Battle report: Chaos VS Imperial Guard

Last weekend I played another game of 40k. This time it was a 1750 points battle against a Chaos Space Marine army, something that I had not played against since 2ed edition.
The mission was Big guns never tire with vanguard strike deployment. In total we got three objectives where two ended up on my side of the table and one on the chaos side,





Our armies looked something like this

Chaos
2 Daemon princes with wings
4 Plague marine squads(2xMelta, 2xPlasma)
1 Havoc squad (4xAC)
2x Oblitoratior squads
2x Terminator squads (Heavy Flamer, Reaper AC)
Ageis Defence line with quad-gun

IG
1 Command squad (Astropath, MotF)
1 Platoon with 2 squads (Flamer)
1 Platoon with 2 Squads (Grenade Launcher)
4 Heavy weapon squads (AC, 2xML, LC)
2 Veteran squads in Chimera (Plasma, Melta)
3 Scout Sentinels
2 Leman Russ tanks
1 Demolisher


Here are some pictures of the deployment

Everything that could be deployed by deep strike on the chaos side was held back, and only the foot squads was deployed. On the imperial side everything but the sentinels got deployed, they instead was sent to outflank the chaos lines.

Chaos turn 1
The Plague marines not behind the defense lines advances, taking a few potshots along the way, not doing a whole lot, the real damage was done when the Havocs and Quad-gun opened up, destroying the heavy squad with lascannons and the one with autocannons, leaving telling holes in the imperial line.

Imperial Guard turn 1
The right flank and center advances slowly to get into position to shoot the advancing marines. In the shooting phase everything in the center and right opened up on the marines behind the forest. They however did really have Nurgle on their side, as they made save after save, after save. And when they finally failed a save or two they made the Feel no pain roll. Even the demolisher shell, that hit them square on only succeed in killing one of them. In the end though sick amounts of fire did where them down a bit, and of the five, only one remained. On the left flank the amount of fire directed into that marine squad was far less, and only two of their number fell.

Chaos 2
Even though I had a master of the fleet, and therefor reduced the likelihood of lots of reserves arriving, only one of the oblitorators missed their roll, everything else got ready to deep strike.
One terminator squad did however get a bit too close to the imperial lines, and the scatter got them into one of my squads, but the mishap only put them back in reserves. The rest of the strikes did not go quite as good for the imperials and terminators, daemons and oblitorators got really close and in good striking positions.
The rest of the movement phase was not as impressive as the marines continued forward with the remains of the squads.
When the shooting started the havocs and quad-gun claimed another heavy squad, but only took one of the bases in the other as they threw them selfs to the floor of the ruin they sat in. The newly arrived terminators opened up and obliterated one of the platoon commands while the daemon on the right tried to get one of the infantry squads with his psychic powers, but missed. The oblitirators shot the russ on the left flank, but in a display of utter failure, only took one hull point away and destroyed the flamer mounted on it, even though they had multimeltas as was within 12".

IG 2
The sentinels arrives, right behind the chaos warlord on the left flank. The left and center of the lines positions themselves to better see the oblitirators and the daemon prince, while the right stands mostly still to handle the daemon and the terminators. The veteran squad on the right does a good number on the prince right in front of them, and successfully destroys him with large amounts of plasma and laser fire, while the russ and infantry squads managed to kill three out of the five terminators in front of them. Apparently terminators are softer than plague marines...
In the center the demolisher, the veterans, the heavy squad with missiles and a infantry squad kills of the oblitirators, while the russ, sentinels and a squad of infantry takes two wounds of the prince.

Chaos 3
The last squad of oblitorators gets in, together with the terminators that mishapped last turn. The oblitorators deep strike at more or less the same place as the last squad and the terminators once again mishap as they scatter into one of the imperial squads.
In the movement phase the right side of the field advances towards the veterans and their chimera, while on the left the prince advances closer to the russ, ready to strike it down in close combat. The shooting starts with the oblitorators shooting at the Russ on the left, one again they are inside the 12" for their mult-meltas, and once again they fail do do any real damage as one misses and the other just shakes the vehicle. On the right the lone plague marines fires into the chimera, but the melta just bounces off, and the unit behind fires into the veterans, killing a few and making them fail a moral check, and send them running off the table. The remaining terminators fire into the infantry squad right in front of them, killing a few and then charging into combat. There they fail spectacular as only a single guardsman is killed and they stay put. The lone plague marine tries to charge the chimera, but the grenade he had primed does nothing on the armoured sides of the tank. On the left the prince does it a bit better, charging in and smashing the russ into a pulp. But the resulting explosion takes another of his wounds away, so with only one wound remaining he is left standing in front of a lot of imperial guns.

IG 3
The imperial lines feels the pressure created by the chaos marines, and on the right the remaining tanks backs up and primes their guns on the plague marines charging though there. In the center the demolisher and a infantry squad advances up to surround the oblitorators and plague marines in the forest, and the left side follows suit and the melta veterans jumps out of the chimera, readying the meltas and the demolition charge that they are carrying. In the back field the unit held in reserve there advaces to take the objectives that are now feeling a bit exposed.
On the right the lone plague marine finally dies to the sustained fire from the chimera, and the squad behind losses to members to the roar of a battlecannon. On the left one infantry squad takes aim on the prince, he survives the first sustained fire from lasguns, until the grenade launcher takes aim, fires and get the grenade square in the face of him, finally ending his reign of terror. This frees up some more guns on the left and center that fires everything they got into the oblitorators, but even though the demo-charge and demolisher tank both makes perfect shots, there are still one of them standing when the smoke clears.
When the assault phase comes around the terminators makes short work of a few of the guardsmen, not taking a single wound in return the guardsmen finally breaks and flees, terminators walking slowly after them, readying their meltas for the tanks.

Chaos 4
For some reason we both here thought that this was the start of turn 5, so we rolled for night fight, and night fell.
The last squad of terminators finally arrives, this time right back in the corner of the imperial deployment, only a few inches from the board edge.
The terminators on the right moves forward to get a better shot on the chimera and the russ, but could not get quite far enough to get into the back armour of the russ.
In the back field the plague marines starts to move forward, leaving the handling of the quad-gun to one of the havocs.
In the shooting phase the newly arrived terminators opens up on the infantry squad in the back, but only manages to kill a few, and not making them flee. The terminators on the right uses their remaining combi melta and shoots the russ in the side, but even though they are in short range, the shot bounces of the thick armour. On the left the remaining oblitorator has a bit more luck as at least his shot penetrates the demolisher, but only manage to stun the vehicle. The havocs then fire upon the infantry squad in front of the demolisher, but has a bit of bad luck and only kills 2 guardsmen.

IG 4
The fleeing squad rallies and advances towards the objective on the right while the chimera and russ moves a bit, the russ to take out the last of the plague marines, and the chimera to take out the terminators, also the command HQ squad moves to get a few shots in them. On the left not much changes, the infantry moves into cover and the objective, and the sentinels moves to intercept the reinforcements from the chaos back line.
When the shooting starts the last oblitorator is finally taken down and all but one of the plague marines in the forest, the terminators in the right losses one of it's members to laspistol fire, and fortunately the one to fall is the one close enough to contest the objective on that side. The plague marines on the right losses two more members, but still one angry marine is left. The terminators in the back field of the imperial lines takes a lot of small arms fire, but nothing gets though their thick armour.

As we both thought that this was the 5th turn, we rolled for the battle to continue, but it didn't, and the battle ended with a imperial victory with 9vp to 6.

"What I cannot crush with words, I'll crush with the tanks of the Imperial Guard!"

Imperial Guard - part XXIV - Officer

I tried to make something that could be passed as a Officer of the Fleet, I wanted to try one out in my last game. So I got hold of another one of my 1ed miniatures and threw some paint on it.
I think it turned out half ok, perhaps not so much fleet action over him, but I'm thinking I can use him as some other officer down the road, but for now, he's my contact to the Imperial Fleet.

And here is a few pictures of him (he is very shiny though..)

Imperial Guard - part XXIII - More veterans

I've gotten some more veterans painted up, I've had these standing om my painting table for far to long, and this last weekend I wanted to use them in a game. So thought and done, I got the brush and went at them.
As they are quite simple it didn't take that long to do, one night of painting and watching youtube clips and it was all done. I even got to do some other small things inbetween the drying periods, but that's for a future post. For now here are some pictures of them;

The photos did turn out quite green... Don't really know why, but I'm working of finding out...

Imperial Guard - part XXII - Tank factory part II

So while painting a bit on my Russ and Chimera, I get to finish my magnetization of my Mantacore, so now this is done and ready for the painting table.

I decided to magnetize both the missiles on top of the rack (to show how many had been fired) and the frame for them as well to make it more manageable in storage. I did not want to have a big and quite fragile thing sticking up from the foam just to be broken. I hope that this will keep that from happening.

Other than that I’ve left some pieces off, the pilot and the hatch he’s sitting under. I want to be able to get paint in there, so they had to stay out for the moment.

Here you have some pictures of the whole thing assembled

The pilot in his little cabin

All the parts that can be taken off

Now I’m working on the Russ and Chimera, I’m going for having them completed before Sunday when I hope that I’ll get a game or two in.

Imperial Guard - part XXI - Tank factory

I have a few tanks waiting to get done, so I've finally gotten around to actually get them prepared to get them painted.
So I got a little bit of building and cleaning factory going and got my last old Russ tank cleaned and another Chimera built.

I took the opportunity to magnetize as much as I could on both of the tanks, it was far easier on the chimera as that was built form the start, the Russ was as usual with my old vehicles was covered in layer upon layer of paint, so the cleaning process did take over two months and still I could not get all the paint off it. But I did get the sponsorns of, and got them magnetized, and I got the old bulldozer blade off as well, so that I could add magnets to take one of the new ones.
In the end the cleaning and building was a pain, but it got done and now the tank has taken the first spray layers and the first fields of green added.

The chimera was a more straight forward affair as it was new in box. This was also the first new tank I put together, and I must say that the addition of small groves to place the tank tracks in make the whole track businesses a breeze to do.
Other than that the assembly was straight forward, there wasn't any problems with fitting the things together, the parts that was any point to magnetize was done so without any problems. The only thing was that the base for the turret guns was the same for the flamer and multilaser, so without doing a whole lot of extra work I could note make them both fit, so instead I went for only the multilaser and left the flamer to be done so it could be fitted to the Russ instead. Not really the weapon of choice, but now I can use it if I want.

Here are some pictures of the two of them all ready and spray painted and with the first of the green fields added.

 

And some pictures of the Russ with its options

The chimera and it's options

I also have a Manticore on they way, I still have some magnets to fit, but that will be done quite soon I hope

40k 6th - Take III

Last week I played another game of 40k, my third game so far, this time it was a 1750 point battle against some Space Marines, led by Peder Cantor and his horde of Sternguard marines.

I didn't take as many pictures as I should have, I hardly took any at all to be frank.

I had an army with lots of tanks, trying this out if it would work at all, so my army looked like this

1 Command squad

1 Platoon with 2 squads (Flamer)

1 Platoon with 2 Squads (Grenade Launcher)

3 Heavy weapon squads (AC, 2xML)

2 Veteran squads in Chimera (3xplasma)

1 Hell hound

2 Leman Russ tanks

1 Demolisher

1 Basilisk

And I met the following marines;

Pedor Cantor

Techmarine with thunderfire cannon

2 Sternguard squads in Rhinos

2 Tactical squads in Razorbacks

2 Vindicators

2 Typhoon landspeeders

1 Stormtalon

The game was The Scouring with Hammer and Anvil deployment, and the first turn was covered in darkness. Here I was a bit unlucky, and the marines got the warlord trait that gave them move though cover and stealth in ruins, and most of the board was ruins…


The setup for my part was mostly a gigantic blob of tanks and men lined up all across the deployment, while the marines was a bit mot fiddly and hid most things in the back with the exception of the vindicators that was deployed far forward ready to counter my Russes.


Guard deployment

The first turn was to the guard, but as it was night the first turn, there was not that much effective shooting. The only notable exception was the baselisk that lobed a grenade high in the air and hit one of the razorbacks and a land speeder in the back, and managed to immobilize them both.
Other than that there was a few shots taken against the vindicators, but other than a hullpoint of damage on one of them there wasn't much action


Advancing tanks

Vindicators ready to get some revenge

Artillery strike targets

During the Marines turn the vindicators advanced and fired on my Russes, only managing to do a single point of damage on one of them and shaking it, and even Pedor with his orbital bombardment did nothing at all, the tanks really had a good day. More to the center of the table a rhino dashed forward and the sternguard in it jumped into a ruin and while one combat squad melted the Hellhound the other flamed the living daylights of a nearby infantry squad. The thunderfire cannon also obliterated most of another squad with highly accurate fire.


In the next guard turn the Russes advanced forward and with the combined fire from them and one of the veterans chimera and the missile teams, the damaged vindicator was taken down. In the center the other veterans advanced towards the ruin now filled with sternguards and together with another infantry squad, the autocannons and mostly everything else in the army one of the squads was reduced to only a single member.
The baselisk did not have its finest day, as it with a direct hit on Pedors razorback, managed to do absolutly nothing...

Burning vindicator

Advancing tanks

Far to living sternguards hiding in a ruin

In the marines next turn the remaining vindicator advanced again, but this time they didn't get any hit on the lumbering tanks in front of him, but to help out the Stormtalon zoomed in flying down the road and fire on the poor autocannon teams, that disappeared in a puff of red mist. On the other side of the board the landspeeders and both razorbacks sighted the demolisher, and managed to blow of the big gun, and bring it down to a single remaining hullpoint. The thunderfire once again shelled a poor infantry squad, but by hitting the dirt most of them survived the experience. In the center sternguards once again shot quite a lot of guardmen, among them one of the officers.


In the third turn for the guards most things stayed thight, the infanty in the center withdrew from the angry marines, taking cover in a crater that untill a few moments ago had contained autocannon teams. On the Russ side of things one of the veterans chimera drowe up, and disembarked, ready for some side shots in the remaining vindicator, wrecking it with accurate plasma fire. The russes fired on Pedros razorback, but they only got it shaken and removed a single hullpoint, the demolisher fired it's remaining lascannon and removed another. The baselisk took some help from the missile teams and removed two hullpoints from the rhino behind the now burning vindicator, and got a stunned result as well. 

Here my time ran out, I had to gather my things and quickly get to the buss for my ride home. All in all it didn't look to good for the guards, although I had one more victory point in objectives that I held the marines did have first blood, and one fast attack destroyed giving him another point, and the lookout for me to hold onto all the objectives seemed rather slim. So the victory was handed the the green Crimson Fists!


The Imperial Guard will be back...

Table building - part VIII - A new beginning

So, summer has come, and with it my vacation has come and now gone. There hasn’t been much hobby time during the last weeks as we have been involved in traveling to relatives, going to concerts and on top of that trying to paint the last few things on our house.

But in-between I’ve had a few moments to start building a new gaming table. I got into it after my last game at home (you can read about it here) and my current table is not really suited for games such as 40k. So a about 4’x6’ table is what I’ve stared.

I have made the table in 3 parts so far, each being about 2’x4’, they are really 122x56cm, based on the pre-cut MDF board I found in a semi local lumberyard. On these I glued down some 1” foam to use as the foundation of this whole thing.

I decided to make this as simple as possible, and not worrying about modularity to much or that I “had” to make it fit into any future more modular boards. This is something to get going, and having a table of good size for the occasional game that might arise around the house.

I have however not been that good at taking pictures of my work so far, mostly since it has been made in 5-10 min chunks stretched over three weeks now, but I took a few last night as I finished the painting on the first board.

Here is it after the first three layers of paint

Here it is after I got the last few layers of paint on it

The green felt mat I have is something they call fake grass in one of the stores around here (Rusta for you that has one close by) it comes in a roll that’s 120x200cm large, and if you look at the mesurments above that’s a bit less than what I would need to cover the whole board in one piece so I have had to do something to get it together. On this first table I made this marsh/river kind of thing, my thoughts are to stick some random plant-like things in there and cover it up with water effects. We’ll have to see how that turns out…

One of the other tables I made a hill on, nothing fancy at all, just something to break up the battlefield with.

This last one I haven’t done a lot to, but the thought is that I’m going to do a small lake/pond on it, and then a small stream leading to and perhaps even from it, I haven’t decided yet how I’m going to do it, I might end up doing nothing at all and just leaving it flat and green. 

To show some scale of the grass and the board I got hold of an old Ork scorcha models that I had in my garage, it would have to do =)

I still need to do the edges of the board, so far I have't decided if I should just take some tape and just paint it, or if I should get some thin wood and make a frame all around it. I have to think about that for I while, and I still have lots of work to do before I have to really do it.