Lead Legion Bloodbowl League: Session 2

Last Sunday saw two new teams join us the Lead Legion Bloodbowl League: Dark Elf team the Naggaroth Numpties and a second Human Team, the Middenheim Wolves.

Stirland Dockers vs Goutfoot's Ogres:

Game 3 saw my much reduced Stirland Dockers team take on the as yet undefeated Goutfoot's Ogres. I was missing a catcher and a linesman due to injuries inflicted by the Komodo Killers, in my second game of the first session. This meant I was going up against the Ogres with no reserves and no sacrificial journeymen. This was going to hurt. Fortunately I was able to hire on a wandering apothecary to supplement my team apothecary for the game, as well as additional re roll.

Things started badly, and did not get much better. By turn 2 I was down to seven players. I would not have more than seven on the board from now til the rest of the game (with the exception of the first turn on the second half, when I had eight). My plan had been to pound his snotlings into the ground, but Gordon managed to screen them with his Ogres horribly well. I only managed to knock out two in the whole game. To everyones' surprise -not least my own- I managed to score first after forcing a ball-carrying snotling into the crowd. The ball was thrown-in right at the feet of a human Blitzer deep in the Ogre's second half, who'd been left unmarked while he recovered from being stunned.

My Knockout Box at the end of turn 2.

On my next turn (last turn of the half) the Blitzer stood up and walked the ball in for a touchdown. But even when I was 1-0 up, I knew I was still losing. I set up my eight guys to receive at the beginning of the second half, only to see the Ogres win a blitz. So it was that at the end of the blitz turn, a thrown snotling was carrying the ball one square away from my end zone. With the Sidestep skill and Dodge.

Bugger. My only action of my first turn was to blitz the little git with a Catcher, preying for a down result, knowing that anything else other than a both down would result in Gordon scoring on my first turn of the second half. I rolled the dice....

Jammy!

Both down!

I punched the air, stunned his snotling and only knocked over my Catcher. I was able to hold him off for another two turns before I made a stupid, stupid error which allowed him to score.

I set up to receive again. He got another blitz.

I cried. Gordon laughed. He surrounded my five Blitzers and linemen with Ogres, leaving only a Thrower and Catcher unmarked and able to manoeuvre. It took Gordon until his last turn, but with most of my team locked down tight by six ogres (including one with Guard and two with Block!) he was able to swarm my last two players with Snotlings and secure the win at 2-1.

Fortunately, I didn't have to use my Apothecary -or my mercenary one for that matter. All three casualties only missed the remainder of the game, and were free to play in my Game 4.

Stirland Dockers vs Elfheim Eagles.

My 4th game was against Andy and his Elf team. Andy's had atrocious luck all tournament and, although this was Game 4 for both of us, Andy had only just recovered from some early losses of players. Even so, we went into this with nearly identical team ratings and the same number of star players.

Elfheim Eagles.

Unfortunately for Andy, he had atrociously bad dice rolls. He player very aggressively, constantly sending players into my half at the expense of weakening his line, allowing me to blitz his ball carrier time and again to steal the ball and score while he was the receiving team. The deep penetration gambit did pay off for him once, in the last turn of the second half, but by then I was already 2-1 up. On three separate occasions he managed to wrest the ball from my Catchers deep in his half and go for a long bomb, only to see one of my players successfully intercept, needing a six each time (see what I mean about Andy's luck).

The Eagles Penetrate the Stirland line but look at the two human players furthest away on the human left flank. The Standing Blitzer has Strip Ball and is about to take down the ball-carrying Elf Thrower so the Catcher can zip in and claim the ball. On the human right, a Catcher and Blitzer will mark the two Elf players in front of them while the second Blitzer on the flank zips in to threaten his line of scrimmage from the rear.

In the end, we finished 4-1, with Andy only a turn away from scoring. Fortunately, none of his casualties took permanent injuries, but with only ten men (at most) on the field from turn 2 he really struggled to send enough players into my half to tie down my defencive thrower and catchers and at the same time keep my Blitzers from pounding down his flanks. Man of the match for me was Number 6, who'd earned his first skill (Strip Ball) in Game 3 against the Ogres. He started the game on 6 Star Player Points and went on to score a touchdown, an interception AND win the randomly allocated MVP award to earn his second skill in two games (Tackle).

So all in all, a rather good weekend for me. No deaths or mangled players facing the Ogres and a very solid win against the Elves.

The Other Matches:

Sunday saw a lot of blitzes: 6 blitzes in 6 games. Four of these blitzes happened in succeeding plays in two games, meaning that my Stirland Dockers and Doug's Pesky Plaguerats both had to defend against two blitz plays in a row.

Middenheim Wolves vs Gouged Eye 1-0

The Gouged Eye

The Gouged Eye, recently reformed after their mauling in month, found themselves up against a human team. The Orcs almost managed to equalise, with their ball-carrier just one square away from equalising at the end of Turn 15. Rather than risking a second go for it, he gambled that a human Blitzer, who would need two go for it's to reach him, wouldn't be able to take down his ball-carrier on a one dice block. The gamble didn't pay off. 1 nil to the humans.

Elfheim Eagles vs the Pesky Plaguerats 2-2

A good, close, tight match that could have gone either way. The Eagles were lucky enough to win two Blitzes in a row against in the Skaven, but, with the help a Star Player Gutter Runner with a movement of 10, Doug was able to claw back victory from the jaws of defeat.

The Hard Knockers vs Naggaroth Numpties  2-1

Don't mess with a red head.

Once again the Dwarf girls proved themselves some of the hardest players in the League, inflicting three casualties on the rookie Dark Elf team, killing one Blitzer and leaving two other players (including a second Blitzer) with permanent injuries. The Dark Elf coach was heard to mutter something about selling his useless players to the shrine Khaine and using the resultant funds to hire somebody competent.

 Komodo Killers vs the Pesky Plaguerats 3-1

The Killer's grabbed the Plaguerats by the throat from turn 1 and proceeded to pound them into the ground, inflicting two casualties and scoring three touchdowns against the Rats. The Plague rats were able to come back to score a touchdown of their own

Here's the League Table at the end of Session Two:

The Next 40K Project: Tau Gue"Vesa Army

Now that I have ( more or less) finished assembling  (but not painting) a 1500pt Traitor Guard Force it's becoming time to think about my next themed-army. Like many gamers, I like to have multiple armies on hand for the prospect of pick-up games when friends come to visit. Additionally, because I sold my Space Marine to acquire my Guard, I can't help but feel that I'm having to rush the army with regards to painting and modelling. This is leaving something of an unpleasant taste in my mouth, so, for my next project, I plan on taking things much more slowly. Something I'll have the luxury of doing given that I'll already have a painted and assembled Guard Force to play while I slowly buy, assemble and paint a new Army.

So what am I going for?

Why, Tau.

Okay, now that you've had time to pick your jaw up off the floor, you're probably wondering why I'm picking a army that uses a 4th ed Codex and, like the 4th ed Elder Codex, suffers from point's efficiency in 5th ed. It also includes a lot of units that just aren't viable in 5th ed games and, frankly, being such a shooty list, often completely fails to dominate mid-table.

Here's why:

I think they're kinda cool. I'm hoping that by the time I've finished slowly assembling my force (I plan on buying and painting a Kill Point a month) there might hopefully be a new Codex on the way that addresses some of the army's many issues.

Even more so, the tau present a really cool modelling opportunity:

Tau Humans.

Basically, I want to expand on the idea of auxiliary soldiers in Tau armies first suggested in Imperial Armour 3 by creating an entire army themed around the idea of a  Gue'Vesa ("human helper") cadre, equipped with Tau weapons and equipment, but using Tau stats. Unfortunately, due to how crap Tau Fire Warrior's are, chances are good that the majority of the actual infantry will be Kroot. But I can still convert my six man Fire warrior teams and Pathfinder teams to have human legs and boots, and perhaps even have a Crisis pilot or two who has removed their helmet. Hopefully, by the time the 6th ed tau codex comes out, Fire Warriors won't be so crap anymore and I'll be able to add some more human fire-warriors to the list.

For now, here's my proposed (and very expensive) Army List:

2000 Pts - Tau Empire Roster

1 Commander Shas'el @ 92 pts (Hard-wired Multi-tracker; Missile Pod; Plasma Rifle; Target Lock)

 3 Crisis Battlesuit @ 206 pts (Missile Pod; Plasma Rifle; Multi-Tracker)

 3 Crisis Battlesuit @ 206 pts (Missile Pod; Plasma Rifle; Multi-Tracker)

 3 Crisis Battlesuit @ 206 pts (Missile Pod; Plasma Rifle; Multi-Tracker)

10 Kroot Carnivores and 7 Kroot Hounds  @  132pts

10 Kroot Carnivores and 7 Kroot Hounds @ 132pts

 6 Fire Warrior and 1 Devilfish (Disruption Pod, Targetting Array) @ 150 pts

2 Piranha Light Skimmer @ 150 pts (Disruption Pod x2; Targeting Array x2; Fusion Blaster x2)
4 Gun Drones

2 Piranha Light Skimmer @ 150 pts (Disruption Pod x1; Target Lock x1,  Targeting Array x2; Fusion Blaster x2)
4 Gun Drones

6 Pathfinder @ 157 pts
1 Devilfish (Disruption Pod)

1 Hammerhead Gunship @ 175 pts (Railgun; Gun Drones; Disruption Pod; Multi-Tracker)
2 Gun Drones

1 Broadside Battlesuit @ 175 pts (Broadside Battlesuit; Shield Drone; Shield Drone; Drone Controller)
1 Broadside Battlesuit (Target Lock)
1 Shield Drone (Shield Generator)
1 Shield Drone (Shield Generator)

1 Broadside Battlesuit @ 175 pts (Broadside Battlesuit; Shield Drone; Shield Drone; Drone Controller)
1 Broadside Battlesuit (Target Lock)
1 Shield Drone (Shield Generator)
1 Shield Drone (Shield Generator)

Total Roster Cost: 2000 pts

Traitor Guard General: Work in Progress

My very good friend and gaming buddy, Inmygravenimage, has very kindly broke out the old Green stuff to make my Army General into something really special. Here's a link to his work on the DakkaDakka forums: Gallery. He's a stinky Grey Knight player but I'll forgive him because of the great work he's doing on my behalf - and because it's the first army he's managed to fully paint up. No doubt he'll be looking forward to kicking my lads back-sides all the way back to the Warp as soon as I have enough of them built and painted for a game (which we've scheduled for the 13th of June).

So far, Graven has added a Chaos Warrior cloak to my kit-bash and begun work on lengthening the mni at the waist to make him seem more imposing. Already I can see a huge improvement over my previous efforts and I'm really looking forward to seeing the finished result.

Here's that Work in Progress shot:

And a more recent shot of what he's up too since this first shot was taken:

Kill Point Challenge Weeks II and III

Here's my entries for week II and week III of Dark Future Game's 2012 Painting Challenge. The week II entry hasn't been posted up on their blog yet but look for it and the week III entry soon.

First up, we have the Leman Russ Demolisher, finished on the 11th of May and posted up on my painting service blog, Lead Legion Painting Service.

Speed Painted Leman Russ Demolisher.

Next, we have this weeks entry (which I'll email in to Dark Future Games tomorrow), my Platoon Command Squad.

Imperial Guard Command Squad Speed Paint.

For week 4's entry I'm planning on painting up my last two Sentinels, to finish off the squadron I began over a month ago now. Look for them in a few days.

The Stirland Dockers

Just thought I would share a few images of the Stirland Dockers, my human team in the Lead Legion Blood Bowl League. Again, as with most of my the miniatures I've painted for myself (rather than a customer) lately, these are speed paints. Not exactly my best work by any means.

Stirland Docker's Throwers and Blitzers

Stirland Dockers' Catchers

Stirland Dockers' Linesmen

40K Painting Challenge Entry: Traitor Guard Squad

Here's my photo-record of Week One's fully painted Kill Point for the Dark Future Games 2012 Painting Challenge: a squad of Traitor Guardsmen. I used Speed Painting techniques for these, so there not exactly my finest work. Ironically, because I spend 10-12 hours a day painting other people's miniatures, I don't have a great deal of free time to paint for myself (so picking a Guard Army probably wasn't my smartest move). Normally I paint for myself during my lunch-break, but these lads were painted on my day off. Just under three hours total painting time.

Here's the fluff: The 13th Maleguant regiment has only recently been corrupted by Chaos. The ordinary grunts are largely ignorant of the fact they've fallen into worshipping the Dark Powers, in the form of a Word-Bearer sponsored cult. Although you won't see many Aquila's or other symbols of Imperial might, these Guardsmen (local PDF troop's really) don't display overt signs of Corruption. Only a very few miniatures -such as the Army Commander and one or two Vet/Command Squad types- will actually wear any form of Chaos symbol. Essentially, I wanted maximum fluff playability for those these guys. If I'm playing Xenos or Chaos forces, then the battle is taking place either before, or just shortly after, their home ward rejects Imperial rule. If I'm playing against Imps, then the battle happens after the corruption of Maleguant has been discovered. As you've probably gathered, I like my fluff. While there will be some competitive elements in my army - Chimelta vets, Flamer-Demo vets and the like - there's a place for fluffy, bog-standard Imperial Guard Platoons as well.

These guys, for example.

The heads are from Westwind studio's. They're not all going to be blonde. To save time, I'll be painting each Kill Point with a different hair colour. I'll eventually mix the miniatures up into different squads when I have enough of them.

Warhammer 3rd ed: The Artesia Project

In the previous post, I talked about the versatility of 3rd edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle. It was my first love. The first war game rules I ever owned (though if I remember correctly, I'd played Blood Bowl, Space Marine and 40K long before I actually played my first WFB game). It's an extremely versatile system, and though the last thing I need right now is ANOTHER project, I've decided to resurrect the old Artesia project I've left in hibernation for years.

Essentially, I intend to create two armies representing the major factions of the Artesia universe as created by Mark Smythe. Well, that's what I'm telling myself to make the project seem less intimidating. What I'm actually talking about here is six, smaller (relatively speaking) armies that can be combined into two massive armies. On one side: Artesia and her Daradjans, the Middle Kingdoms and the Mercenary Forces allied to the Middle Kingdoms. On the other side: the Sultan's Army, The Dumeghal and The Islikid King Cyrus with his host of Demonic and Undead servants.

Modelling the Armies:

This will be a massive undertaking, which I expect will take many years to complete. Fortunately, I already own a great many of the miniatures I need for this project, which will bring together many of the diverse miniatures currently languishing in my great lead mountain.

Defenders of the Middle Kingdoms:

So far, my plan is to use the Perry Miniatures' War of the Roses  plastics  to form the bulk of the Daradjan, Mercenary and Middle Kingdoms armies. I already have these in my collection, so the initial outlay won't be too expensive. The plan is for the initial batch of Billmen, Crossbowman and Hackbutters to go into the Middle Kingdom's army (gunpowder exists in the Artesia universe, but doesn't feature much. However, as siege guns exist I can extrapolate that Hackbutts do too) while the Pikemen and Archers go into the Daradjan contingent. The plastic horsemen (not that I own any yet) will go into both factions. Note that the Mercenaries employed by Daradja will be included in the Daradjan faction, not the Mercenary faction.

The Middle Kingdom's contingent will be mostly later Hundred Year's War figures, most likely featuring another huge wad of Perry Miniatures. I'll only be doing very, very limited work on them for the time being, because they will be (beyond any shadow of a doubt) the  second most expensive sub-faction of the lot.

The Armies of the Phoenix Court:

The Sultan's Host, mostly late crusade/early Ottoman miniatures, has the dubious honour of being the most expensive as it will have twice as many points as either of it's two allied factions. In other words, it will be the biggest army in the project.

The Dumaghal will be interesting. They're knights in the service of evil. They're armour occupies a sort of mid-way point between classic full-plate and chaos-warrior baroqueness (but without the spikiness). I'll have to think long and hard about how to handle them.

Finally, the Islikids. My undead/demonic host. The Islikid himself I'll probably run as a WFB 3rd Lyche. His cannibal-undead (don't ask me to spell the setting's name for them) are described as ghouls, but given that they're intelligent, wield armour and weapons and are immune to non-magical weapons, I'll probably run them as Wights, give them a few levels of Shock Elite to make them decent fighters, and remove the instability rule. These guys will form the core of this small, but expensive army, accompanied by various mindless, ethereal or demonic nasties.

Multi-Faction Games:

So, in large games with all six factions present, the army organisation will look this:

Daradja and the Middle Kingdoms:

Middle Kingdoms (1,500 points), Daradjan Allies (1,500 points), Mercenary (1,000 points). The Daradjans will use the ally special  rules, the mercenaries will use mercenary special rules.

The Pheonix Court:

Sultan's Host (2,000 points), Islikids (1,000 points), Dumaghal (1,000 points). The Islikids and Dumaghal will use the allies special rules but will count as a single allied contingent rather than two separate ones.

Warhammer Fantasy Battle 3rd ed: A Primer

I love third ed Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Still do to this very day. It's great strengths, to me, have always been the magic system (before they brought out all that colour of magic rubbish) and the ability to create any darn army you like, armed how you like, allied to the hell you like.. How is this possible? Because, while recent additions of the game provide an Army list where the points for each figure is already worked out for you (to which you can add options), in WFB 3rd, you are given the mechanism's needed to create each unit itself. You know how much the model costs with just a hand weapon, you know much extra equipment costs to buy and you know how much it costs to improve his profile in a certain way. You want to field the Army of an evil human wizard complete with Orc, Goblin, Undead and Demonic servants all in the one Army? With WFB 3rd ed you can do it. You want pikemen in your Empire army. Go for it. The rules are all there.

[Added Later:
For an example about versatility: My current WFB 3rd ed Army uses War of the Roses figures from Perry Miniatures. It's designed to represent the combined forces of Daradja and the Middle Kingdoms from the Artesia comic books, with the addition of a smaller mercenary contingent based on the Lion Azure company from Mary Gentle's Ash.

The army general is Artesia herself, a level 25 wizard who wears heavy armour and is accompanied into battle by four bound ghosts and three good-aligned lesser demons. She carries a magical sword and wears Dragonscale armour. She's also one of the good guys, yet that combination of races (yet alone alignments) would be completely illegal and impossible to recreate/ in a later edition of Warhammer.]

It says a lot that, even now, twenty years on, there are gamers out there younger than the rules themselves who still prefer to play third ed. And not just for games in the Warhammer Old World either. I've seen these rules for Glen Cook's Black Company, Lord of the Rings, Sword of Shannara and just about every other fantasy series you can think of.

But don't take my word for it. Here's my (adopted) WFB 3rd ed Manifesto -as written by Zhu Bajiee if the most excellent blog, The Realm of  Bajiee . Go check out his blog to read up on the Oldhammer Contract, essentially a WFB 3rd ed Primer in the vein of the Old School Primer, and lots more incredible stuff.

40K Traitor Guard List.

Here's my current list for my Traitor Guard army. Not built to any particular plan, but basically because it's just about everything I have in my possession (with the exception of three Chimera's that I don't actually own yet).Only the Infantry Platoon, the Flamer Vets, the Stormtroopers, 1 Sentinel and the two Leman Russ have actually been built yet. The rest is in bits.

HQ

High Enunciator (Lord Commissar) Kreed: Power Sword and Melta Bombs : 85 points.

Troops:

Imperial Guard Platoon:

Command Squad: Officer , 4 Guardsmen with Grenade Launchers. Cost: 50points

Squad of ten guardsmen with Grenade Launcher: Cost: 55 points.

Squad of ten guardsmen with Grenade Launcher: Cost: 55 points.

Veteran Squad:
3 Vets have Flamers. Demolition Doctrine.  Chimera with Flamer Cost:170 points.

Veteran Squad:
3 Vets have Melta Gun. Chimera with Flamer. Cost: 155 points

Veteran Squad:
3 Vets have Melta Guns. Chimera with Flamer. Cost: 155 points

Veteran Squad: 

3 vets have Plasma Guns. Chimera with Flamer. Cost: 170 points.

Elites:

Storm Trooper Squad:
Sgt + 9 troopers. Sgt has Boltgun and plasma pistol, 1 Trooper has Plasma Gun.  Cost: 190 points.

Fast Attack:

Scout Sentinel Squadron: 3 Scout Sentinels with Autocannon cost:120points.

Support:

Leman Russ Demolisher with Lascannon: 180 points

Leman Russ Battletank with Lascannon and sponson Mounted Heavy Bolters. cost: 170 points.
 

Total Cost: 1,500 points.

Thoughts on Varients: 

• Replace Plasma Vets with Leman Russ Punisher with lascannon (195pts) and lose couple of Stormtrooper (7 points short of 1500)
• Reduce number of Stormtroopers and take a second Plasma Gun.

Thoughts on Additions to 2,000 pts:

Leman Russ Executioner with Lascannon: cost 205pts
Vanquisher + Lascannon+ heavy Stubber cost 180pts

Full Sanctioned Psyker Squad: 110 points

Need to Squadron up some Leman Russ. (probably Executioner and Demolisher).

40K Painting Challenge

Dark Future Games are running a 40K Painting Challenge over at their blog. Every week (from Wednesday to Wednesday) participants will paint a full kill points worth of miniatures and submit a photograph. Sounds like an excellent way to complete my Traitor Guard army before the release of sixth edition. So I've signed up for it.

This week's project: a squad of Imperial Guardsmen.