Hi all,
Bluddtoof here with a showcase of my recent additions to my space marine chapter; the Thunderbolts.
With the new codex came some tasty new formations; the one that really jumped out at me was the Strike Force Ultra.
I absolutely love terminators and dreadnoughts and with a special rule called Force of a thunderbolt it was an easy sell really!
I had a game planned with Doc a few weeks in advance so I wrote a 2k list including a Knight ally and ordered myself a stormraven; the only model I didn't own yet. I also needed to paint up an extra squad of terminators.
So here's a few pics of the stormraven and the completed army....
That's it for now, c and c welcome as always, next project is a scenery set for the group. Future post to come on that.
Bluddtoof
Showing posts with label Space Marines. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Space Marines. Show all posts
Wednesday 5 August 2015
Monday 18 May 2015
Showcase; Imperial Knight Errant Freeblade
Hi All
Here are some pictures of my completed (almost) Imperial Knight Errant Freeblade. I say almost because I've still got some weathering to do yet. He'll have a mix of snow, ice and icicles eventually. I'm waiting on delivery of some bits and bobs I've ordered to do that. Once they arrive and I get it done I'll post finished pictures.
Meanwhile here's pics of the finished paintjob....
As you can see I've added Thunderbolts iconography and colour to the right shoulder guard to signify the knights current allegiance, I'll maintain this across all my future knights, all of which will be freeblades. All my knights will represent freeblades who have been attracted to the forge world protected by my space marine chapter, The Thunderbolts, an Iron Hands successor chapter. You can find a great many posts about my Thunderbolts Chapter of Space Marines in this bogs' archives.
I'm well pleased, this was a major project for me; not the biggest model I've done, that would be my scratch built Big Mek Stompa, but by far the most detailed and complex on such a large scale. In comparison the Stompa has a much more basic finish with significantly less detail.
With regard to the new techniques I've tried, I'm pleased; the OSL behind the visor hasn't quite worked but it hasn't been the disaster it could have been, more practice needed on that. The base has worked really well and I'm now completely sold on the idea of putting as much effort into the base as the figure. My work on the Eldar Corsairs has reinforced that for me, see them here.
The freehand vines and thorns I like and am really pleased with; I'll be going back to my Hornet to do some freehand work on that as soon as I've decided on the iconography for the band.
I hope you like this, please feel free to give C and C as usual.
Bluddtoof
Here are some pictures of my completed (almost) Imperial Knight Errant Freeblade. I say almost because I've still got some weathering to do yet. He'll have a mix of snow, ice and icicles eventually. I'm waiting on delivery of some bits and bobs I've ordered to do that. Once they arrive and I get it done I'll post finished pictures.
Meanwhile here's pics of the finished paintjob....
As you can see I've added Thunderbolts iconography and colour to the right shoulder guard to signify the knights current allegiance, I'll maintain this across all my future knights, all of which will be freeblades. All my knights will represent freeblades who have been attracted to the forge world protected by my space marine chapter, The Thunderbolts, an Iron Hands successor chapter. You can find a great many posts about my Thunderbolts Chapter of Space Marines in this bogs' archives.
I'm well pleased, this was a major project for me; not the biggest model I've done, that would be my scratch built Big Mek Stompa, but by far the most detailed and complex on such a large scale. In comparison the Stompa has a much more basic finish with significantly less detail.
With regard to the new techniques I've tried, I'm pleased; the OSL behind the visor hasn't quite worked but it hasn't been the disaster it could have been, more practice needed on that. The base has worked really well and I'm now completely sold on the idea of putting as much effort into the base as the figure. My work on the Eldar Corsairs has reinforced that for me, see them here.
The freehand vines and thorns I like and am really pleased with; I'll be going back to my Hornet to do some freehand work on that as soon as I've decided on the iconography for the band.
I hope you like this, please feel free to give C and C as usual.
Bluddtoof
Monday 13 April 2015
Battle Report: Marines V Tyranids
This should
be my final one for a while. 4 games in 2 weeks, and now my wife is starting to
give me the look.....
This time I
am taking on Alex_H and his NIds. It has been a while since we had played and
this is our first 7th game.
We played
1500 points. I am a big fan of this value.
1.
It allows plenty of chat throughout the game and
still be finished at a sensible time. This game took 5 hours!
2.
Choices have to be made. At 1750 you can
generally get everything you want in your list, and 2000 you can take an extra
something a bit special that you have not used to see how it plays without
affecting your army too much. 1500 something has to give. You can’t have all
your fancy units and toys to play with. Some have to stay in the box
3.
There is so many rules to remember in 7th
and trying to keep track of what is going on you need to keep it as simple as
possible.
I had chosen
3 lists initially so I could choose which to take at the time. The first was
based on my unbound terminator list from a few games back. This time I used the
Dark Angels codex with Belial, a librarian, 5 DW Knights, 2*5 DW and 1*10 DW.
It looked good and if I was playing the emperors will missions then I think
would have had a chance, but playing Maelstrom I did not have enough units or
manoeuvrability to cover the board. Also I had no flyer protection (in
hindsight I may have worried about that too much).
The next 2
lists were basically the same. The main change was terminators for stern guard.
Here is the list I settled on:
Chapter
Tactics: Imperial Fists
- Librarian level 1 Telepathy
- 9 Sternguard in a pod with PF and 4 combi-grav guns
- 10 tacts in rhino flamer missile
- 10 tacts in rhino flamer missile and veteran
- 10 scouts with Camo Cloaks and sniper rifles and missile
- Whirlwind
- Landspeeder typhoon
- Stormtalon with skyhammer missiles
- Thunderfire
- 10 devastators with 3 missile and 1 lascannon
Winged Hive
Tyrant
Winged Hive
TyrantVenomthrope
Exotrine
Harpy
Mawloc
4 Zonethropes with a Nuerothrope (sp?)
4 Zonethropes
2 Spores
As you can
see the basic minimal troop choices, and they don’t even have objective
secured! I was not really expecting such a small force. When I think of nids I
normally think loads of gribbly stuff supported by some fancy big stuff.
As Alex and
I had played a few game recently we decided on a mission neither of us had
played, Maelstrom 4. This had an interesting twist where both you and your
opponent can claim tactical objective “secure objective X” when they are in
your hand! The newer codexes will be at a slight advantage here as they only
have 12 of those and 24 other ones where using the one from the books there rae
18 “Secure Object X” cards. As we both have an older codex it levelled out.
Again I am
not going to give a turn by turn report, but here are some of the main
highlights.
·
I set up with the heavy stuff at the back. The
idea was for the scouts to infiltrate up field and the 2 tactical squads (the
assault half) would get forward for objectives on the other side.
·
I was interested to see how the whirlwind would perform
as I had not used one. It would have been ok against a horde list but against
this high armour/inv save list it was pretty poor. Will I still get the
model.....probably
·
Initially forgetting about the sternguard! But
when they came on they were OK. Helped kill a squad of zonethropes for first
blood. There second round of shooting against the Exotrine with only 2 wounds
left....5 grav gun wound and he made all 5 of his 5+ cover saves!
·
The librarian was poor but a cheap HQ choice. I
am not sure what other option a marine player has. The others are more points,
and a captain needs even more points to make him useful. The librarian did get
shrouding off once but failed a perils test, and eventually died. He is a bit
of a soft VP for slay the warlord and also some of the tactical objectives
require you to kill the warlord and offer D3. In the turn he died he gave up
3VPs.
·
I worried too much about the spores. They
couldn’t get objectives and worst of all they didn’t give up any VP’s killing
it first did not get me first blood.
·
Again the lack of solid mobile units, objective
secured or not, was my opponent’s downfall. He bunched in one corner and all I
had to do was bombard him. He could not go and get the other 4-5 objectives. I
had enough stuff to cover lots of area and on turn 4 I controlled every
objective on the board. I was picking up objectives on both of our turns. It
could be said I had reasonable luck in
getting the objectives, but I generally covered 4-5 of them in most turns.
·
The legendary deathstar units are a thing of the
past at 1500pts. I can’t see how you can justify 450pts, for something like a
land raider and a squad of assault terminators (about a 1/3rd of
your army) and still have enough stuff to get everywhere. Edit: my sternguard
and librarian were 372pts!
·
The internet whinge about a lot of things! I was
out gunned 8-1 in psychic phase. Did anything horrible happen in the psychic
phase, no it didn’t? Power went off, powers failed, powers were nullified. Even
rolling 3 dice for a warp charge one was failing. Additionally he got half of
the charges from the zonethopes who used up a lot of points that could have
been spent on other things.
·
The final score was 17-4 at the end of turn 4
where Alex conceded. His flyers were bombing around causing problems but
nothing else was on the board. The flyers would have had to land to get the
objectives when my fire power should have been enough to sort them out
·
Net lists are they any good. Alex played a
strong net list that is doing the rounds. I think it would have been ok in the
emperors will games. KP wise at the end I was 5-5. If we had carried on playing
I had a lot of easy KPs that his flyers could have dealt with, but his
venomthrope was about to go splay and his mawloc had one wound left.
The aim of
the game should not be to build a list that will be rock to your opponent’s
scissors. I think the missions have produced a good levelling effect for this.
Will we see the deathstar unit again? Yes, but not at 1500 and maybe not even
1750.
Pictures:
Setup-
Turn 2:
The End:
Wednesday 8 April 2015
Battle Report: Marines V Eldar
I am certainly getting good use out of my games board and scenery. Over the Easter weekend my dad came down with his steadily growing Eldar army.
He has only been collecting for about 1 year and has managed to get a fair bit of stuff. I recently purchased a job lot on Warseer for about 50% of cost which really boosted his collection
As this was his first game of 7th we kept the points low (1500)
His list (CAD)
Autarch
Spiritseer
4 dire avengers + exarch
4 fire dragons + exarch
5 Scorpians + exarch
10 Guardians
10 Guardians + missile launcher
10 Guardians + missile launcher
2 falcons
5 wraithguard in a wave serpent
My list was a pretty standard battle company (well as much as I could fit in)
Chapter Tactics: Ultramarines
Librarian in terminator armour
5 terminators with CML
10 tacts in rhino flamer missile
10 tacts in rhino plasmagun/cannon and pistol
5 scouts in a storm
Dakka predator
Landspeeder typhoon
10 Assault marines 2 flamers and a plasma pistol power sword
10 devastators with 3 missile and 1 lascannon
the army (without typhoon)
I tried to field a bit of everything as this was one of his first games and he still learning the rules. This would allow him to face most stuff and get an understanding of what he would be facing. We agreed no flyers as he did not have any.
We rolled for the mission and it was the escalation objective missions. Turn 1 – 1 objective, turn 2 – 2 objectives and so on.
Again I am not going to give a turn by turn report, but here are some of the main highlights.
• Forgetting I had a typhoon until turn 2, which it then stayed in reserves until turn 4! I could have done with it as in trying to get first blood I had a falcon left on 1HP and 2 missiles could have killed it.
• Forgetting about Chapter tactics: Ultramarines are not a permanent force “buff”. You have 3 doctrines to use throughout the game
• 1 round of shooting from a guardian squad taking out my terminators and librarian (turn 2)
• Spirit Seer psychic checks. Turn 1 perils looses a power, turn 2 perils rolls 6, turn 3 fails to cast warp charge 1 with 3 dice, turn 4 perils rolls 6 turn 5 perils rolls 6, turn 6 fails to cast with 3 dice.
• Scouts and storm were rubbish again (punishment for scouts not being painted and using a stand in model for storm?), combi melta failed to hit the falcon, storm gave up a VP for first blood.
This is now the second game in a row where my marines did not do anything great. They did a lot of nothing really. But yet again their versatility pulled off an unlikely win. At the end of turn 2 I was 7-2 down and had just lost my terminators and warlord about a 5th of the army, and yet after that my dad failed to score a VP despite getting more cards. We did manipulate the objective cards once or twice, blowing up a building and destroying a flyer we got rid of. Generally I say we play the deck and tough if you get a duff card, but that is the luck of the draw. In the end I won 16-7.
It was an interesting game where again sticking to plans and focusing on the objectives in hand were key to what I did. We tried to do that with my dad’s game plan too, but the elder just don’t have the versatility that marines do (when you are playing a non spammy list)
Pictures:
setup
Striking Scorpions (painted by my brother as a present for my dad)
I see you
What is this snap fire rule........
I survived being hit bu teh aurtach in a challenge.......I hit back and all 3 attacks with teh power fist hit. 2's to kill........
Pictures towards the end of the game
Final positions
I have one more game tonight and then I will be back on expanding the chapter
He has only been collecting for about 1 year and has managed to get a fair bit of stuff. I recently purchased a job lot on Warseer for about 50% of cost which really boosted his collection
As this was his first game of 7th we kept the points low (1500)
His list (CAD)
Autarch
Spiritseer
4 dire avengers + exarch
4 fire dragons + exarch
5 Scorpians + exarch
10 Guardians
10 Guardians + missile launcher
10 Guardians + missile launcher
2 falcons
5 wraithguard in a wave serpent
My list was a pretty standard battle company (well as much as I could fit in)
Chapter Tactics: Ultramarines
Librarian in terminator armour
5 terminators with CML
10 tacts in rhino flamer missile
10 tacts in rhino plasmagun/cannon and pistol
5 scouts in a storm
Dakka predator
Landspeeder typhoon
10 Assault marines 2 flamers and a plasma pistol power sword
10 devastators with 3 missile and 1 lascannon
the army (without typhoon)
I tried to field a bit of everything as this was one of his first games and he still learning the rules. This would allow him to face most stuff and get an understanding of what he would be facing. We agreed no flyers as he did not have any.
We rolled for the mission and it was the escalation objective missions. Turn 1 – 1 objective, turn 2 – 2 objectives and so on.
Again I am not going to give a turn by turn report, but here are some of the main highlights.
• Forgetting I had a typhoon until turn 2, which it then stayed in reserves until turn 4! I could have done with it as in trying to get first blood I had a falcon left on 1HP and 2 missiles could have killed it.
• Forgetting about Chapter tactics: Ultramarines are not a permanent force “buff”. You have 3 doctrines to use throughout the game
• 1 round of shooting from a guardian squad taking out my terminators and librarian (turn 2)
• Spirit Seer psychic checks. Turn 1 perils looses a power, turn 2 perils rolls 6, turn 3 fails to cast warp charge 1 with 3 dice, turn 4 perils rolls 6 turn 5 perils rolls 6, turn 6 fails to cast with 3 dice.
• Scouts and storm were rubbish again (punishment for scouts not being painted and using a stand in model for storm?), combi melta failed to hit the falcon, storm gave up a VP for first blood.
This is now the second game in a row where my marines did not do anything great. They did a lot of nothing really. But yet again their versatility pulled off an unlikely win. At the end of turn 2 I was 7-2 down and had just lost my terminators and warlord about a 5th of the army, and yet after that my dad failed to score a VP despite getting more cards. We did manipulate the objective cards once or twice, blowing up a building and destroying a flyer we got rid of. Generally I say we play the deck and tough if you get a duff card, but that is the luck of the draw. In the end I won 16-7.
It was an interesting game where again sticking to plans and focusing on the objectives in hand were key to what I did. We tried to do that with my dad’s game plan too, but the elder just don’t have the versatility that marines do (when you are playing a non spammy list)
Pictures:
setup
Striking Scorpions (painted by my brother as a present for my dad)
In Game pictures
I see you
What is this snap fire rule........
I survived being hit bu teh aurtach in a challenge.......I hit back and all 3 attacks with teh power fist hit. 2's to kill........
Pictures towards the end of the game
Final positions
I have one more game tonight and then I will be back on expanding the chapter
Wednesday 1 April 2015
Battle Report: Marines V Necrons
Battle report (again). Like busses, you wait ages then 2 turn up at once.
This time I was up against my old sparring partner commandojimbob. He has been out of the hobby for a while and is starting to get back in to it. He has bought the new Necron codex and cards and fixed up his models.
As this was his first game of 7th we kept the points low (1500)
His list (CAD)
Cryptek
Illuminor Szeras
5 Triarch Praetorians
Triarch Stalker
10 Immortals
10 Immortals in a Night Scythe
15 Warriors
3 destroyers
3 destroyers
Spyder
Spyder
Illuminor Szeras
5 Triarch Praetorians
Triarch Stalker
10 Immortals
10 Immortals in a Night Scythe
15 Warriors
3 destroyers
3 destroyers
Spyder
Spyder
For my list I wanted to try out a formation.
Librarian in Term
Tactical Squad in rhino
10 Sniper Scouts
5 scouts (CC) in a storm
Speeder Typhoon
Speeder Typhoon
Tactical Squad in rhino
10 Sniper Scouts
5 scouts (CC) in a storm
Speeder Typhoon
Speeder Typhoon
Formation (Skyspear Assault (I think)
Raven
5 CC terms (all LC)
5 terms with Assault Cannon
Venerable Dread
We did each choose 3 lists and rolled to see which one we played with. You should try it sometime it adds another little dimension to the game.
We rolled for the mission and it was the 3 objectives and they are kept secret during the game until you claim it.
I set up first. This was a bit difficult as over half my list was in reserve. All the units combat squaded and I set up on 3 objectives in my deployment zone. For the second game in a row my opponent stole the initiative scuppering my best laid plans!
Again I am not going to give a turn by turn report, but here are some of the main highlights.
After stealing the initiative the crons immobilise the storm (I suppose it serves me right for using a proxy), but could only kill a few scouts. The thing with necrons is that they only have short range (24” or rapid fire)) weaponry so I had chosen plenty of long range stuff like missile launchers. The typhoons did their job and with 4 krak missiles took out a spider.... first blood.
My main issue during the game was my librarian and close combat terminators. They spent 9 rounds of combat trying to kill 15 warriors and his HQ. FAIL. There was a lot of poor to hit rolls so I could not make good use of the shred rule. Enfeeble proved invaluable as he had buffed them up. (Edit, just doing some quick maths and that is about right! I would have thought they would have been better)
The Necron reanimation is very useful for them as it is basically an additional inv save! He also passed some low morale checks rolls. The game was close throughout.
Here are the scores at the end of each of our turns
Nec1: 0-0
Mar1: 0-3
Nec2: 1-3
Mar2: 1-5
Nec3: 4-5
Mar3: 4-5
Nec4: 5-5
Mar4: 5-7
Nec5: 8-7
Mar5: 8-9
Mar1: 0-3
Nec2: 1-3
Mar2: 1-5
Nec3: 4-5
Mar3: 4-5
Nec4: 5-5
Mar4: 5-7
Nec5: 8-7
Mar5: 8-9
Game continued
Nec6: 11-9
Mar6: 11-13
Mar6: 11-13
Game continued
Nec7: 13-13
Mar7: 13-14 then we each got a point for linebreaker
Mar7: 13-14 then we each got a point for linebreaker
Over all I am not sure how I won. My marines were very poor. No one unit stood out to have done anything useful. The typhoons killing a spyder on turn one was a standout moment. But the terminators (both squads) were poor. The storm was immobilised turn 1 and the scouts couldn’t hit a barn door. The Raven made little impact, but I suppose the versatility of the marines and my great commanding won me the game!
Would I use that formation again? Unlikely as it were a lot of points to commit especially in 1500. The small bonuses it had weren’t really enough to justify it. I rarely run 2 squads of terminators and a venerable dread, so I can’t see it being used regularly
.
Next is a painting update in a few days and hopefully more games in April.
Pictures:
The Army
The battle field
Setup
ASSAULT and challenge!
mid game
The end
I have also nearly completed Ashmantle on the Battle Automata. They require few more details and then they are complete.
Afetr this i have the terminators and scouts to complete
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