Transfer Season now open for Shrike Army

It all started last Saturday. Twas a lovely day. Sun was shining and I was on my way down South to have a couple of games of 40K against the Silverback. A splendid way to spend a Saturday...

... so whilst Evil Monkey was let loose on "Left for Dead 2" we prepared to see if Shrike and his friends could stand up against the Fatecrusher list. The answer is no. The first battle we managed a draw although that was more thanks to the never ending scenario and my Land Speeders than it was any skill on Shrike's part.

The second game ended 4-1 on obj to the Daemons. End of Turn 5 we had a draw but it was not to be this time. So this got me thinking: why am I always playing for the draw? Why isn't the army hard enough to make the Daemons play for the draw?

This was the army (2,000 points):
Shrike
Chaplain in Termie Armour
6 x Assault Termies in LRC
10 x Marines w/plasma cannon, meltagun and pfist in Razorback
10 x Marines w/missile launcher, meltagun and pfist in Razorback
10 x Marines w/lascannon, meltagun and pfist in Razorback
10 x Assault Marines w/Thunder Hammer and 2 plasma pistols
2 x Land Speeder w/Hvy Bolter & Assault Cannon

2 Hard hitting units. 30 marines in vehicles behind them and skimmers bouncing around. So during the drive home whilst Evil monkey slept and dreamt of zombies I considered what was lacking.

Shrike - he's good, not game breaking and gives Fleet. Does tend to run away: can make him fearless by adding a Chaplain but, erm, no. Pass
Chaplain - gives fearless to Assault Termies but can be insta-killed and is weak. Fail
Assault Termies - fabulous unit. hard hitting and with fleet they are scary. Pass
Marines - 30 is a good number: gives me 6 scoring units. Power Fist, Meltaguns in Razors are excellent. Missile Launcher and Larry Lascannon are good. Plasma Cannon is pants. Misses too often. Pass in general; Fail on plasma cannon
Assault Marines - good unit with Shrike. Infiltrating or Outflank are cool. Bit weak at times when they hit but Thunder Hammer is good fun. Plasma Pistols are rubbish. Invariably 1 overheats and most of the time they don't even get to fire them. Pass in general; Fail on plasma pistols
Land Speeders - oh dear. Ideally I like units to have a job: these boys can't decide if they're light vehicle killers or infantry killers. They also have to move only 6" in order to use both guns. Not good - I want them zinging around and offering a bigger threat radius. Very good, however, at last minute land grabs. Pass for missions; Fail for job well done
Land Raider Crusader - love this. Drops off Termies and then proceeds to annoy the heck out of everyone. Pass

I decided that I needed another hard hitting unit that can appear in the enemy deployment zone on turn 1 alongside Assault Termies in LRC and Shrike + Assault Marines. To get this unit I needed 170 points.... so how do you get 170 points without losing any units?

Like this....
Remove Chaplain and replace with Chaplain Cassius. He's Toughness 6. 6!! He gives me everything the other one does and more. Ok he's only power armour but then most attacks against him are power weapons so that's no issue. He's also 5 points cheaper.

Drop Plasma Cannon marine and replace with Missile Launcher. Save 5 points.

Cassius is made up of Space Marine Commander and Space Wolf bits.

Drop 1 Assault Termie. 5 or 6 in the unit are neither here nor there. So lose one with LClaws. 40 points saved.

Drop 2 Assault Marines with Plasma Pistols. Save 66 points.

Drop 2 Land Speeders with Assault Cannon/Hvy Bolter. Replace with Land Speeders with Multi-Meltas. Save 60 points.

One on the left is an old one handed to me during an exchange with the Silverback years ago. One on the right is a new one and boy do they go together much better now they've been remoulded? Yes. They do! Multi-Meltas give me a 36" threat radius. Tank Hunters or Monstrous Creature killers.

So that's 176 points saved. So now I can introduce my brand new Ironclad Dreadnought in a Drop Pod. Yummy.


Yes that is a Furioso Dread with Warmachine bits attached. He wasn't being used anymore so a quick repaint and he's ready for action.

Drop Pod stolen from the Space Wolf battleforce; have to replace that one day! Nice Statue? Big ain't it?? Statue is work in progress.

So that's it then. Brand new 2,000 point Shrike army:
Shrike
Chaplain Cassius
5 Assault Termies
Ironclad Dread in Drop Pod
10 Marines (PF, ML, Meltagun) & Razorback
10 Marines (PF, ML, Meltagun) & Razorback
10 Marines (PF, Larry, Meltagun) & Razorback
8 Assault Marines (Thunder Hammer)
2 Land Speeders w/Multi Meltas
Land Raider Crusader

All the above added in 5 days since I started this on Monday. Spiffing. Now let's see how they deal with nasty stuff!

Daemons and the future

So here are the latest batch of Daemons to make the battlefield a pretty and pleasing place.  The silverfox has already been in contact with these little beauties and loves them.  In fact he loves them sooo much, he came back for more.

The scheme couldn't have been simpler.  Army Painter red spray, Dwarf Bronze on the Jugger and sword.  Pick out some small bits of detail and then Purple Wash on the Bronze & Black Wash on the Bloodletter. A quick before and after shoot for you to see the difference!

So with regards the future, just take a look at the new NCP carpark that has filled up my shelves.....

Busy Weekend Part 3

Yeap! Still more to come!

I'd brought these 10mm buildings ages ago and finally managed to get round to them. I've got some others that can up really well and was fairly pleased with how these came up just with lots of heavy dry brushing.

Busy Weekend Part 2

The Silverback kindly gave me some excellent terrain stuff absolutely ages ago.

He'd found some small scale walls and hedges. Like a thin sort of foam with flock stuck to it making it look like hedges and walls.

Finaly got round to doing something with it. Thought I'd make two fields and the rest as separate wall sections for more versatility.

Thanks Silverback for those!

As both the Silverback and I both have some (very dusty) BKC 10mm WWii stuff, I thought it would be good to try and play FoW in the 10mm scale.

Also managed to finish some walls which are for 28mm but I'm going to use them as high ones for BKC.

Oh - and some planky fences which will be perfect for Pirates and SotTR!

Busy Weekend Part 1

Been productive this weekend!

I am really starting to get loads of little project cleared that have been hanging around for ages.

Plus a couple of new ones.......;-)

The Vanquish Tournament Bristol Vanguard 2010

Well a sunny weekend in Bristol and 5 games of my favourite gaming pastime, 40K, along with my ol' chum Andy "The Bear" Powell. I have been to this tournie for the last 3 years and as I have said each and every time, it has to be the best I have been to...that includes Lenton! The terrain is second to none, the scenarios and referee interaction is spot on....anyway enough about this....on to the armies and games!

First up was Chris from Cardiff, I have seen Chris here and the Cardiff events before and he's a larger than life character and embodies the spirit of the hobby! Even if he is a little carried away with the exuberance of just how well he's doing! Well it's true Chris! ;-)


Suffice to say that with Dawn of War and Annihiltion, I didn't want to lose the first turn, great I got to choose deployment....oh bollox, Chris seized the initiative!! So the first turn saw the battlewagon and trukks charge across the table pile out and kick seven bails of hay out of my marines!! Good game with some great moments, shawn the sheep has a lot to answer for!!!
Loss for me 9 to 3 on KP's

Second was a game against one of the ref's Andrew Tailor, what a treat this was, he is a really astute guy when it comes to the game and I was expecting a shoeing!! "Nope" he said, "I wanted to take a really average army" out came his Grey Knight army....being an old Grey Knight player myself I realise they have been left way behind with the 5th edition of the rules, so was hopeful of a win!!

Two large Knight units each with 2 Psycannons, a unit of Terminators with 3 Psycannons in the unit including the masters and 2 Dreadnoughts, left me a little nervous, this was a Cleanse mission using Spearhead deployment and thats a lot of fire power to be moving towards!

Flamer Marine was ordered forward into the charging Dreadnought with the Power Fist.....MUMMY!!!

The Grand Master of the Grey Knights strode forward with his retinue.

A really well converted and painted army, this was a really great part of my day. The best part of the game was spent by Andrew teling me how he achieved some of the effects and as is typical of people that have a God given talent, he was very under played about the whole thing!

The amusing part of the game for us was the fact that I poured so much fire into the accursed HQ and Andrew kept saving them, that they were making good ground across the table toward the quarter I was hiding in! Andrew had captured the other quarter on my side of the table, so my reserve rhino and squad were going to have to deal with this, while the other Marine squad tried to stop the remaining Knight squad capturing the quarter opposite my deployment.

The one scary thing for these marines was the bloody Terminators.....ah ha don't worry the

Demon Prince will deal with them, he launched forward toward the charging dreadnought, only to get taken by surprise when my Obliterators destroyed it! Ahhhh now I am in the open!! That's okay, I will run and use the hulk of the Dread for cover...anyhoo 3 failed saves later he was bleeding warp shite like you wouldn't believe! The Grey Knight squad then got a last round of fire in just as the Terminators were lining up to finish him off in close combat! He went down like he'd been pole axed! Great I get another round of firing at the Termies and the Greater Demon has turned up! Where I didn't miss Andrew saved them! Bollox! Okay the Greater Demon will have to rely on his 4+ invulnerable! What do you mean he can't make a single save....another pole-axed monster!! Much to the furstration of the Terminators!

Great game with ANdrew finally pointing out the error of my ways in my moving my Plague marines out of my quarter to claim the adjacent quarter and suggesting a draw! Thank you Sir!

So a draw for the second game...not too shoddy!

Game three was up against Alan, sorry Al I didn't get your second name! This was another Chaos Marine army with a strong Slaanesh influence, 2 DP's with lash and 6 Oblit's khorne marines in a LR' and two squads of Marines in rhinos. 1 being plague marines! I hadn't played against a configration like this before although obviously I had heard about them.

The mission was recon with a pitched battle deployment, so I needed to get my Rhino across the table and into Alan's deployment zone, everything was foot slogging it's way across the table.

I got embroiled in a right ol' duff up in the centre of the table, with my DP and GD piling in with the Chaos Lord, Plague marines and a squad of Black Legionaires...the lash did for me though, pulling my squads here and there! It didn't help that when my lord and the Black Legion charged the Berzerkers I killed only two from over 30 attacks, then lost 4 marines myself...9 on the Ld roll...bugger! Oh no hang on "Chaos Glory" rolls an 11.....mmmm...double bugger! Roll to break off...."1". I'll get my coat! Oh hang on the GD has trned up and can assault the turn he comes forth! 6 attacks on 3's......what do you mean he's missed!! Shit! Ow he's now dead as well! Curse my saving throws! My remaining troop choice was then lashed closer to the demons, then lashed again into t line directly away from the target...this mean't that I would only get 60% of my squad into the resulting assault! They died!!!! This left me somewhat jaded I must admit....oh well back to the drawing board! There's always tomorrow!

I lost this, with Alan succeeding in getting 2 troop choices into my deployment zone.

Sunday morning, well rested, bright eyed and bushy tailed!

First game was up against Tim Bland and his Blood Angels, Tim is from the Exeter Inquisitors and I enjoyed this game immensely, the mission was Spearhead with Capture and Control

Tim was taken a little by surprise initially as my reserves came on from my entire board edge, he'd forgotten about that, probably due to the "Cleanse" mission the day before, the opening part of the game saw me take out the Vindicator and blow the arm off of the Dreadnought, the 5 man combat squad nearest my deployment line dies to the Plague Marines, while the other half of this combat tema gt embroiled in an assault with my other Chaos Marine squad, the GD and the Devastator squad, along with the fist less Dread....ultimatley I won this and managed to make my way over the table and was 6" away from his objective when the game ended on turn 5! Tim had awful luck with his 2 terminator squads, 1 not turning up until turn 5 and both scattering 11" and 12" respectively when they struck on to the table! The first dying to 4 Plasma cannon shots killing all of them!

Due to the initial mix up with Cleanse and Spearhead, I thought I had done enough and another draw was lined up!! "Errrr no" Tim said, "I hold my objective with this remaining troop choice, and you.....errr have nothing on yours....a win to me I think.." he said somewhat sheepishly!! Oh Pooh....how stoopid!

So another loss!! I scored lots more points as well!! Boooo Hooooo!!

The last game was against a young man from the other Bristol club I believe "Big 'Uns", Matt.

Imperial Guard with ratlings, Ogryns...I like Ogryn...(I think I have said this before!) a Vendetta and Valkyrie, a couple of chimera conversions, as Humvees and a Leman Russ!!

The mission is Pitched Battle and Seize Ground, 4 objectives placed. Lovely army as well with some interesting conversions.

The Humvee's are die cast models he picked up for £8 1/27th scale.

The game was a real blast, with lots of moments worth note, the most laughable one being my DP running into cover and the ensuing discussion over cover meaning that one side was exposed and yes the Vendetta could move over to this side and shoot him with it's Lascannons...which it duly did, then lots of laughs about how I might roll "1" when I leapt out of the wood!! You can guess what I rolled! That and the plague marines that moved out of their cover to negate the threat of the Ogryn, only for me to forget that Plasma guns are rapid fire weapons, even though I fired them twice and the other marines only fired their pistols, to make sure I could assault them....oh hang on they are rpid fore aren't they!! Maybe I should have stayed in the cover! As luck would have it, they assaulted me and I won the ensuing combat consolidating back into the cover and my objective.
The result was 3 objectives to none to me! Great game and a fantastic opponent, thank you Matt.

I will be posting the best painted armies in a future post.

So keep tuned in!

BFG