Tuesday, May 8, 2012

And for my next trick...

Post Adepticon I have a lot of hobby related activities to get to! There's my plan to convert my Guard army into an Elysian force, convert a lot of Deathwing Terminators and Dreadnoughts to bulk out my Dark Angels, and even eventually finish up my Ogre Circus army into a viable force.

However, one project stands above all of the others in terms of priority. Here's an image I had a concept artist at Adepticon help me make (great class!)- guess what the final product is going to be?

Until next time, thanks for reading!

Saturday, May 5, 2012

Adepticon 2012: The Battle for Piscina IV, Part 2

Today we are continuing our coverage of the Dark Angels' attempt to drive off the Beast of Armageddon at Piscina IV. Like the first pair of battles, the rest of the battles of the campaign took place at the same time as one another.

For my next battle, I was tasked with an actual scenario from the Storm of Vengeance campaign pack, Cut and Run. In this particular battle the Dark Angels scouting forces, consisting of Naaman's Scout Squad and Ravenwing Squad Aquila, encountering advanced Ork forces on their way to Koth Ridge. The goal for the mission is fairly simple- get your forces across the 24" mark and then back off your board edge while remaining at at least half strength. I could also mark one unit as a support unit that did not have to complete the scouting task.

Since I only had two units at 400 points (20 pts per sniper scout! With no camo cloaks!) I decided to designate Squad Aquila as my recon force while Squad Naaman provided fire support. The Orks had sentries, but the mighty Astartes simply ignored the pesky Gretchen and turboboosted onto the field.


So, Ravenwing turboboosted forward down one side of the field, easily crossing the middle line. The orks move to engage, shooting to no effect. Turn, two, Squad Aquila turboboosts back to my deployment zone and leaves the field on turn three while Squad Naaman pins or destroys all Ork units.

My opponent and I stared at the board for a bit, then decided to set up again. To make it a bit more fair we decided that, since originally turboboost was not a rule my bikes could not do so during the game. We set up same as before, bikes drove forwards turns one and two, turn two I broke the Orks' back with shooting, and Squad Aquila got away scot free once again.

If you are planning on running this scenario, try making only the Scouts able to perform the scouting mission. I think it could be a very tense, fun engagement if it's Squad Aquila that needs to play blocker/fire support while the scouts hurriedly try to scramble back and forth across the center line.


Since that battle got finished so quickly we decided to play another scenario out of the campaign book, Shadow Warriors. In this one Naaman and his scouts need to cross Ork territory at night and try to sneakily get off the opposite board edge without alerting the sentries. If the sentries are alerted Naaman needs to kill every single last damn Greenskin out there.

The unfortunate part about this mission was that neither I nor the campaign master knew the rules for sentries, so we just made something up, which made them discover me on turn 1. Suddenly I had 60+ orks charging down on my Scouts with Night Fighting preventing my snipers from targeting the enemy at range. Fortunately I was able to divide and conquer, taking out one mob at a time with my close combat scouts and used Night Fight to hide myself from the Ork shooting. The scenario ended when Naaman threw a stasis grenade at the remaining Lootas, allowing my scouts to advance unmolested and put the foul greenskins to the sword.


Meanwhile my allies were fighting a desperate battle on Koth Ridge. My loaned out Imperial Guard forces hadn't thought to bring any armor or heavy weapons, so the Orks advanced with only Devastator fire from the Dark Angels giving them any grief. Things turned even worse when one of their assault squads came in from reserve into terrain, lost 4 members to sharp sticks and promptly fled the field.

The Ork Dreadnought proved to be the real star, rampaging like a god of war through the Imperial lines. In the end what should have been a glorious victory turned into a rout for the forces of the Emperor, giving Gazhgkull easy access to Kadillus.


Seeking vengeance for the loss at Koth Ridge and thanks to the good work that my Scouts had accomplished we moved on to game 6 of the campaign, Revelations. In this mission our goal was to destroy the power plant at the Ork landing site and sabotage their Tellyporta, using only Scouts and Terminators. Widely outnumbered by the Orks the Scouts infiltrated as close as they could, allowing the Terminators to deep strike close to the enemy lines.

Unfortunately we had chosen to attack the objective that was being defended by Gazhgkull himself. The Orks charged and were unstoppable, slaughtering all of the Imperial defenders in three brutal turns. In the end only the Apothecary was standing, surrounded in a growing sea of green...



All in all, I had a blast with this campaign. It didn't matter so much who won or lost (and in fact we managed to get the opposite result in almost every mission!), just that we were having fun reenacting some great battles from 40k's past. Some of the missions probably could have used some extra play testing before running them on 5th edition rules, but again, it was all about the feel and getting the cinematic scenes to come to life.

Thanks for reading. Next, we'll get to some of the hobby projects that I'm working on.


Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Adepticon 2012: The Battle for Piscina IV

I'll get to my tournament reports later, but for today I wanted to talk about another event that I attended, this year's narrative event.

Put on by the gentleman behind 2nd City Warzone, this year's event concerned the Belial v. Gazhgkull beat down that took place in GW's Storm of Vengeance campaign, which is also detailed in the BL novel The Purging of Kadillus, which is a terrible, terrible, novel.

Anyway, for this event we each had to choose a particular special character to lead our forces to victory. I chose Veteran Sgt Naaman, a scout sergeant who through his questioning of Belial's decidedly terrible command decisions managed to save the campaign and put an end to Gazhgkull's assault on the planet.

I've already detailed the forces that I hastily painted up here, now let's get to the battles!

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It was early in the morning when the alarms started ringing in the barracks. A training regiment had failed to report on time, and then long range scanners picked up a large mass of  infantry heading towards the capitol.
"Wake up ladies, we have incoming!" roared Commander Heinrich as his Lieutenants rallied their squads as quickly as they could. Flak jackets were hastily thrown on and rifles unlocked from storage.
"What could possibly have overrun the outer barracks? How the hell did an invasion fleet get passed our sensoriam?" Heinrich asked the watch officer.
"Orks, sir, and I have no idea, but they're charging into the square as we speak!"

The hastily assembled troops charged on to the scene, flamers and grenade launchers at the ready. Commander Heinrich barked out orders.
"Commissar Sebastian, have first platoon hold the center! Lieutenant Julian, peel off four flamers and move up the right, try to sneak up on the sons of bitches! Stormtroopers, move to support the LT! I'll take the high ground, get a better idea of what we're up against."

Heinrich clambered up the ruins, Pvt Edelson and the rest of his command squad close behind. What he saw wasn't encouraging. Ork bikes belching noxious smoke were careening down the middle while mobs of Boyz were smashing their way through the ruins of what used to be the outer barracks. Heinrich snarled and primed his plasma pistol. Even if he didn't have the manpower to stop the green tide he'd make these monsters pay for invading his world.
The vox crackled open with urgent communications from one of the Dark Angels commanders that had come with the recruitment team, the Chaplain Boreas. The situation was growing dire indeed, Heinrich mused, if the even the mighty Astartes were encountering difficulties.
"But why the generators? It's not like they are the fuel reserves." mused Heinrich. But the onrushing Orks quickly pulled the commander back to reality, and he offered up a silent prayer to the Emperor to give him strength.
In a blaze of blue light Heinrich's prayers were answered. Standing in the square were a squad of the mighty Deathwing, led by none other than the third company Captain himself, Belial. The men of Piscina let out a mighty roar of thanks and bounded forward with redoubled fervor at the sight of the mighty Astartes. These cheers grew even louder as two more squads of noble Astartes joined the fray, taking up firing positions along the main square.

Heinrich smiled. "Now we have a fight on our hands. Privates Edelson, Matthews, there's some Greenskin hiding in that ruin over there. Would you kindly be the first to drive the enemy from our shores?" The privates grinned, and the air soon rang with the sounds of fragmentation grenades exploding among the approaching Greenskins.
Belial and his command squad shared the feeling, sending fragmentation rounds from their Cyclone Missile Launchers into a herd of Grots, causing the tiny greenskins to panic back towards the Ork lines despite the urgent thrashings of their handlers.
The rest of the Orks, however, weren't fazed. If anything, their bloodlust was only increased by the sight of the grots blood flowing on the cobblestones. Their whoops increased in volume, and the engines of their bikes revved up for the inevitable assault.





The Vox crackled again, the sounds of close combat coming through in patches. The Chaplain's exhortations sounded heroic, but even from this distance Heinrich could tell that the battle was not going well. At that moment the Orks on the ground floor opened up with their Shootas, killing privates Edelson and Matthews. Their hearts already lowered by the news of the Marines' impending defeat, Heinrich's squad fell back from the upper floors.
In the square the Orks' charge was devastating. Deciding that the "really 'ard Beakies" were the prime targets for their bloodlust, the Bikes and Boyz crashed into Terminators with terrific force. Having weathered their shooting, the Deathwing attempted to hold their own but the Orks were simply too many, even for the vaunted First Company. Three of their number fell to the onslaught, Belial and his two remaining veterans pushed back by the sheer force of the Green Tide.

Seeing that the heroic captain was in danger, Commissar Sebastian exhorted his squad to join in the combat. Meanwhile the Dark Angels chaplain led his squad into the assault as well, their combined force chopping down the marauding Orks. Seeing this Heinrich and his squad rallied, and Lieutenant Julian and his flamer squad roasted two outflanking mobs of Boyz.

The Orks attempted to sally forth again, their numbers coming in an unending tide. Another of the Terminators was cut down along with four noble Astartes of the Tactical squad. The Stormtroopers charged in to assist, prayers to the Emperor on their lips and helped vanquish the marauding beasts. Belial himself stood toe to toe with the Ork Warboss, eventually defeating the massive leader in single combat with a beheading sweep of his Heavenfall Blade.

With their leader defeated the remaining Orks fell back to their lines, no doubt to toast Gazhgkull's victory at the power plant. First platoon cleared out the stragglers with lasbolt and flamer and reclaimed the docks from the invader. Heinrich lowered his plasma pistol wearily, its power cell burning hot. His men had gotten off light, only losing seven of their number, but the Astartes had lost four of their elite and nearly half of their Tactical squad, not to mention the losses they had no doubt suffered at the power plant.

"If even the Angels couldn't hold back the Beast of Armegeddon," muttered Heinrich, "what chance do we mere mortals have?"