The Infiltration of Power Station XT5‏

Pedro Kantor stepped up to the dias in the Strategium on board the Battle Barge "Eternal Vigilance". He looked around at his assembled Captains and Sergeants before turning back to the Hololith. "Brothers, I can no longer justify the continued prosecution of this war. We have sacrificed much but Diablos IV is soon to be lost to us. However, I will not allow the Tyranids to consolidate their gains here. Captain Cortez will lead a small strike force to infiltrate Power Station XT5. Their goal will be to set charges inside the nuclear reactor to destroy the station and contaminate the bio-mass the Tyranids intend to consume.

As the Crimson Fists filed out of the strategium, Kantor placed his hand on Cortez' shoulder. "A moment, Brother". Cortez held back until the other Captains and Sergeants had left and turned to his old friend. "Pedro...". Kantor cut him off. "Alessio, my friend, this mission is important, yes, but the survival of the chapter is important as well. May the Emperor watch over you"

This scenario takes place in the late stages of the invasion of the planet Diablos IV by Hive Fleet Nagaina. The historic battle was between the Crimson Fists Space Marines and the Tyranids, but could be modified to suit any two armies. This scenario is not suitable for tournament play for obvious reasons.

To represent the tangled ruins of the power station, the warren of corridors will be represented by a Space Hulk board (the squares are ignored). The standard Warhammer 40,000 rules will be used with the following modifications.

The report of squad sergeant Olian.

As we entered the dark dank of the power station the darkness seemed to swallow up everything, but from what we could make out a head of us from the lights built in to your suits making our way forward was going to be slow going. 

The auspex was picking up lifeforms from further into the complex, but what kind of lifeforms we had know way of knowing we would have to be alert at all times.

Stealth would be our best approach trying to a void contact with the enemy until  it became unavoidable, ahead of us we could hear the sound of something moving around, but each pasting moment brought us closer to your object.

Then all of a sudden the silence was broken by the barking of bolter's as one of the squads came into contact with the enemy, then the whole complex seemed to be full of the sound of things moving in the dark.

Squad Valus had come under attack from a brood of termagants  who they quickly disposed of but one of our brother's had falling, then the rest of the forward squads started to report contact with the enemy.

Over in the west side of station Captain Cortez & the terminator squad  where reporting a heavy nids present.

But battle on undeterred their terminator armour keep them safe from the bioweapons of their foe, the scout squad along with squad Kerl pushed on supporting one another.

After killing off the termagants & with their target room in sight Cortez & his squad where assaulted by a brood of genestealers who's harden claws started to cut through the terminator armour like a chainsaw through an ork's hide.

The tyranids seemed to becoming out of the walls with a broodlord smashing into the scout squad, who fought bravely but where no match for such a monster in combat.

Haven finally seen off the stealers a badly wounded Cortez & a lone terminator made it into their targeted room & set the charges, but sadly it was to become their coffin as their way out was cut off by a hormagaunt   brood.

On the eastern side squad Valus had also managed to get to their object room & set the charges but where then set upon by a swarm or rippers that had come up behind them unnoticed.

With the charges set the order was given to start the retreat out of the complex to the waiting thunderhawk, sadly only three of us where to make it one of my squad falling under a ton of fire from a brood of devilgants that tried to cut off our path & another one falling  to a broodlord who I then laid to rest with a smack of my powerfist.

    

As the thunderhawk headed for orbit we were rocked be the blast from the plant far below us this had been a mission that would leave deep scares on the three of us for the rest of our days.

Many thanks to Lenny for setting up what was a very enjoyable game the rules for which he will be posting over on the DGG blog.

http://dublingamesguild.blogspot.ie/

Take the bridge

One of the things I find with a 40K is you never seem to be fighting to achieve something, which tbh is fine most of the time but it's nice now again to fight over something that might be of importance  in an over all war  or a rescue mission like this one I did a while back http://ifitwasntforone.blogspot.ie/2012/09/bugs-in-reactor_9.html.

The mission take the bridge is base on a mission taken from enduring freedom which is a game set in Afghanistan, I find other gaming books can be a great way of getting idea's for missions.

Now when doing these missions I like to do up the two army lists as well as I find to have any chance of working they need balanced forces, the lists I give below are only about 600 or so points any if your trying this using the list below a 4x4 table would be big enough.

Now I haven't played this myself yet so if anyone doe's try it out please feel free to give me a bit of feed back no if you think it was good or bad.

Battle for the Bridge

Space marine forces 2 tactial squads in rhino's, wargear poweraxa, powersword,heavy bolter, missille launcher
malta gun & flamer. one sergeant to be up graeded in the following way ws5 bs5 w2.
Dreadnought multi-melta dcc weapon
Landspeeder heavy bolter & typhoon missile launcher


Imperial guard forces 1 infantry platoon made up of the following
Platoon command squad, wargear bolter vox caster, plasma gun, chimera

infantry squad wargear vox caster, flamer, heavy bolter.
infantry squad wargear vox caster, grenade launcher,autocannon.
infantry squad wargear vox caster, sniper rifle lascannon.

Heavy weapon squad mortars.
Heavy weapon squad missile launchers
Leman Russ battle tank.

Table lay out, place a river running length ways a long the table about 15" in from one side with the bridge
about 12" to 18" in on the table,put apiece of road from the bridge to the near table edge on the other side
of the bridge run a road length ways down the table.
The road must join the bridge & then make it's way over to the far corner of the table.
Place some buildings on the the side of the table with the long road on it to be a small town, on the other
 side of the river place a hill in the comer nearest to the bridge & a couples of woods & low walls.

The guard player is the  defender & deploys first, the table edge nearest to the river is his deployment
zone & all the forces that he deploys must be placed between the river & his table edge.
The marine player goes first & moves on from his table edge & wins the game if he controls the bridge at the
end of the game.
The game ends 2 full turns after the marine player gains control of the bridge or after 10 turns.
Mission special rules All terrain other then the road counts as double dangerous for tanks & any shot that's
cross more then 4" of terrain gives a 5+ cover save if a batter one is not available.

The Rule of Cool

The rule of cool, as I said in my last post I got a new army an SOB army & with it I also got their old Witch Hunters codex which is what has lead me to this post.

Now tbh the old codex is one I've played against many times but as anyone who knows me well will tell you I was never one for studying armies I didn't use, I learned how to play against them be playing them.

So anyway I'm looking at the codex & I get to page 57 which is about converting henchmen, this really brought home to me the different mindset  that GW have to the game today as if you look at any of the modern day codices there is nothing about converting models only page after page of look what else you can buy, but this post is not about a rant it's about the rule of cool. 

Now looking at the photo you see a Servitor with a plasma-cannon but it's not just a servitor carrying a plasms-cannon that you can buy, it's in fact a seritor wired up to what is part plasma-cannon part lascannon on the legs of a Sentinel, a very nice centre piece to an army even if a little pricey to build.

Now I've built all kinds of different armies in this hobby from tournaments one's to best armies, even one the isn't even legal my Cult Mechanicus army, but even from my early days I always tried to put in some cool stuff to try to make my army mine.

Above one of my earliest & one that still gets a lot complements even today my sallies dreadnought, the great thing is in all my years playing 40k I've yet to look across the table and see the same dread looking back at me with this guy.

Now not every conversion needs to cost an arm & a leg & not every army needs them to be cool either, but conversions are probably the best way to put your own stamp on an army.

The two terminators are from space hulk & are both in fact blood angle models that have found their way into my Wordbearers  army the one on the left is converted the other is not, now I know not everyone likes  their CSM spiky.

Below is a very simple conversion that is covered on this blog somewhere but again can imho make a big difference to a model you could just do it to one or two model in the squad to make them stand out or to the whole squad if you wanted.

With allies in 6th ed there's probably now all sort of things ending up in peoples bits box then ever before & one of the greatest things about this hobby is that anything really is possible with a little imagination, after all not all forgeworlds do things the same way.

A piece or kit that has become very poplar is the aegis defence lines & one of the up grades is the Icarus lascannon.

Here's another way to do it if you want as I said the possibles are endless.

You could just as easily use him as a heavy weapons team in an IG army so this little fellow has a big advantage over the GW one as he has many way to be used.

Now it's a fact that I've seen many players buy stuff from FW & then not use them or use them so little that it makes no differences & the main reason for this is that FW models are for the most part not permitted in tournaments.

Things like the lads above don't need to be converted to be cool but sadly they're FW models so not welcome at tournaments unless that is I decide to run them as spawns which or course I could always do.

Again that's another way to put your stamp on your army as is some of the fallowing.

    

Your guard not as loyal as they used to be? Don't worry the basilisk looks cooler this way.

 

 Don't like the new warpsmith? No problem just go make your own as long as it's clear to people what it is & what wargear it has it'll be fine.

Even a master of the forge with a conversions beamer can be done whatever way you like.

Try making things to look like they're moving sometimes instead of just going with the normal just sitting there or standing around looking pretty.

  

What most times is & what can be with a little effort.

There are a couple of big advantages to putting the rule of cool into your army & it can be done to any army be it a hard nose tournament list or just a fun army, the first one is it means your unlikely to see you own army looking back at you from the other side of the table (this is more likely to happen with a tournament list} another reason GW can make a very powerful army or indeed a fun one crap over night but a cool looking army will always be cool looking no matter what GW do.

  

Not using your stormraven into days game but want a cool looking razorback try the above.

 Just because I could & their fun, just ask Pearce he'll tell you.

Don't like FW prices then become your own FW this is my take on a Hydra.

If or more likely when I go back playing chaos & my Dark Apostle summons a Bloodthirster then I know what model that will be under the rule of cool.

What's that you say he's on the wrong base so I can't use him ? if that's what you think your in the wrong hobby.       

clochar na dubh ardaigh

Clochar na Dubh Ardaigh, or for those not good with Irish Convent of the Black Rose which was to be the name of my new army.
Sisters of battle an army that I always liked the models for but with it been an all metal army I never took the plunge, so when a while I heard that one of the lads in the club was getting out of 40K I asked him if he was getting rid of his SOB army would he let me know.

So when I got an e-mail last Saturday asking me if I was still interested in the army, well let just say I was sitting in my house before midday Sunday checking out my new army & happy with what  I was seen.

Now this is an army that in all honest has taken a big fall in grace from it glory days when it was codex Witch Hunters & now are left with what is a poor WD codex but with me these days it really is just about the models & if I like them then that's all that counts.

So last night was my first chance to get the new toys on the table & low & behold it's a Vulken list I go up against melta & flame all the way.
Now as anyone that has followed this blog will know I've been running with nids more or less for the last year so a power armour army was always going to feel small.

The plan is to finish off painting the nids & then in the new year start work on this army.
The only real down side to playing nids has since sixth ed hit been the fact that there are no allies that nids can take, so my plan here is to try to take the sisters back in the direction of witch hunters.

Now sadly there are no Inquisitors in the SOB dex & you can only have allies from one other dex, but to create the feel I'm looking for I really need an Inquisitor  & guard which I could get from the Gray Knight dex to a certain existent.

The only problem with that would be I'd have to take one Inquisitor that every GK player & his dog use's so that's a none runner straight away Coteaz is a lovely model but I'm sick of the sight of him.

So what to do ? funnily enough the answer lies in the army I was planing to do next & for which I had started to pick up some stuff for but not yet the one model I need to make this work.

The answer is FW & with the card falling my way The model I need is a model I was going to buy any way Soloman Lok from IA 4 who may be taken as a HQ choice in a GK army or an Elysian drop army which is the army I was just starting when the chance to get the sisters came up.

So I can now look forward to a very busy time on the hobby front next year,the sisters might be work I wasn't looking for but work I welcome just the same.for as I said at the start it all about the models.

The return of Papa Nurgle

The e-mail came earlier in the week (Anyone up for a game on Saturday ) after been away for over a year Adam was back, so we arranged to have a game in Gamers World on Saturday afternoon.

The return of Adam would also mean the of Typhus & the Deathgaurd, this is one for my favourite dgg armies & goes back to when we did the HH campaign in the club.

The game was to mark two things, Adams first game back & my last game (for a while) with Hive Fleet  Nagaina, an army that I must say I've had a lot of fun building & playing with.

Adam is imo the best player I've ever played not to win a tournament & while you know that any game with Adam is going to be tuft I also knew it was going to be fun as Adam has always played the game in a great spirit.

Now in 5th ed poor old Typhus had had what you could only call a run of bad luck, what with only been the only chaos lord to be WS5, been turned into a squig & seeming to always end up under a battle cannon blast which ment when he failed his 5++ save he was dead.

So Adam was hoping for better things from Typhus in 6th ed & as away to give him a helping hand Adam also brought that other famous sun of Nurgle Epidemius, one of the things I really love about 6th  ed is thanks to allies been able to do things like this.

With things like obliterators been able to now take the MoN & me playing a nid army it was not going to take to long before the tally of Nurgle was going to get silly & so it was to prove.

Now despite all my best efforts to do so fatboy just was not going to be killed leaving me to face models with a 3+ FNP, cc attacks that wound on 2+  & wounds that give no armour saves.

 Even with me Tervigon pumping out a ridicules 57 Termagants this was always going to be an up hill battle, but there is some thing sweet about a gant shooting down a model with a double 3+ save.

Well at lest the obliz onlt have a 2+ so there should be no problem there then lol.

The game bobbled a long at a good pace with Adam & myself both throwing all we had at one another.

With a lot of catching up on what we'd both been up to over the last year, before we knew where we where Adam was rolling to see would the game go to turn 6, with it standing at a draw at the end of turn 5.

It does seem right that these little things & wound my big this on a 2+ & under the new rules I can't get rid of their FNP as the Fex is only S9. 

So welcome back Adam even if you have pick up some kind of Nurgle infection on your face lol & who won the game you ask ? well Adem did of course, so cheers mate thanks for a great game & here to many more.