate him also. On Turn 3 the last reserved CL, "Beakie", came on and joined Grav Gun Guy. And so it was that it was three Celestial Lions vs. a single Dark Angel and no one was able to take anyone else out! When Turn 4 came up, I gave up and moved the Lions towards the objective as dealing with this seemingly unkillable grunt was proving to be fruitless!

"No one will take this bunker from me!"

Turn 4, and the bunker guy would continue to trade shots with the three Celestial Lions as they moved away from him, and still no one died.

On the other side of the battlefield the Dark Angels would manage to kill the Lion on top of the big bunker, while the last Ravenwing would move in for an attack run on my leader.

Ravenwing spots his next target...

The Dark Angels would retake the objective, while the Ravenwing biker shoots his bolters at the Celestial Lion's leader. Surviving that attack, the biker then declared a charge.

"Chaaaarge...!"

However for the second time in this game, my leader would successfully hit with his Overwatch attack, vaporizing another charging Ravenwing biker!

Lion Sgt vapes the biker!

Turn 5, and I guess killing 2/3s of the Ravenwing with Overwatch shot make the Sgt cocky, so he declared a charge against the missile launcher, narrowing avoiding the snap fired Krak missile that flew past his head! However neither foe would eliminate the other and they would be locked in combat.

Locked in combat!

Also in that turn Dark Angel holding the objective would be killed by one of the advancing Lions.

Now Broken, the Dark Angels had to make break tests. The lone Dark Angel holding the bunker must have been upset that the Celestial Lions passed him by because he just up and left!

Meanwhile the other Dark Angel dove into the frey to assist the Missile Launcher guy.

Two on one!

If only they were 3's...

The above pic shows the roll made for the 3 Save attempts my Sergent was forced to make. As you can see, he was eliminated. And he failed to take any of the other guys with him!

Starr of Turn 6.

With fresh blood on their treacherous hands, the two Dark Angels, having defeated my leader, consolidated closer to the objective.

Bottom of Turn 6.

It's the bottom of Turn 6, and Bob is thinking it's game over and that there is no way he can recover. I pushed him to roll for game length anyway and suggested to him that if he threw both his surviving Dark Angels at the Lion on the objective that he could pull off a win. Not expecting the dice to co-operate he rolls and sure enough the dice gods decree that the game goes on! And, continuing the trend, those damn Angels live through everything the Lions throw at them. They then boldly approach the objective, staying just an 1" away from the Celestial Lion who is claiming it. Bob was about to forgo his shooting phase so that both his guys could charge when I, nice guy that I am, point out that his guys probably have Bolt Pistols they could switch too. "Oh yeah..." he says, as he casually shoots the Lion in the head.

"It's not an execution, more like a merciful release."

And with that fatal shot, the Dark Angels claim the Objective and Break my Kill Team!

Our VPs tallied out as follows;

Celestial Lions: First Blood, Slay the Leader, Linebreaker and Break Enemy for a total of 4 VPs.

Dark Angels: Slay the Leader, Break Enemy and The Objective for a total of 5 VPs.

End of Turn 7.

My MVP was probably my leader, the Sergeant, for his amazing Overwatch kills on those Ravenwing bikers.

I think Bob's MVP was his Missile Launcher guy. That guy absorbed a lot of firepower! Most of my (albeit stray or dud) missle shots were directed at him, and other marines also shot at him. Then of course my Sgt failed to kill him in two close combat phases. He was definitely a survivor in this fun any-way-it-could-go, game. Thanks again Bob!