Monday 20 February 2017

Not just one, two games!

I was lucky enough to get a couple of games in the weekend before last.

The first game was against Pete, playing the first of our 2017 monthly games.

Pete is getting back into 40k on the back of the Traitor Legions codex (apparently he did not like the Gav Thorpe Chaos dex, I never knew....) and hopefully in preparation for (I hope) a sleeker better v8 40k. It also is an opportunity for me to brush up on my gaming skills, which have not been utilised much at all these last few years due to child commitments (this was my 3rd game in about 18mths).

So these monthly games are a Good Thing™ as they get a couple of old bulls (if you will) back vaguely into figuring out stuff around the roll of the dice.

To keep it simple we played Eternal War: Crusade (rolled 3 objectives), hammer and anvil setup, and no Special Characters or allies were allowed.

I took a generic Sororitas CAD list:
Canoness with Eviscerator, Rosarius, and Mantle of Ophelia
Missionary with Storm Bolter, Book of St Lucius
2 squads of 8x SoB, incl VSS, Meltagun, Heavy Flamer, in a Rhino w/Dozer blade
1 squad of 12x SoB, incl VSS w/combi-flamer, Meltagun, Heavy Flamer
1 squad of 5x Dominions, incl VSS w/combi-flamer, 4x Meltagun, in an Immolator with Heavy Flamers
1 squad of 6x Seraphim, incl VSS, 1x Inferno Pistols and 1x Hand Flamers
1 squad of 8x Retributors, incl VSS, 4x Heavy Bolters
2 Exorcists

Pete's army (from memory) was:
Kakophoni Formation
Lord on Bike with Blissgiver, 4++ Inv
6 Squads of 5x Noise Marines incl Blastmaster, Sonic Blasters, various power weapon upgrades for the Sergeants, and Icons (for the 4+ FNP)
Spawn
Plus a Lord of the Legion (Winged Daemon Prince with Power armour)

His army was not that optimised - more playing with the models he had although in saying that it's not much of a tweak to make it tougher.

Pete rolled +1T for his Combat Drugs, this combined with Formation bonus of S+1 Sonic Weapons with Shred, plus split fire for the Blastmasters, and the Icons, made this a pretty tough matchup for the T3 Sisters!

I managed to win the roll off for ends so I chose the one with two objectives, with my main tactic to try not to be drawn forward into a CC battle if I could avoid it.


The thin grey line


Will you look at all those sonic weapons


End of Turn 5

I think of Pete had been a bit more aggressive with the Lord and DP I would have been in a lot more trouble much earlier on. 

We also made a whole bunch of inconsistent and n00b mistakes but hey. 

The second game I played was against Shane's Ravenwing. another old foe. I swapped out my Canoness and a few models for the new Celestine unit, while Shane took a Ravenwing CAD with:
Sammael
Librarian on Bike
5x Bike Squads (some with Attack Bikes)
3x Speeder Squadrons

We played one of the Tiered missions I use in my tournaments:
Dawn of War
Primary Mission (Eternal War) – Emperor’s Will* – 2 objectives (4 VP each)
Secondary Mission (Maelstrom X of War) – Contact Lost
Tertiary – First Blood, Slay the Warlord, Linebreaker (1 VP each)

Again I was looking at this T5 nonsense with rerollable jinks across the table and was a bit nervous about my chances. I won the roll off to set up and thankfully Shane both scouted and then failed to seize the initiative.


Wall of scouting death
Mad rush for objectives


Due to time constraints and other interruptions we only managed to make it to the bottom of Turn 3 - and as it turned out I won 6-4 by VP, one more turn and he would have been all over me. Also Celestine didn't get anywhere near combat due to two failed charge rolls (needing 7 and needing 8 from memory) and speedy bikes getting the hell outta there, it will be interesting to see what happens when she actually makes it! 

Takeaways are that the Sororitas are really brittle and need a knight...

Next in the queue to paint are the two remaining Dominions from the first melta squad, then the immolator, then a new priest, then an Ecclesiarchal death squad thing.

Saturday 4 February 2017

2017 painted model commitment #3

Well well well... who'd have thought a commitment to paint one (one!!) model a week would be so... productive? So far anyway!

Firstly I had to paint a unit of Dominions for my monthly game vs Peter (more on that later), I managed to get 5/7 painted in time.



Led by VSS Helena, who is holding one of the many copies of the famous works of St Lucius

I still have a bolter Dominion and one holding a Simulacrum Imperialis to paint (this week's job), plus their Immolator.

And since I had a couple of evenings up my sleeve, I thought I'd paint an alternate Canoness to take, armed with an Eviscerator. I've found that with the restriction on Relics (i.e. one per model) you can no longer build something that looks like the old Witch Hunters codex, so my old Blessed Weapon+Inferno Pistol model is taking a 'rest'. 

So here is Dominicae Palatine, Evelyn Louise, Penitent Champion of the Order of the Violaceous Heart

Should have put a large skull on the back of the cloak... ..

Next on the list (aside from finishing the first Dominion Squad above) is the Geminae Superia to go with my (to be rebased) St Celestine.

How on target am I?
Weeks of the year complete: 5
Models painted: 11
Vehicles painted: 1