Combat Doctrine Tokens

Last week was my first game using the new Codex: Space Marines with my Ultramarines. The list was my standard one (2 Tactical Squads, V. Dread, Sternguard, Devs, Whirlwind and a Land Raider), as I don't have a lot of exotic options for running them. The few new rules were easy enough to keep up with for the most part. Amy and Da Masta Cheef were eager to see their Tau (with a light Eldar support) sup upon more Ultramarine meat, so challenged me upon arriving at the store. Fair enough, the last time I played the Ultramarines was against them and that was with the previous codex, so I was curious to see if the subtle differences would net different results.

Ultramarine deployment.

The game was fun despite our dice begging to be slung-shot out into Boone Lake, and the Ultramarines nearly had a victory, however my dice screwed me on two separate charges. It was the top of turn 5, I was going first and declared that I was using the Assault Combat Doctrine. This was the last of my 3 doctrines, the Tactical one I thought worked well, and the Devastator one simply had no opportunity to perform. At this point the Taudar had 1 VP for offing my suicidal Warlord (it was an awesome death), and that I think about the Stealthsuits were giving them Linebreaker for a total of 2vps, and I was leading by 4 vps (ist Blood and an Objective). After some awesome jet-packing moves the Tau Stealthsuits were now close to the objective in my deployment zone and had to be dealt with. I shot them up pretty good, and charged! I then lost 2 guys to snapfire! Ouch! Then I rolled a 2 for my charge distance! The guys that died were close enough and would have closed that gap had they not died for the Greater Good (so the Cheef's propaganda would have be believe!).

"This is ours Ultramarines! Thanks for watching it for us, awfully cool of you..."

I had few marines left on the other side of the battlefield debris from those two drones that you can see in that pic who also botched their charge roll. Cursing the dice gods, we moved on, the Stealthsuits jumped on top of the Objective, giving the the Tau a 5-1 victory!

It was a good, game and afterwards while talking to the other players, Mac, the other resident Ultramarine player, asked me "How did those Combat Doctrines work for you?" That's when it dawned on me! I had forgotten about the Assault Combat Doctrines! LOL. Right there on the spot I realized what I needed: tokens! Something physical I can keep in my hand or on the table that I can touch and see to remind myself that I have this rule! You got to figure that I have been playing this army off and on, since about 1991 and have never had anything like this that I had to recall in a game. So I made these tokens that I think should remind me during the game that I have 3 one-use only special rules. To make them I used a simple round base, Ultramarine paint and some old decals and presto: Combat Doctrine Tokens!!!

Devastator, Tactical and Assault Ultramarine Combat Tactics: Combat Doctrines tokens. 

 We'll see if they work next time.

Oh, and to answer Mac's question: I will have to play a few more games (specifically ones where I remember to use them) before I can decide if I like these Combat Doctrines. I did like the Tactical one just fine however. :)

Wraithlord for Mark

Done painting! (pre-flocked).

Many eons ago, during Warhammer 40;000's Second Edition, my old pal Mark and I got crazy serious about 40K,  Often I would find time to paint some of his minis for him, usually because he didn't paint and I didn't have Eldar, and this was an excuse to try to paint a few models for him while at the same time try my hand with some experimentation in paint. We both really liked the Saim-Hann craftworld color scheme, so I started off painting elements of his army in those colors. Back in the '90s GWUS would run mail-order specials where they would sell off large quantities of blisterpacks for a low flat price. These would be random, you had no idea what you were going to get, and my friends and I would buy lots of these bundles and then sort out who got what. Often times we stuck with odd things, and over time I amassed a small collection of Eldar. I decided to start a small army, more to paint than to play with, and these too were painted in Saim-Hann colors. The idea would be that Mark could borrow these when we played if he likes and they would match his force. 

It was a noble idea anyway. 

Close-up on the gems.

I don't see him much anymore, as real-life has a way of putting us in our places so to say. And this may be why it has taken me over 10 years to finish painting his Wraithlord! The reds were completed fairly quickly and eventually I finished the bone color on his arms, but the under guns on the power fists sort of stuck me for a long time before deciding to paint them black. Well, I kind of just forgot about it, despite the fact that it has been a constant presence at the back of my painting table. There are many pics in this blog where it appears in the background! 

One of the reasons that I might have held on to it for so long is that I used to HATE painting gems stones, and over time I figured it out, and I think I finally nailed the technique with this model and I still look at it for reference. Also the 'star-cannon' was painted to resemble the star motif that I use on my High Elves. Also I own one of these models, which is still sitting in a box unassembled just biding it's time, that I had hoped to paint up and match the scheme with this one. But with a move likely in my near future, I just don't foresee getting to the Eldar anytime soon despite how tasty the new codex is. So I finished up those underarm guns and I hope to get this to Mark before his birthday in January (not likely, but perhaps it's the thought that counts?)

So here's some pics for the Neverness Archives, the overcast skies today sort of dull the intensity of the colors (yay winter) but these will do. I hope you enjoy these as much as Mark will having this thing beat-down on his opponents! 

Flocking done. The base belies the age of this thing.

"It's full of stars," 

Tromping around in the moss fields of Backyardistan IV. 

 Now to figure out when I'm going to get his two Bloodbowl teams painted that I have been sitting for just as long! :)

2013 in review

Hello 2014! Happy New Year!

This year I wanted to review what I think are some of the highlights of the past year as far as my personal hobby accomplishments are concerned, and make a projection of what I foresee 2014 will bring.

The Wolves return to Fenris 

A year ago today, I came back from a trip visiting my friends in Cincinnati (and waging war) to discover that The Bink had made a magnificent gaming table for me! It was an awesome Christmas present and we spent 2013 using it for Warhammer 40,000 games, as well as Roleplaying games (Dark Heresy and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd 3ed) and board games (Battlemasters, Settlers of Cataan, etc.) and card games (Bang!, and another that I suck at...LOL). A year later and I still treasure this gift. Thanks again Bink!

Big table with shelves on the inside of the legs. 

By the end of January of 2013, I had acquired my brother's old Ultramarine army which are some of the earliest models that I ever painted (Circa 1990-ish). Getting them updated and into games of 6th Edition Warhammer 40K was quite a lot of fun and I ran them a few times in 2013 and usually had fun using tactics and options that my usual Space Wolves lack. I have yet to run them under the new Space Marines codex however, but aim to do so soon. Also, I am currently painting a "new" Captain model for this army, and figuring out a way to update the models in this army without resorting to completely redoing them.

Old Ultramarines!

 Last year I also ran a Tyranid army...well, genestealers really, and although it was a lot of fun I am now looking forward to the new codex which is supposed to be out this month before I do any additional work on this army. We'll see what the future holds for these guys. It was fun discovering how tasty Imperial Guard are though...

One gun and LOTS of claws.

 I finished painting a Long Fang squad that I am still very fond of. In fact I haven't left them out of a Space Wolf game yet. For Xmas the legendary Warfrog gave me a ton of the 2nd edition plug-and-play marines including 10 more missile launchers. My dreams of Long Fang spam are about to come true! Muhahahaha!)

I don't think that plasma pistol has been fired yet...

 2013 also saw the first Dark Angel paint-jobs by me in over a decade. These are the plug-and-play models that come in the current 40k paint set. I indeed to do more with these guys soon, as I recently doubled up on the Dark Angels from Dark Vengeance.

Dark Angels

A lot of my summer and early autumn was dedicated working on my Warhammer Fantasy Orcs, which are pretty much playable at this point, I just need to get them portable and arrange some games... This army still has a lot of work to do, but while I was painting these guys I was also dabbling on some 40K models, which inspired me to start playing Orks in 40k again. Funny how that works, huh?

Waaagh!

I turned in 40 in 2013. I concept I am still in denial of. I tell you, playing these games and engaging in this hobby really does help to keep one young! LOL I do have to say nothing makes for a more humbling outlook than having your brother watch as you use his old army in a birthday bloodbath against Tau-dar. Our ancestors were weeping...

40K on your 40th! What a great day! Thanks again to all for making it a special day for me! 

Another special event that coincided with my birthday was meeting my old friends from our High School days in England for a series of intense games of Space Hulk. That 3rd edition was such a great set and I honestly believe GW has made a critical error keeping this game "limited edition".

I kept the 'stealers well fed on that weekend, except when I played them that is! LOL

Getting my Space Wolf Land Raider completed Land Raider before the 2014 was a nice project for the Holidays. You can find the links for that whole massive project on my Space Wolves page.

"Let's raid some land!"

Another fun finish for 2013 was having people contact me to tell me that Frontline Gaming used one of my Cypher pics (see below) in their Cypher Reviewed article. This was quite a pleasant, and flattering, surprise. Also, it was a good review of the Cypher dataslate which I still have yet to download. I am totally intrigued by the notion of incorporating him into my Space Wolves, not to take advantage of any benefits or whatever, but just to antagonize my Dark Angel opponents. :)

Cypher offers you his protection.

 So what does 2014 have in store for Neverness and his Chronicles? Well, in the next few months I will most likely be moving in with my girlfriend, and until we get my studio built, I will be hurting for space. So in the meanwhile, I will be cramming away on completing some projects as well as figuring out how to make my armies both portable, protected.and accessible. I don't foresee many 'construction' projects in this time, but I do foresee that individual models or units might be painted up. We shall see.

One project that I started on in December was work on my Chaos army, in particular my World Eaters. Only one model do I have finished (see below) which was painted many years ago and he is the standard that I hope to get these models up to. He's painted in a 2nd edition Chaos Codex Khorne Berserkers scheme, but I am OK with this as it has always appealed to me. Not sure how much progress will me made on this force in the New Year, but I would like to get Chaos up to a strong secondary, if not Primary, army.

World Eater.

I would also like to try to knock out some of the models that others have asked for me to paint for them, mainly so they don't get stored for heaven-knows-how-long during this move/transition. I hope to have a very productive January on both the model mini painting front as well as on my 2-D art, but I suspect it will also be a very busy month for me at work as well, so we shall see!

Meanwhile, I wish you all a Happy New Year, and thanks for your continued patronage of this blog!

-Joel (Neverness)

Pods to Drop and Lands to Raid part 12

Unlike the previous post in this series where I had little to show on the Land Raider Crusader, this time all I have to show and tell is the Land Raider. In fact, I have (mostly) completed it! Inspired by the last post in this series, I decided to push myself to complete what I had started on this model by Christmas.

First thing I had to do was complete the twin-linked Las Cannon sponsons, which you can see here. I would add the targeting systems and decals soon after this pic was taken.

I spent quite a bit of time getting the polarity aligned correctly with the magnets, but in the end all I had to do was turn them over and they now fit firmly onto the chassis.

Next up was deciding what to do about the multimelta turret. In the end I decided to add a techmarine techpriest gunner but in a lower position. The stormbolter gunner had grey armor with a red Adeptus Mechanicus shoulder plate but this guy I wanted to make all red. I just like this look for the Mechanicus, and to make things feel a bit more full-circle with my army, I opted for the MK VI "beaky" helmet.

I painted the head by mounting it to a pin-vice. 

The components are gathered. 

In the Rogue Trader days the beaky marines were often painted with a stripe going down the center of their helms. I particularly recall seeing a Techmarine painted with a yellow and black cautions stripe on his helm and thought it might be cool to do this guy like that.

The yellow stripe was added first by drawing it on with Blazing Orange then topping it with Sunburst Yellow.

I then drew on the black stripes. 

 I sort of messed it up the first time but I painted over the black then redrew it on again.

Just screams old-school tech marine doesn't he? 

 Then I added him to his turret.

Ready to melt stuff!

I positioned his head in the direction of the monitor on the gun's blast shield.

 I am still debating whether to attached the hatches to it like I did to the Storm Bolter. It makes sense too for modeling purposes, but for practicality purposes the connection to the ring of the hatch is sort of fragile.

Both hatch weapons and crew being compared while I make a decision on it...

 I sent these pics to a few friends while I was working on the multimelta, to which Da Masta Cheef responded with "But Multimeltas only roll '2's to hit!", an allusion toward his personal lack of success using one on his Land Raider Crusader. In fact he ripped it off of his model I believe. I vaporized an Ultramarine with one last week, so I felt it was worth taking. :)

And here is everything pretty much done after I added the decals.

One of the reasons to make this tank this way was so that I could still view the interior details. I am very pleased with how this turned out!

Hail to the Great Machine Spirit. 

 Here is the Landraider outside in natural light (albeit, the harsh low winter light) without any sponsons or addition weapons.

A disarmed Land Raider.

A fully armed Land Raider Crusader

A fully armed standard Land Raider 

Land Raider Crusader

Standard Land Raider

 I will do a set of Sponsons for the Land Raider Redeemer as well, so I can have all three options as my disposal.

Also I intend to add some slight wear-and-tear on this tank, like chipped paint and scrapes, mostly around the door, and maybe some ground splatter toward the bottom near the tracks and on them. I want to put a spot light on, but the obvious place to put it is in the way of the multimelta when I swing it that way. It's not vital, but I like to be as WYSISYG as much as possible.

Meanwhile, work (slowly) continues on the Drop Pod #2.

'Carnage!'

Greetings from the bloodied battlefields of the 41st millennium! Knowing that my time for playing the game before the New Year arrives was very limited, I decided to finish the year out with my Space Wolves taking to the field of battle. Also I might've been inspired to do so because I spent the day working toward finishing the Land Raider Crusader (as showcased in the early 'Pods to Drop and Lands to Raid' series) and got it to the point that I thought it was time to give it a proper shake down. When I arrived to Hobbytown, we discovered that we were limited on tables for the evening and we had more players in attendance then we typically do. Mac just so happened to have his PDA with the new 'Carnage!' downloaded on to it, and suddenly the lack of tables was no longer an issue.

Brought to us by GamesWorkshopDigitalEditions 

As part of the Advent Calendar series of daily releases that Games Workshop is doing they released to the world 'Carnage!' on December 17th. Here is a brief description according to their Facebook page:
"('Carnage!') is a new four-player Mission for Warhammer 40,000. ‘Carnage!’ is a brutal game that pits your army against three opponents in furious all-out war. Alliances will be made and broken, blood will be spilt, for there can only be one victor."

So Mac (Ultramarines), Scott (Imperial Fists), Skylar (Chaos Space Marines) and I, "Neverness" (Space Wolves) decided to give this a try. We each had 1500 point lists. My list comprised of the Land Raider Crusader on it's maiden voyage (so to speak), a whirlwind, 5 Wolfguard, a full squad of 10 Grey Hunters, a smaller squad of Grey Hunters which the Rune Priest would join, a pack of missile launcher totting Long Fangs, a Lone Wolf and my Wolflord Sven Axegrinder. 

Ready to deploy! 

 I don't have a list of what my opponents had, only that I knew going in that it was going to be a hard fight considering that we all had powered armor and my army was balanced more toward dealing with hordes as opposed to armor penetration. I ended up deploying last.

Chaos and Space Wolves deployment zones. Note that the Long Fangs are inside the bunker.

 Opposite me on this short side of the table is the Chaos force. All of us eyeing, with concern, the Helldrake sitting off-table in Reserve...

Ultramarines and Imperial Fist deployment zones.

The Ultramarines and Imperial Fists had squads waiting to deploy in drop pods (I had to put in a Rhino in place of my drop pod which I accidentally left at home!). I had nothing staying out in reserves. This is amusing due to my Warlord Trait, "Strategic Genius", which allows re-rolls on reserve rolls. Genius isn't anything Sven has ever been accused of before and why should he have to deal with such a charge now?

"The Relic" a lost suit of armor. 

 I went first. Nothing much accomplished on my first turn other than killing a few of the Las Cannon wielding Havocs that were perched high on a rocky outcropping. It was dark on this first turn and the Night-Fighting rules were in effect which spared more of the lives of Chaos foes with in my reach... I had hoped to get the "First Blood" Secondary Objective but it was not to be. I raced the Rhino up field and launched smoke.

Space Wolf turn 1.

 The Chaos first turn began, 

 The Chaos force focused mostly on trying to kill the Lone Wolf who was lapping over towards his line. He deflected every las cannon hit with his Storm Shield, saved every bolter hit or simply didn't feel any pain from them. It was a lot of shots, and he didn't get a scratch. Chaos was worried, while the Fists and Ultras watched with respectable interest and relief that he wasn't heading in their direction! The rest of the Chaos force took shots and maneuvers against the Imperial Fists (there is apparently a standing rivalry with these two).

The Imperial Fist first turn starts with the screaming arrival of the Imperial Fist Drop Pod, arriving right on target on the edge of the Chaos deployment zone. it was close!  They jumped out, and with deadly precision blew up the Chaos Landraider! My Land Raider crew took note of this action with nervous apprehension...

Ambush!

The Imperial Fists charge the hill, with the Contemptor Dreadnought leading the way.

 Ultramarines first turn. 
Attempting to replicate the success of the Imperial Fist's tactics., the Ultramarines tried the same thing, only his dice betrayed him and the Drop Pod scattered off of the board, and to make matters worse, he rolled a 1 on the mishap table, losing a very potent Command Squad! Mac says the point value of that unit was over 300 points. Ouch.

The dice say NO, and scatter the Drop Pod 7" away and off the table...

 After dealing with the shock of that loss, Mac refocused his attentions, mostly on me, took his rage out on my smaller Grey Hunter squad and killed all by one member of the pack, leaving just him and the Rune Priest.

Imagine a lot of Space Wolf bodies in the big green space...

 The smoke on the rhino helped it survive as it avoided being slagged by las cannons!

Space Wolves turn 2. 
I was mostly concerned with the treacherous machinations of the Ultramarines, however their power armor proved effective against my firepower when ours had failed! Perhaps this is why we're fighting over a dead Ultramarine -they have superior armor tech!?

My Rune Priest and Grey Hunter charge the Ultramarines, with the Rune Priest taking a wound from an Overwatch shot!

Space Wolves vs. Ultramarines! The Rune Priest would remain locked here for awhile...

 On the Chaos front I reduced the Havocs numbers down a little more and sent the Lone Wolf striding forward.

 Chaos Turn two. 
The Helldrake arrives. It annihilates an Imperial Fist Devastator squad with it's Bale Flamer! Mac and I look up from our own little war to see the common foe has taken the field!

"KILL IT!!!"

 The three remaining Chaos Marines (I had picked off a few last round) moved forward to deal with the Lone Wolf, who still refused to take a hit. The red guys charged the Imperial Fist drop pod crew.

Over the course of two assault rounds, these red guys would kill off the drop pod crew.

 Imperial Fist turn 2. 
Basically Scott threw everything at the Helldrake. But it was no good, as it was still flying and still looking to kill more!

Ultramarines turn 2 (The uneasy truce)

Concerned about Helldrake and the obvious bloodbath we were setting up for each other, Mac asked for a parley, a temporary truce, to deal with the Helldrake as opposed to having a Terminator slug-fest in the middle of the field. I reluctantly agreed, leaving only our melee as it was. He teleported his terminator squad and Warlord on top of the hill taking the objective.

Teleport successful! 

 This mission does use hidden objectives, and it turned out to be a Skyfire Nexus! Quite impress suit of armor indeed! And very fortunate for us all. The terminators opened up on the Helldrake, damaging it. A krak missile from the cyclone missile launcher destroyed the bale flamer, eliminating the Helldrake's most troublesome aspect.

Space Wolves Turn 3

i repositioned my Landradier Crusader to assist with dealing with the Helldrake, but it failed to bring down the daemon engine. My Rhino held it's ground, while the Lone Wolf had moved up to charge the 3 Khorned-marked Chaos Marines that had been sent to eliminate him, only to have his glory robbed from him by the Long Fangs that wiped the unit out with Krak Missiles. I imagined the Lone Wolf turning around and cussing his comrades who were probably giddy about the whole incident...

I still think I should've ignored the truce the dealt with the rhinos instead.

 Chaos Turn 3.

The Helldrake performed a vector strike against the Contemptor, knocking off some hull points. It flew over to the far side of the Ultramarine deployment zone far away from any action...

Meanwhile the Chaos Warlord and the Imperial Fist Warlord would tangle for a few assault phases in close combat, with the two warriors ultimately killing each other!

"I say, you wouldn't mind terribly to place your head on one of these spikes would you? It would be a awfully helpful." 

 Imperial Fist Turn 3.
The Fists moved up on the Ultras, now that the threat of the Helldrake has flown by, and set up to make a gambit for the objective, as well as focusing on tabling the Chaos force.

Ultramarines Turn 4

With almost the whole force deployed to hold the center, Mac let the treachery of the Ultramarines be revealed. He opened up on the Imperial Fists, destroying the Contemptor Dreadnought. He then deployed his Devastators who wrecked the Rhino, forcing the Grey Hunters to bail out, and pinning them! (My Space Wolves are rarely pinned!). He also had his Techmarine jump in to assist the two marines that had locked in combat with the Runepriest, defeating the Runepriest.

"Bail out lads, and hit the dirt!"

 Space Wolves Turn 4

Enraged by this Ultramarine treachery, The Land Raider Crusader moved up, and the Terminators deployed. The combined fired power of the Crusader and Wolf Guard Terminator squad reduced the Devastators down to just 2 men. They had no chance once Wolfguard charged, and their scalps were claimed for Russ. A 6" consolidation allowed the Wolf Guard to take the Objective.

"We've taken the hill, prepare to defend it!"

 Meanwhile on the other side of the field, the Lone Wolf charged and finally took a wound from the overwatch attack of the red Chaos Marines, who were then defeated and ran down by him. He consolidated to confront the Ultramarine Assault Squad that had been sent "to help".

"Say, any of you guys up for giving me a glorious death?"

 Chaos Turn 4. 

The only thing he had left at this point was lone Havoc marine, and the Helldrake. The Helldrake attempted to vector strike a rhino that was broke down in the Ultramarine deployment zone, and it managed to remove a hull point.

Imperial Fist turn 4. 

With revenge in mind, the Imperial Fists opened up and tore apart the Ultramarines, eliminating an Assault Squad and most of the Terminators! He took a shot against the last Havoc, effectively tabling the Chaos army.

The final pic.

Ultramarines Turn 4. 

We noted how late it was (we played an hour and half over the usual stop time), and assessing the field, Mac decided to call the game, declaring me the victor for being on the objective. I wished we had at least played through his turn, but as late as it was, it made sense to stop. 

My final thoughts on this scenario is that it is very fun! However time is something to consider, as each turn takes longer to work through as opposed to a two-on-two game. Next time we might knock the points back a bit in order to finish a proper game in the time allowed. A bit like the overview of Triumph and Treachery, alliances can be made and torn asunder in a matter of moments, and find that a fun aspect that you never see in a typical 40k game. 

Thanks for a good game guys!
...
You can download the eBook edition of this new Mission here:
http://www.blacklibrary.com/games-workshop-digital-editions/Carnage.html