NetEpic Armeggedon learning game. Marines vs Guard

 On Friday I finally got a chance to try Epic warhammer (technically the netepic rules, which are living rule updates of the epic armeggedon ruleset with is....4th edition of epic?). I have wanted to play this for a long time, and owned the rules at one point, but couldn't quite understand how to set up and win a game. Turns out I'm not an idiot, it wasn't really in the base rulebook and came out later with a tournament back. 

Graham hosted an intro game for Nick, Peter and myself. I took one side and Nick and Paul took the other side. Each sides was two 1000 pt forces, so it worked out well. A 'normal' game is 3 or 4k, and Graham intentionally omitted the more advance things (like indirect fire, and airplanes, teleportation, etc).

I had space marines (blood angels in red and ultramarines in blue). In hindsight my troops were a bit mobility challenged as the infantry blobs had smaller stomp walkers(dreadnoughts) that couldn't go as fast as their transports. Definitely a frustration for me during the game. Opposing force was imperial guard which get lots and lots of tanks, big tanks, and mechanized infantry. And super long range  tank killers. 

 

 

It's a bit hard to describe a play by play as it runs with alternating activations. You often only play to the end of turn 3 and the victory conditions give a clear winner. Victory points are based around control of objectives (placed by both sides in the beginning), as well as breaking your opponents most potent/expensive unit, and racing to seize the objective on the opponents baseline.

 

 

My tanks (landraiders) were able to rush forward and seriously mess up Petes mech infantry advance (note to self, always debuss the infantry). Unfortunately Pete's highly effective and long range tank killer unit then proceeded to remove 2 of my 4 tanks. My rolling was pretty abysmal, so even 3+ and 4+ saves weren't doing much for me. In that I had good company as Nick and Pete suffered from bad rolls most of the game as well. 

 

Nick was able to aggressively rush some of my high mobility, short range land speeders (skimmer units) and almost destroy them. This pretty much removed any chance I had at scooping his objectives in the back field. 

I suspect I eked out the win largely based on my objective placement and close attention to controlling them. I played flames of war for a while and it's all objectives so perhaps I was a bit more attuned to the principles. I remember in May running an adeptus titanicus game where the losing side pretty much forgot to contest an objective....it was a bit surprising but probably shouldn't be. If you aren't used to living and dying (winning and losing) base on objectives and are more attuned to blasting your opponent off the table and can see how it could happen.

6MMRPC: Week 20 - Necromunda Gangers /Gorkamorka diggas

These two fellas sat on the tray half finished for quite some time. I've been quite ADD about what to work on lately, and the productivity is still pretty desultory. I did however managed to finish these guys off.



I figured they would make good stand additions to forces I can use for necromunda type games. To that end I wanted them dirty, and I figured some tattoos would be fun to break up the skin. I'm still not super happy with my skin tones, but they are a great improvement on my russian artillery men painted near the beginning of the challenge (5 months ago!). I considered using my special rust effects paint on their weapons, but decided that of anything they had, the weapons were the most likely to stay in 'fighting trim'.




I also used the opportunity to base each in a different style. That way I'll be able to finish up my few posts on the different ways I base figs. Maybe I'll choose the one I like best and return to it.

40K Killteam. Cult vs Marines. December meetup part 2.

Up in Squamish I faced off against a small elite force of dark angels. No doubt sent to investigate the late tithes to the imperium, the space marines ended up being misdirected into a ruined town (the original site of the infection perhaps?). The marines finding themselves surrounded pulled together for a break out mission, needing to reach the far corner of the table, while whittling down their attackers. I noted that the entire table was sporting painted and finished models and terrain. A rarity for myself and my game crew, so this was a sweet treat.

The marines set up first in the far corner, while the cult set up second, deploying in a broad crescent. Had I thought better about this, and read the mission criteria, I would have realized this was a big mistake. The marines could have attempted to destroy me in detail to force a bottle/run away check. Instead they stayed close together and pushed toward the other corner. This was a decent plan because as soon as they got close, I'd instant lose if I'd lost a 1/4 of my troops. Considering the quality of the lion share of my cultists (and their paper thin armor), this wouldn't be hard to achieve.

It's obvious from the odd light that this is the waning hours of the day. The marines have spent the daylight hours uncovering evidence of the presence of the insidious genestealer foe. Already it is too late and the marines realize that night is when they strike.......








Turn 2: The marines have advanced to the edge of the first building. To the right the least useful cultist group is moving around to flank them. They are at risk of being outrun. Towards the centre the cultists are set up to burst through the treeline and subject the marines to some short range gunfire.

The marines were constantly frustrated by pour dice rolls, and hot dice by the cult. The kill team also allows the wonderful 'hide' rule from necromunda, which allows you to hug terrain and not shoot and be unshootable. This only works till they are about 6 or 9" away (I forget). So aggressive maneuvering can remove hidden status. A single cult member had a weapon that is a marine bane, a plasma gun, and was sniping away steadily from the vent. To the left we can see the lone plasma gunner hiding to the bottom right of the ruins. .

The marines continued to advance, while the genestealers hopped from cover to cover. These genestealers will be late to the party as their advance is across fairly open terrain. They instead move in a zig zag pattern wasting time to close.








Turn 3. The marines move up to the far edge of the ruins. The cultists in the centre burst through the trees to drop two flamer templates and a couple of shots on the clustered marines. Only one marine succumbs, but amusingly a few are set on fire.....including their leader in terminator armor. Note to leaders, close up that faceplate/helmet before the fire fight starts!

Another angle on the flamer rush by the cultists. They truly are dead men standing out in the open like that, but they will attract vengeance/gunfire for at least a turn while the real threat continues their advance.









 To the Right we see the marines continued to move forward and smashed the cultists (except for the super lucky fellow on the hill). In return the first wave of stealers rush forward eating a few terminators.

The leader has survived (and still on fire!). Wave 2 of stealers can be seen on the left of the ruins about to hop the walls and charge in. The stealers (except for the aged and stiff patriarch) can freely move over terrain without being slowed down. They also have a better save when terrain obscures them. This was pretty key.

The end is nigh as the stealers swarm small groups of marines, largely paired up to avoid the risk of overwatch fire. In the new rules, models pop off a final shot against chargers, hitting on a 6. This definitely seems like something lifted from flames of war, but it is definitely a wise thing to add. It makes it more dicey to be close combat oriented, and (apparently) there has been a real shift towards gunfire, and highly dedicated assault units (rather than everyone charging in).



Gory photos to follow......

Kudos to my opponent Kevin, who had good grace during game play with horrible dice luck. A pleasurable game to end the year with.

40k Kill team. Genestealer Cult. December meet up part 1

I went to highschool in a small town of 15,000 about an hour out of the city I live in now. While the town has changed a lot and many people have moved out, a number of us occasionally take a trip up the windy highway for some gaming and hanging out with high school friends. One friend was out from the East coast (handily avoiding the worst of the power outages) after about 3 years of absence.

I managed to squeeze in 2 games of (heralds of Ruin) killteam. A en-small-ized version of 40k.  In many sense it reminds me of necromunda, a game that I had tons of fun with for many years. The focus is narrowed down to individuals, rather than squads, and true line of sight determines what you can shoot at. The over the top units and models are largely thinned out of the game allowing for some interesting narrative to come out purely based on mooks lucky antics.

Speaking of Necromunda, I ended up pulling together a genestealer cult force, using my cawdor models as the rank and file cultists, and some original space hulk genestealers.  My only lack was the leader.....it would appear that I have sold off the old magnus model I had, but I did manage to hold onto a patriarch. I managed to bash out the painting in an evening.....it helped that I had a color scheme already and was painting to match my other stealers. I have to say I was totally chuffed to be fielding a fully painted force. It also helped starting play knowing that my army sucked and was unlikely to win.....any win is pure victory!


 Given the limitations of my models available, and general ideas of fluff for the cult, I ended up fielding the maximum number of genestealers (6), and three 5-man 'squads' of cultists. This ended up being a fairly high model count for this game, but of course my guys where total mooks and went down hard to anything stronger than a just of wind. The major saving grace is the ability to 'hide' in this system; by forgoing shooting you can't be targeted by your enemies unless they close to within 6 (or 9?) inches.



The crimson zealots where my original necromunda gang. They are classic cawdor models, filled out with some old confrontation (The GW, not french version), and frateris militia (1st ed sisters of battle) converted with green stuff.

2 of the squads were armed with lasguns, autoguns, shotguns and a flamer each (read: crap, crap, so so and decent).










The last squad was my 'crack' suicide squad (think monty python 'Life of Bryan), and they were armed with an armor cracking grenade (of course I thought that they were armed with lots of grenades.....not just one), and one plasma gun. Obviously a coveted relic, as it's the only weapon that can defeat the prevalent power armour saves I expected to encounter.





 Next up, we'll see how my xenos loving scum fare against the defenders of humanity.

Lamenters: Decisions Decisions.... (2)

Originally posted in December on my other blog I've ported this one over.

I'm consolidating my blogs so I've ported this one over....

I'm trying to decide how to finish off my lamenters. These chaps are largely complete......It's simply a matter of deciding what colour to do on their shoulder pad trim. I'm also willing to try over suggested colours.

Right to Left
1/. Currently the base colour doesn't seem to pop enough. I've had the comment that the mini look unfinished.
2/. The gold is very similar and is hard to recognize as much different from the base colour. Perhaps the subtlety is good? Looks similar but there is a contrast? Not sure on this one.

3/. The white is alright. It pops. The checks still look good with it. This is an ivory, I may dirty it up a bit by doing a grey underneath and highlighting up to white. 

4/. The red also pops and looks good. It matches with the red line on the helmet. I'd prefer to dirty this one up a bit as well. I'd need to buy another red (darker) so i can highlight up to the blood red that is here.




5/. The black I don't particularly like as it detracts from the checker pattern. 










 The boys all lined up for comparison. All pictures should go much larger if you open as a new window.

I *may* also change the colour of the cover on the bolter to a khaki/tan type thing. Alternatively the bolter cover could match the shoulder pad trim.Comments highly solicited.


Here are the replies in the Comments (I received some others verbally and via email)

1/.
I did what I always do when I have a colour conundrum, which is ask Grace. She thinks the gold trim is best, but she also says that the other shoulder pad should be dark green.

For me, I like the gold and red options. The white is most contrasty, but I don't know if it works as well with the rest of the minis.

2/. Model with Red trim stands out the best IMO. Do not use Green on anything with Red, unless you are confident you can avoid the Christmas Colour Conundrum.

One Green Shoulder might look good with the Gold trim. I do like the Gold trim, but it unless you highlight your model more its going to blend in and look plain.

White is a poor trim to use on the Check pattern Red, Green, Blue or Yellow would be better.

In all cases use highlights to pick out any details that might blend in and not stand out. With painting minis I find there two classes. Tabletop and Collector. Models can be awesome in tabletop quality, but they tend to not be as awesome when looked at from about 10 inches or so. Collector Generally is good under close examination but fails to be impressive on the table unless great care is taken to make it pop.

I like your scheme with the red and the one with the gold. Red will pop on the table the Gold will look great with some extra effort and look nice under closer examination.

All IMO of course.

Lamenters: The story so far... (1)

The lamenters have been an on again off again project (like most of my projects).  I've had warhammer 40k marines for a while now, but was stumped on what chapter to do. I was going to do the mortifactors....

I planned on using bits from the legion of the damned, and plastic skeletons but finally decided against it when the price went through the sky and Bell of Lost souls did their Horus Heresy supplement. I divested myself of a lot of the bits and moved on...

I then thought I'd work a heresy force. I was tempted by the Luna wolves...but they switch paint schemes over to the sons of horus later. Also the difficulty in sourcing the beaky helmets and studded shoulder pads or the sheer amount of time to scratch build the amount you needed was a bit overwhelming. The moment passed. I divested myself of more bits....

Finally with the arrival of space hulk I decided on lamenters.

I hope my forces look even a fraction as good...

I remember staring at this pic and it didn't grab me, not until I saw some painted models did I fall in love with the Lamenters.

They are a successor chapter of the blood angels and I figured there wouldn't be many people who painted their space hulk figs this way. Well....not many but there are a few now.

Still, the lamenters are pretty cool in a doomed way. I first encountered them when I had advanced space crusade and they are one of the two chapters (the other the scythes of the emperor) to first encounter the galactic invasion (and almost totally wiped out).

While the Scythes were pretty cool the fluff has them reduced to a handful (literally less than 10 guys) of troops and some rescued gene seed fleeing ahead of the hive fleet to warn the imperium. I'd prefer something with a bit more numbers.....and more fluff. The lamenters are also participants (and villains of a type) in the Badab war. Bell of lost souls did a pretty wicked mini codex on the same (back when they were churning out original content rather then endless netlist analysis). I might even paint up my BFG ships someday for the lamenters. 

I've decided there are a number of miniatures an individual HAS to paint in this life. Marines are one of them (Orcs, dwarves, a dragon, elves, an a figure to represent a rpg character are a number of other ones I've come up with). This will be the start of a series documenting the growth of the lamenters.