Lamenters versus Tyranids

Michael and I played an 1850 point game today that was a lot of fun.  We played the Relic Mission and Dawn of War deployment.   Michael had first turn and hid everything behind ruins (which with his Warlod trait gave him 3+ saves) and infiltrated the genestealers.  I put my Land Raider center and flanked it with predators with all my marines hiding behind.

First turn we had a bit of wait and see as neither of us wanted to be stuck in the center giving the other player easy charge lanes.  We both moved up a little and positioned.  I did kill a couple hormaguants with the Vindicator, but FNP genestealers from pyschic powers and also 5+ invuls prevented too much damage on the first turn.

Second turn both mawlocs deepstruck, destroyed the Vindicator and killed a couple marines.  His Tyrant dropped down to try and bust the land raider.  He did pen, but only managed to shake it.  My turn I unload everything in the mawlocs behind my line and manage with the charge to kill both.  I also brought the Tyrant down to 1 wound and charged the hormagaunts that were approaching the relic with the death company.   50 re-roll to hit and wound attacks later they were gone.  I also flamed and assaulted the genestealers on my flank Though FNP saved them big time.  In the end we both killed about half our units there.

My warlord had possession of the Relic (thanks to his Warlord trait making him Scoring, but the unit had a Trygon on one side and 12 Genestealers on the other.  The 10 death company were wiped out, but the Reclusiarch in a challenge with the Brood lord stayed up thanks to his invul save.  They were finished off by the Trygon but managed to thin a couple out on their way.

The rest of the game was a big scrum in the middle.  I still had a few shooting vehicles with nothing interesting to shoot, and I poored all my infantry into the middle to try and keep his troops from picking up the relic.  In the end all my troops were wiped out, he had 3 genestealers left on  a flank, too far away to get the relic, but giving him linebreaker.  We both killed each others warlords, but he had first blood.  So the Tyranids won 3-2.  The game was a blast and really close.  We each had fun moments and it was a particularly bloody match.  One of the best games we’ve played together and we both had a lot of fun.

Lamenters:
Reclusiarch
10x Death Company
1x Land Raider Crusader
10x Assault Marines (PF, Plasma guns)
10x Assault Marines (PS, Flamers)
5x Sanguinary Guard with banner
1x Priest with Jump Pack
1x Vindicator
1x Predator w/ HB
1x Baal Predator w/ Flamestorm
3x Bikes with plasma guns

Tyranids:
Hive Tyrant w/ Wings and Lash Whip
12x Genestealers Broodlord and Toxin Sacs
12x Genestealers Broodlord and Toxin Sacs
20x Hormagaunts w/ Toxin Sacs and Adrenal Glands
3x Hive Guard
1x Zoanthrope
1x Zoanthrope
1x Mawloc
1x Mawloc
1x Trygon Prime




Death Company WIP

Lamenters Death Company

First five of my Death Company.  Still need to finish some details and paint up the backpacks.  I have magnetized their backs so they can be run with jump packs or on foot.  I’ve painted them up white rather than the traditional black to differentiate the odd past of the Lamenters and the black rage.



Brother Chamuel – Lamenters Sternguard Deathwatch

Lamenters Sternguard Deathwatch


My finished entry for the Sternguard Deathwatch contest.  Really happy with how he turned out, especially the kit-bashed combi-melta.  While I have no delusions of winning it was a fun project to work on and I can’t wait to see the squad together.




Deathwatch Sternguard Marine

I volunteered to put a model together for the Sternguard Deathwatch competition and charity event for the Badab Veterans group.  Pretty pleased so far with the model, though I still need to drill out weapon barrels and do a base up.For the weapon I kit-bashed a combi-melta up from an infernus pistol, DC bolter and magazine from a storm bolter.  Really happy with how it came out.  In fact this has inspired me to put together a sternguard squad for my own Lamenters after I’m done.





An Unkindness of Stormravens

Finished up my second Stormraven.  Though not without some issues.  The major problem was me carrying it downstairs to photograph with it still on the flight stand and having it fall down a flight of stairs and smash into a bunch of pieces!  Luckily I used super-glue to attach the wings on and they snapped off where they should have.  Some dings and dents, but I just like to think of it as battle damage.

Lamenters Stormraven
Lamenters Stormraven
Unkindness of Stormravens




Death Company WIP

What do you do when you can’t sleep at night?  Build models!  I recently used pieces from two Death Company box to build some Vanguard Veterans and had quite a few left over bits.  Combining those plus some bits from the bits box, I was able to put together this unit of ten DC.  Two are armed with power fists while the rest are chainswords and bolt pistols.  I will probably pick another box up eventually and build a few of the other options out, like infernus pistols and such, and the kit has tons of great bits for conversions and special characters.  The backpacks will be magnetized and have the option for jump packs as well.  I’m going to paint my DC in a white color scheme rather than the black that is traditionally in Blood Angels armies.



Battle of Epsilon Corvi

Battle of Epsilon Corvi – Mission 2.

Initial board setup
Initial board setup
Lamenters Deployment
Lamenters Deployment
Tyranids Deployment
Additional Deployment
Flying Hive Tyrant moving forward first turn
Assault Squad getting assaulted after flaming Genestealers
Lamenters advancing forward
Mephiston taking on last Zoanthrope and two Genestealers
Mission: The Scouring (6 random objectives, fast attack scoring)

Deployment: Vanguard Strike (Diagonal)
Points: 1750 (kind of)

Lamenters list is here.

The Tyranid list is below.  Sadly there was a mistake on the expected points value, and the Tyranids were only 1500 points.  This definitely skewed the game in my favor.

HQ:
Hive Tyrand (wings)

Troops:
8 Genestealers (toxin sacs)
1 Broodlord

8 Genestealers  (toxin sacs)
1 Broodlord

24 Hormaguants (adrenal glands, toxin sacs)

Fast:
12 Gargoyles (adrenal glands, toxin sacs)

1 Harpy

Elite:
2 Zoanthropes
2 Zoanthropes

Heavy:
Trygon Prime

Tyranids had first turn and they slowly advanced up the middle.  Nervous about the flamers in the front of my army, they tried to stay back a little, but not far enough, as the flamers were able to move in and wipe out one of the units of Genestealers.  A couple marines got killed by the force dome psychic power as there shots  bounced back.

The next turn the Gargoyles, Hormaguants and Trygon wiped out the two squads.  The free overwatch hits with the flamer managed to thin out the Gargoyles pretty well, but didn’t do much to the larger creatures.  The other unit of Genestealers assaulted an assault marine squad in cover, and with the lack of grenades, were fairly ineffective.  The Vanguard Vets came in and assaulted a unit of Zoanthropes and killed one, while Mephiston made a huge 10″ charge and killed the Trygon, Mephiston with Iron Arm and Warp Speed made him super nasty in combat.

Third turn the Hormaguants charged into Mephiston and managed to bring him down to one wound but the Sanguinary Guard joined in and wiped the unit out.  The flyrant charged into the vanguard veterans and killed two, but the return attacks finished off the big bug.  The genestealers lost combat and ran, though they managed to get into cover.

Fourth turn was mostly re-positioning and the movement toward objectives.  While a few smaller combats finished up.  Going into the last turn the Tyranids were down to the Harpy, one Zoanthropes, and a couple Genestealers.  Mephiston was stuck in combat with the Zoanthrope and genestealers, and an assault squad managed to ground the Harpy and the TH/SS Terminators pounced on it out of the Land Raider.  The game ended on turn 5 with a great victory to the Lamenters.  They of course had a huge upper hand since they were playing with 250 more points!  Always check lists before you start a game.

The game was a blast, and we have two more missions in our mini-campaign.  Learned a bunch of stuff about 6th edition and the army, and I’m really enjoying the new mechanics and play-style.  We played with mysterious objectives this game, and they really didn’t have any impact on the game.  Even the sabotaged one never blew up the entire game.  We never remembered challenges, and I keep forgetting to throw grenades, something I’ve been wanting to try and always forget!  Can’t wait for another game.




Invasion of Epsilon Corvi – Mission 2

The strike force has been readied.  They deploy tomorrow to cleanse the bio pools the filthy Tyranids have established on the world of Epsilon Corvi.  The objectives must be destroyed or there is real danger of losing this world.  After action report will be given tomorrow.  This will be the second game in a small narrative campaign Michael and I are playing.  Really excited to get a game in, and as a bonus all of the models I will be using are fully painted!

1750 Pts – Blood Angels Roster

HQ:    1 Mephiston, Lord of Death

Troops: 
Assault Squad
7 Assault Marines
   
2 Assault Marines with Flamers   
1 Sergeant (Power Fist)

Assault Squad   
7 Assault Marines   
2 Assault Marines with Flamers   
1 Sergeant (Power Fist)

Elite:

Sanguinary Priests   
1 Sanguinary Priest in Power Armour (Jump Pack)   
1 Sanguinary Priest in Terminator Armour

Sanguinary Guard   
5 Sanguinary Guard (Chapter Banner)

Terminator Assault Squad
5 Terminator with Thunder Hammer & Storm Shield   
1 Land Raider Crusader (Multi-melta)

Fast Attack: 
Vanguard Veteran Squad   
1 Sergeant (Jump Pack; Power Fist)   
4 Vanguard Veteran (Jump Pack)




Allies Incoming – Tau Hammerhead

Tau Hammerhead

My first Tau model is finished up and ready to ally with the Eldar.  Really excited with how it turned out and love the Mymeara color scheme on these guys.  I’m getting better at doing the black-lining.  My process now is to gloss varnish the model and then use a heavy black wash in the crevices.  You can wipe off any over-spillage with a wet paper towel and it flows into the cracks nicely.  After it dries I apply a matte varnish spray to take the shininess away.  Can’t wait to see more of the Eldar and Tau models in the color scheme.



Painting a Storm Raven

So with one Storm Raven down, I figure I should learn a few things from the first build and painting that I could really do a better paint job, with much less effort.  The first thing was not gluing everything together, rather do sub assemblies that can be combined when the majority of the painting work was done.  So I built the wings, engines, and hull separately and then primed and airbrushed the base coat.  I’m much better with the airbrush now as well, and the finish on this one is much better.  I’m using Vallejo GC Heavy Ochre as my base color (thinned down about 1:1).

I also masked off a couple parts of the model that will have the checkered pattern on it.  I used blue painters tape, and then cut squares out and laid out in the area to do the black.  Much easier than free-handing all of them, though I will need to go do some cleanup.  I’m planning on adding more black and red details to break up the yellow and give it some nice contrast.  This model is also magnetized, and I made sure the polarity lined up with the other Storm Raven so I won’t have to keep the different bits separate from each other.  The result should be finishing the model in a fraction of the time, to a higher quality.