The Neverness Battle Report archive page.

Last week was this blog's 5th birthday!

Since I began this blog over 5 years go, I have chronicled almost every table-top miniature game I have played. Usually with lots of pictures to accompany them. So the reports I am proud of either due to the quality of the photos, the caliber of my opponent, the events that transpired within the game, or maybe how pleased I am with the writing or the layout of the post will be linked here again for easier reference. As will the reports that I don't care for, for reasons opposite to those I just cited. Regardless, it's all here for ease of reference.

I do this at the dusk of an era for those of us in my locality. Our beloved Favorite Local Gamestore, Hobbytown USA of Johnson City, adopted home of Johnson City TN Gamers FB group, is ending the weekly game nights (update: this is no longer the case, yay!). Most of these battle reports, like close to 90% of them, were played at this venue.

After time it made sense to me to make it easier for myself, and others, to be able to search these reports. The idea came to me to list them by the army I used, chronologically followed by what the opposing army was, then the points and a short brief. As I continue to play games, this list will be updated and you can find a permanent link to it at the top of this blog and right here. So, here it is, I hope you enjoy skimming through these as much as I did reliving them myself.



Chaos Space Marines
vs. Chaos -1500pt Chaos Daemons with Chaos Space Marine allies vs. the same.
vs. Tau -1850pt massacre as the Tau shot daemons as if they were skeets.
vs. Grey Knights 1750pts Kharn vs. the Inquistion
vs. Khorne Daemonkin -1850pts. Kharn the Berserker vs. Khonre Daemonkin. Bloody fun game!
vs. Dark Angels -1500pt. Cypher chased down by the Dark Angels and the Ravenwing


Chaos Daemons
vs. Eldar Exodites -1225pt game. Daemons sought to protect their home against Exodite raiders.
vs. Chaos  -1500pt Chaos Daemons with Chaos Space Marine allies vs. the same
vs. Tau  -1850pt massacre as the Tau shot daemons as if they were skeets.





Space Wolves
vs.Inquisition 1500pts Sven Axegrinder vs Inquisitor MattFucking Ward
vs.Orks 2000pts Sven Axegrinder takes on Waaagh Murl and Da Long Wayz Dezert Group.
vs. Tyranids 1000pts of psychic turmoil for my Rune Priest and Hivefleet Warfrog.
vs. Orks 750pts against The Doctor's Orks
vs. Chaos 1000pts Wolf Priest Jarl Blacktooth's crusade against the Chaos Rebel Alliance led by Lars Blood Eagle (so jealous of that name!)
vs. Tyranids ?Pts  Wolf Priest Jarl Blacktooth's crusade continues as he clashes against Hivefleet Warfrog.
vs. Orks and Necrons 750pts each 4 way game, Wolf Priest Blacktooth allies with Wolfguard Battle Leader Buffalo John against and unusual Ork/Necron alliance!
vs. Blood Angels 1500pts(?) against Hiveangel's harder than hard Blood Angels.
vs. Orks and Necrons 1000pt 3 way game. Sven Axegrinder fights against Necrons and the Doctor's Orks.
vs. Eldar Exodites with Harlequin 1500pts (?)   Sven Axegrinder goes on the hunt for an artifact but is thwarted by Da Masta Cheef's vile xenos!
vs. Adepta Sororitas  1500pts Logan Grimnar picks a fight with Edwin's girls, and things get heated!
vs. Imperial Guard and Grey Knights 1500pt along with Lions of Harlech allies against Imperial Guard and Grey Knights.
vs. Blood Angels 1500pts vs Jim's treacherous Blood Angels!
vs. Eldar 1500pt Sven Aexegrinder's grueling match against Craftworld Warfrog's Eldar airforce.
vs. Ultra Marines, Chaos and Imperial Fists 1500pt 4-way carnage match.






Space Orks
vs. Chaos and Blood Angels 3000K Waaagh Ror Ruk allied with Waaagh Bink vs. The Thousand Sons (of bitches) and Traitor Blood Angels (apparently).
vs. Chaos 2000pts Mad Doc Grotsnik Orks with Ork allies (Eleet Grot Mountin Duvshun vs. the Thousand Sons (of bitches)
vs. Chaos 1500pt Mad Doc Grotsnik vs. The Red Corsairs
vs.Tau and Eldar 1500pts (?) against Femme FaTaus and Eldar Exodites.
vs. Tyranids  1500pt (?) against Hivefleet Matt. (I hope they got indigestion!)
vs.Tau and Dark Angels 1000pts 4 way battle. Ror Ruks Ravagers, Da Eleet Got Mountin Duvishun against Dark Angels and the notorious Femme FaTau.
vs. Orks 1000pts Ror Ruk's Ravagers vs. Da Eleet Grot Mountin Duvishun. Fight'n over da fort!
vs. Marines. 500pt game vs generic marines that look Blood Angels; the Red Marines if you will.
vs. Marines 500pt game. Rematch against Red Marines.


Tyranids
vs. Imperial Guard -1000pts. My attempt at a Genestealer revolt. 

Ultra Marines
vs. Chaos 1500pt against the Thousand Sons (of bitches).
vs. Imperial Guard 1500pt vs Murl's wall of murder.
vs. orks 1500pts vs Waaagh Bink.
vs. Tau 1500pts the first table top appearance of the Femme FaTau.
vs. Tau & Eldar 2000pt bash against Femme Fa Tau and Eldar.
vs. Tau & Eldar 1500pt(?) Femme FaTau and Eldar Corsairs.
vs. Space Marines 1500pt vs, the Lions of Harlech
vs.Tyranids 1750pts vs. Hivefleet Warfrog.
vs, Imperial Guard 1500pts. Screech returns from Basic with a head full of military tactics.

Secret Weapon Conversion Rings

With GWs discrete decision to shift their Space Marine miniatures over to 32mm bases (i.e. they aren't officially required), I was skeptical at first but now it's been over a year since this change I have found that I really do think the Space Marines look better on them. But I wasn't about to re-base all of my guys. I just wasn't passionate about that idea at all. At some point someone suggested I look into Secret Weapon Miniature's 32mm Conversion Rings. I checked it out and the concept intrigued me.

Recently I caved in and bought 3 sets, which is enough to convert 30 guys.

I am impressed! The quality is pretty high with minimal flash and clean-up. Although some pieces will require that I drill the holes a bit deeper for a more secure connection, this ought to be minor thing.

Assemby was slightly tricky and I found that starting with one side and then the other worked best for me. The pic above shows my method for preventing the model from being superglued to my table top.

I can foresee that some models will need some filler to eleminate join gaps but this shouldn't be a huge problem for me.

Getting the basing materials to match shouldn't be too challenging and as you can see I didn't have a problem with these guys, granted they are unfinished. These are the classic Assassin minis from the mid-'90s that I dug up last year around the time of the  Assassinorum: Strike Force game release and started to work on them at that time. However, like the marines, they are being shown on bigger bases and they do look better on them so I waited. Now with that wait over they re-enter the painting queue with their bigger base enhancement complete.

So, back to the conversion rings: they rock! Especially if you have completed bases already that you do not want to rip off of your minis. But, do get the basing redone right away otherwise people will think that your models look like Heroclicks!

Black Legion Aspiring Champion (part 1)

 My squad of Black Legion Chaos Space Marines is in need of a leader. I foresaw this pending need for a few Aspiring Champions last summer and purchased 2 of the clampack models that GW currently sells from a reseller on ebay (hey, the modeling/hobby budget was virtually zilich back then!). But only now did I finally realize a true role for these guys. Well, this guy anyway...

I was stymied somewhat in recent times by these clam-pack models costing so much, and with their multiple part assembly I can understand why, to a degree. I appreciate the sheer amount of detail these multiple part kits contain, but in the end I would much rather have more weapon options on the sprue than say, a three piece shoulder pad! These models also are very limited in pose options, and that's a bit of a turn-off for me. However, once painted up properly they look great with the rest of their army. That is assuming you don't have multiples of the same model. Otherwise multiple Deathjestors squatting identically on a rock looks strange...

Back to just this model though, and my challenges with figuring out just how he is going to go together and how I will approach painting him. There is so much detail on this model that I am having to paint him, at least the base to mid-coats anyway, prior to full assembly. Nothing new for me, but I find that these models tend to hold together better if I can glue unpainted surface to unpainted surface. 

So far I am following the paint scheme used on the Black Legion unit, however this guy just has all kinds of weird details (tongues?) that are going to take me longer to paint than I had originally estimated. He has subtle mutations throughout the model that I have been stumbling on and some that I just didn't know what I was supposed to be looking at and I had to refer to the pics in the Chaos Codex to figure them out (i.e. leg tongues?). 

Anyway, this is where I am at with it. I am working on him at the same time as the Black Legion Bikers, we'll see which I get finished first...

Chaos Bikers (Part 5)

I have made vast progress on my chaos bikers since the last time. In particular I am focusing on the Black Legion bikers of this group. I made the hard decision to make 4 of these guys into Nurgle Bikers, which they originally were when I bought them. At least that's the plan for now. They are the ones that require the most work and clean-up to rebuild them into something less...crappy. The models you'll see in this post are the "generic" Black Legionaries whom, for the most part, are in decent enough shape for me to move on to painting.

Having said that, these Black Legion guys are still turning out to be quite a bit more work than I had anticipated...

For Khorne! 

This first guy is somewhat Khorne themed compared to the others. I will probably add some sort of iconography to show his alliance to the Hounds of Abbadon on him somewhere. He has a Khornate axe held in his right hand, the arm of which comes from a fantasy juggernaut-of-khorne kit. The plate on the front of the bike also comes from a plastic juggernaut. After how well I think the Khorne Aspiring Champion biker came out, it was tempting to just scrap the whole idea and just do them all up as berserkers on bikes, but reason held that impulse in check...

View from behind 

Here is the same model with a standard Black Legion biker.

Primed and base coated black.

I proceeded with base coating the brassy areas with Tin Bitz.

I was going to do these models in pairs but I was having fun with the unit so I decided to add two more models.

Here they are with mid-coats...

With the right amount of time and focus, the Black Legion scheme paints up fairly quick! I should get these guys finished soon. Hopefully.

I have also begun work on the chaos biker model that will become an Aspiring Champion of Nurgle, but I'll save those pics for a later post, as indeed, Project Nurgle will begin a whole new phase for my Chaos forces and I'm getting excited about starting it. More soon!

The Black Legion -unit one completed

At the onset of a week long vacation I focused on getting these guys finished...

The Black Legion in search of... something. 

The first two models that I did as test models back in December of 2015. I found as I was working the whole squad up totheir level, that their level itself needed to be raised so I added some more details, and performed some touch-ups.

This was one of the 1st two models. Added some more details and touch ups.

As above.

The rest of the models I started later and I have been jamming away on them since the last time I posted about them.

Kit-bashed chaos marine. 

Metal flamer model. 

Kit-bashed to serve chaos.

From the current $9.99 starter set.

Metal 2nd ed era plasma gunner. I tried a different painting technique with his antlers.

Also from the current starter set and also in the assassin game as well I think.

These models were fairly easy to work with and now that they are done I am pleased with the results. Next up I want to build and  paint an Aspiring Champion to lead them. I have also been flirting with the notion of getting them a rhino to zip around in.

The images that follow are basically these models standing in the moss of our backyard. 'Action shots' I suppose. Enjoy!

The Hounds of Abbadon on their own.

Working theit way uo hill, where the blood is at

The Black Legion on patrol.

A happy little unit.

As a personal note, a few days after I took these pics the forest behind my house caught on fire and dealing with that has consumed about 3 days of my vacation.

Fire bad!

 Now on my last day, as I type this, I am killing time waiting for Da Masta Cheef's wedding ceremony to Wolfie to begin. So go and wish them congrats if you can spare a moment!

A Good Friday...to die!

A few weeks ago I had friendly game with Jim and his Red Marines (i.e. Blood Angel but using the standard Space Marine Codex rules). It was a victory for my Orks. But Jim wanted a rematch, and orks being orks I had no choice but to accept this foolish request. Besides, my warboss, Ror-Ruk, was still seething over that Whirlwind escaping his wrath in our last game...

"Sod da reluc, bring me to dat tank!"

This took place on Good Friday (thus the title of this post) and met at Hobbytown and set up a table. I rolled for corner deployment and the mission that we rolled up was The Relic. We ended up using the same lists as last time, only I decided to tweek my list. So I dropped the Painboy and Grot mob for a 2nd level psyker. I thought this might be a good chance to play around with, and teach Jim some more of, the psyker rules.

We rolled off for who sets up first and I won that roll.

Red Marine deployment. 

Ork deployment.

I should have realized that Jim must have made some fresh sacrifices to the Dice Gods when he stole the initiative! He immediately went for blood and dumped his first shots into the trukk carrying the Warboss.

"That xenos bastard again?! Blast him!!!"

After a half his army dumped round after round into the trukk, it exploded violently.

"Dey blew up me ride!"

Not content on getting the First Blood Secondary Objective, the Red Marines really wanted Slay the Warlord as well. The other half of his army continued to unleash into Ror-Ruk's unit until only the Warboss and a single boy remained alive.

"I don't care if youse only got 'aff ah body, git up and fight!"

On my 1st turn I moved my 2nd trukk into position to attempt to get within reach of the relic, and managed to killed 4 marines  with the Frazzle psychic power. My kustom mega kannon actually hit and penetrated the Whirlwind and it blew the multilauncher off of it! A good round of ruckas I believe...

Another trukk bites the dust.

On the next round Jim renewed his assault on the orks. His lone routing marine rallied (And they shall no only enough fear to get out of a bad situation) and was hanging out with the Librarian's squad. The damaged whirlwind surged forward, it's only role is now provide cover or act as a tank shocking or ramming engine.  During the shooting phase only a few of the marine units targeted the Warboss, who did lose a wound, while the rest of marines opened up on the other ork trukk.

Turn 2, my warboss made his way towards the Whirlwind, it's demise is his top priority. My other ork unit is now pinned down as a result of their trukk exploding. Now this next bit gets tricky, and felt like a gray area of the rules, but it seemed legal at the time. I used the 'Ere we go power to extract the unit from the wreckage of the trukk, and attempted place them behind the main line of marines. We were not sure if this would "release" the squad from being pinned but, after I rolled for scatter...

....oops!

...then had to roll on the Deep Strike Scatter table. Luckily they weren't all destroyed, although that would have been a hilarious way for this game to go, but Jim  got to place my guys anywhere on the board. So he stuck them in a crater on the otherside of a ruined wall.

"Oy, iz dis where we wuz supposed ta go?!"

Meanwhile, my warboss engaged the Whirlwind and ripped through it like a piñata.

"WAAAGH!" -Pic by Jim

After taking a wound, and losing the last ork from his unit and killing a marine also as a result of the Whirlwind exploding, the Ror-Ruk was now dangerously exposed...

"Have some fire Xenos scum!"

...and the Librarian's pyro powers cooked him in the psychic phase, getting his vengeance for the last game!

Oops...again?!

On my psychic phase, I attempted to get my boyz with the warphead back into the fight. However when I cast 'ere we go I scattered again on the deep strike attempt landing on top of the lone marine who was in the process of picking up the relic!

Trying to take out my artillery, the Librarian and his unit got right up on the ruins but they failed in their endeavor.

Coming out of reserves at the bottom of turn 4, my boys and the Warphead showed up. My warphead, through the door of the ruins has line of sight to the marine that now had the relic...

...and summoning up a blast of psyker waaagh energy he attempted to blast him with Frazzle. I got the power to activate but the daemonic attack he suffered due to me rolling Perils of the Warp killed him. And then the power scattered and missed the relic carrying marine anyway!

On Jim's turn 5 he attempted a psychic power as well and also summoned the Perils and very nearly dragged his Librarian into the warp!!! He managed to fend off the daemonic entity and only lost a wound. But it was a very close call!

My last turn was an exercise in futility as I tried to get my boyz close enough to charge the relic, but they failed to do so and lost a boy due to overwatch! My artillery missed it's  target as well.


So, tallying up the VPs it was a totally clean sweep for the Red Marines who earned 6VPs to my 0VPs. Jim garned a long overdue win. My MVP was the Kustom Mega Kannon which actually performed for once and killed quite a few marines. And I learned that Orks and 7th ed psychics just don't mix.

Jim now also has a copy of the Blood Angels Codex so hopefully when next we met I won't half to report them as "Red Marines!"

Book Review: The Unforgiven

And finally, the Legacy of Caliban series ends with The Unforgiven by Gav Thorpe. This is book 3, offically, though I will strongly argue that it's really book 4 as the events in Angels of Darkness is really where this whole story kicks off. The Unforgiven is definitely were it all ends and very much comes full circle.

I will also say the same in regards to Gav's writing, which I must say is even better in this book as it was in the previous chapters. I would guess that he was really prepared for this one, knowing full well how it was all going to come together in the end. Perhaps he was working on bits of this since the beginning? Shy of asking him directly, it's tough to say, but regardless, the action is tighter, the descriptive text doesn't get lost in the minutiae, the characters are written in a far more solid way, and most importantly the plot actually moves!

OK, lets get to the meat of it...

++++++++++++++++++++++++++POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD!+++++++++++++++++++

I would hope you wouldn't read the review for the 3rd (or 4th) book without reading the others, but hey, you've been warned.

OK, at the end of Master of Sanctity, the 2nd (or 3rd) book in this series, the Ravenwing caught a very prominent member of the Fallen (likely he's the one you know by name). We see them try to figure out the greater scheme of what is happening, why this Fallen would surrender to them, kill another member of the Fallen, why he would lie to them or tell them the truth.

While the first 1/3 of the book deals with the aftermath of The Master of Sanctity, and attempted torture (or as the Dark Angels call it, "excruciation") of the captured Fallen, the rest of book shifts quite firmly to being about Azrael, the Dark Angels Supreme Grandmaster as he attempts to sort out all these plots within plots in order to guide the Dark Angels to their salvation, or at least to their survival.

Highlights for me had to be the Chaos attack on the Rock, the asteroid fortress monastery of the Dark Angels. I never visualized that there was more land mass to the rock as Gav described it, but it made sense to me and it made for a hell of a crazy read. The return to the original site of Caliban was very interesting, and every chapter thereafter made for exciting and riveting read. Telemenus's internment into a dreadnought was good reading as well, and I like that he get's his revenge upon the Great Unclean One that led to his condition.

• Did I like it? Very Much so, it exceeded my expectations, and it did a splendid job capping off the whole story arc. 
• Was it hard to put down? Yes, more so when you get past the half way mark of the book, but even the quieter scenes in the early half of the book were paced better than the previous books were. 
• Could I care about the characters? Yes. Especially Telemenus, and the characters that appear in the 40K game, but the fate of the captured Fallen Angel in particular was quite a hook. As I said above, this book really shines the spotlight most on Azrael toward the end of the book and it's his choices that make the events happen the way they happen. The redemption of Annael was very well written as well, as he has to come to terms with why his decision to not follow an order was an irredeemable mistake. 
• Did the writer truly grasp how the 'world' of the 41st millennium works in the sense that it doesn't betray or retcon previously established (as I know it) lore? I would say Gav is just as big a fan boy of these characters as anyone else that would care about them, and he does a good job here making it all work. If anything he answers questions, or a least doubts, that players have been debating about on forums since the 2nd edition Codex: Angels of Death, and why this whole thing is called The Legacy of Caliban will not only blow your mind, it might even satisfy some of your earlier doubt about the Lion and Luthor's final fight. Or, you might say, "WTF?" and toss the book on the ground. It was a risky twist, one that if not handled well could have cheapened the whole Dark Angels franchise, but I feel Gav pull it off and pulled it off well. 
• Was I being talked down too? No, and if anything Gav's 2nd person voice has definitely grown to be written in a tone that isn't distracting to the events that you are reading. His pacing has improved since Ravenwing (the 1st, or 2nd, book) as well, and although there is a ton of fighting and warfare in this book, it doesn't feel like warporn, as much of Ravenwing unfortunately did. 
• How predictable is this story? Not too predictable really, Honestly, that's part of what made it so compelling, as the story had many opportunities to turn in many directions. It left some questions unanswered, which is fine as the Dark Angels are mystery even to themselves, and a little ambiguity keeps the reader hungry. 
• Do I recommend this book? Yes, but I suggest taking it all in as a whole, and you can read the whole thing in this collection the Legacy of Caliban-ebook. ...Although it doesn't appear to have Angels of Darkness in it which is essential reading if you're going to read this at all.