Primaris vs RTB01

 

Welcome back to another duel between myself and Da Masta Cheef. This time, in response to a comment I made somewhere that his Ultramarines ought to fight my Ultramarines. Cheef was more than willing to see that come to fruition. We decided since not only do we have the same army, but we even use the same company (3rd, the guys with the red trim) so it only makes sense that this "battle" is really a training exercise. Or is it? 

Check out Cheef's force. Leading it on this training exercise is a nefarious Inquisitor! 

748 points of Primaris. 

You might also notice that his force is also all Primaris Soace Marines! Lead by Primaris Lt. Siph Horridus (inspired by the guy who hooked us both up with that particular model, thanks again mate!), who is armed with a Master Crafted Bolt Rifle and an Astartes Chainsword. A squad of Hellblasters, a unit of Intercessors, a squad of Assault Intercessors and a smaller unit of Intercessors. 

744 points of old Marines. 

Whereas my force is comprised entirely of 1st edition models. Most of which were all painted during the years of first edition! That's two RTB01 Tactical Squads. Pretty much no frills there: bolters, bolt pistol. Frag & krak grenades, a missile launcher, a flamer and a Sergeant with a power glove power fist. That's an original Advanced Space Crusade scout squad (they have stealth bolters) and that Devestator Squad is from Space Crusade. And that Ultramarine Captain model tops it off. He was the most recent thing painted for this army and this is his first game showing off his new colors. 

And that was two small Patrols (approximately 750 points) ready to rumble in the snow. 

Open War random results.

We were joined by the illustrious Mr. Crosby (as an ex-teacher he kind of dislikes to be called that, but for he sake of online ambiguity I will default to that regardless) who assisted with the Shuffling and selection of our Open War cards as well as offered rules input during the game; as both Cheef and I haven't played the 9th ed Space Marines yet. He also provided the three Objective Markers for us. They are each an assortment of military assets. We placed old Artillery Dice on them to indicate which ones were 1, 2 and 3 for determining which would  e the 'active' objective each round. 

We were also assisted by Josh of Hobbytown U.S.A. of Johnson City, whose encyclopedic knowledge of the current 40k rules is pretty much second to none. 

Battle Squad takes the bunker.

During my deployment I chose to split one of the Tac Squads into two separate teams leaving the other squad at full strength. 

Ultra Neverness deployment.

Ultra Masta Cheef deployment.

I played my Ruse card as soon as possible to immediately take advantage of being Dug In to my deployment zone. It really did help a lot! 

A clever Ruse! 

Turn One and we both moved our forces towards the objectives. Some fire was traded back and forth but we each only managed to score a single casualty against each other and maybe inflicted a few non-lethal wounds here and there. 

Moving up to the goal.

I did make my first critical mistake of the game by not advancing my 10 man Tactical squad towards the objective closest to them. In the end, neither of us scored any points on Tunr One.

End of Turn One. 

On Turn Two Cheef's dice heated up and his Hellblasters were too. They vaporized half of the remaining Tactical Squad!  "This is a training exercise, right?" Asked one Devestator to another upon watching the boiling fleshy blue pool that was once Brother Marcus. 

Meanwhile my scouts were hounding the Primaris boys from their own deployment zone. Returning the attention one scout was eliminated.

Old but still effective.

The Devestators took stock of the situation and set their weapons to lethal mode, annihilating the Hellblasters! As a point of retaliation however Cheef played the Stratagem 'Avenge The Fallen' (a card I hope to play on a Dark Angel unit some day, just for the cheekiness of it!)

Marked for vengeance!

The Tactical Squad lost another marine in the Morale Phase of Cheef's turn 2. But the Sgt was determined to get to that objective! They advanced on to it and claimed in on my Turn 2.

"There's four of us, we can do this lads!"

On the otherside of the ruins I had the Scouts and both battle squads pour all their fire into the Squad that was on an objective. Unfortunately, for me Cheef was making his saves like a champ, and whittling away at those two-Wound Primaris Marines was proving to be an uphill battle indeed. After a failed charge attempt, that effort seemed even more futile.

The tally for Turn had Cheef with 2 points and Neverness with 1 point. 

Turn 3 was the deciding one. The Inquisitor moved onto the objective in the middle. The Primaris goons shot up and killed the Tactical Squad except for the Sergeant. But they charged and slaughtered him in the assault phase, but what a glorious way to go down! 

"I'll take you young punks!"

On the otherside, my Tactical squad stood firm to the onslaught of shooting and in fact killed a guy with Overwatch! It was a fairly balanced fight really with both sides standing firm for the most part. 

My turn came, and my Captain moved upon the the middle objective where he came across this sneaky Inquisitor skulking about the place. Despite a strong showing by the Captain weilding his Soldiers Blade, the Inquisitor survived this assault. 

"Avast!"

My Devestators tried to blast the Primaris Intercessors off of their objective but the dice were against me on this it seems as they missed  a lot more than they hit! Same goes with the other side of the field, I tore that squad up but I could shake them off of that objective. At the end of turn 3 Cheef scored 3 more points and Neverness scored 0. This brought the Tally 5 to Cheef and 1 to Neverness.

By the end of Turn 3, looking at the points tally it was clear that I could not possibly recoup my points. I felt that I had to concede to the inevitable and accept defeat.

These two held firm! 

What was this guy's goal?

Laughing in the faces of the Devestators. 

Well, that was a fun one! One thing we learned was that we need to not only play more, but play Marines more. Trying to keep up with all the army rules, remembering Warlord Traits, (we both had Paragon of War), Doctrines, etc. made us wish we had a dry erase board available.  But we got by with the help from our friends. I am impressed with how well the old First Born have held up compared to the Primaris, and, had Cheef's rolls not be more amazing than not, I think it would have been a bit more even.  

However the one advantage that was apparent was the range difference between the Bolt Rifles and the traditional Bolter. It forced me to push some of the units I had held back for support to move closer, otherwise he could reach my units and I could not reach his. Duly noted for the future. I wish we could have played longer but it was still fun regardless. 

..and the Inquisitor slips away...

Bad paint job purge

Here are some very old Space Marines, released in 1987 as boxed set RTB01 (That's Rogue Trader Box #1). I believe these models were given to me by Warfrog who acquired them as part of a bigger lot and he just didn't want to deal with the aggravation of having to relist them. So naturally, the miniature hoarder that I am, I gave them a home. I stumbled upon these all but ruined things the other day and decided it was time to clean them up and ready them for future projects. But first, let us pick on them:

Actually, I need to be upfront about this: I would never pick on, or attempt to discourage, anybody from painting models or doing any sort of art. Some people have talent right from the go, some need to go through a lot more trial and error before they get to even a modest level, but that's OK. If you have fun, and like your results, that's all that matters.

Having said that, I have no idea what the eff'n hell happened to these things!

This one came apart in the bag it was in. I am not sure what scheme was being attempted or imagined when the paint was being applied, but I am at a loss when I try to see. it. The belts are yellow, and a hideous version of it, I suspect this was a flat enamel of some sort, with blue on the rest of it. Then it seems that yellow was applied over it rather liberally for some reason, and where it was all still wet, colors blended to for an interesting green.

is another one, with similar coloration. The model is busted to hell and after I strip the paint I will need to rip off his arms and replace them.

Next up, more of the random colors that makes me think that a child, perhaps one too small to even be using these paints, was coloring these things. .

At least with orange and green they are opposite colors on the color wheel, so, props for an attempt at color theory I guess.

There are more models, most of which were never cleaned up properly and still have mold-lines and flash. I will soak these things just I did when I stripped the vindicator a while back. Afterwards, some of these may end up as casualties on a foe's base, or re-purposed as full fledged marines! Keep an eye on this blog, you will see these guys again!

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!