Sunday, October 11, 2009

Desperate Assault!

It's Period 2 Game 2 of the Ordo Fraternitas Planetstrike League. Yesterday's mission was the Planetstrike game Desperate Assault. In Desperate Assault, the attacker gets to place a beach head forward bastion with a unit inside, then if he wishes D3+1 units on the board within 12" of his board edge. The attacker also has his Firestorm bumped up to S10. Before this game started, I was 2-1 after losing my second period game 1 as the attacker. This week was my turn to attack vs Eldar. I deployed 5 bastions, and with the Eldar beach head there were a total of 6 objectives. The final objective of the attackers in desperate assault is to contest or hold every unheld objective by the defense. Basically, if I totally control even a single objective I win.

Here is my setup, and our armies. As expected, Brad (the Eldar player) brought lots of Aspect Warriors.







In the remaining pregame phase, we declared our Strategems. My announced pregame was Void Shield on the center double bastion, and a drop bastion. I also had an escape hatch on the center bastion for my planned Terminator Assault Squad that was to be deployed. The Eldar announced Scorched Skies for an extra Firestorm die (2D6+Objective count), Webway Assault for his reserves, and Sustained Assault for a unit of Wraithguard.

In the Firestorm, I came through relatively unscathed. He rolled 14 total Firestorm attacked, and destroyed a few of my Interceptor guns, and Stunned most of my bastions.

During the first turn, 5 of his reserves arrives in his drop zone, and did minimal damage as they arrived. On my turn I revealed my escape hatch stratagem, and charged my Assault Terminators with Chaplain attached out towards the Avatar. My Land Speeder squadron and Predator came in from the flank to offer fire support to the terminators with more Eldar units on the flank. The Land Speeders halve the Wraithguard unit on that edge, while in the assault phase the Terminators annihilate the Avatar without suffering a single casualty.

 

In the next Eldar turn, his reinforcements arrive. Fire Dragons fly onto the board and disembard, destroying one Land Speeder and Stunning the rest. The Wraithguard destroyed 2 weapons on the Predator, and 2 units of Warp Spiders jump onto the board, and along with another unit of Wraithguard totally wipe out my Assault Terminators in the shooting phase. On the other side of the board, a unit of Wraithguard bloy a bastion, then assault and wipe out the unit of Scouts inside, with only Telion surviving to retreat and fire again.




On my turn I returned the favor by wiping out the Warp Spiders with a Sternguard squad marching through dangerous terrain, my Librarian with The Avenger power, and the automated guns and 2 units shooting from bastions. At the other end, my Venerable Dreadnought blows a Wave Serpent.




Turn three was rough for my impact troops. After only 1 turn on the board where it again stunned the Eldar beach head, my Land Raider was taken out by a Bright Lance. My Venerable was also immobilized and lost its CC arm to another Bright Lance. The Dread was then killed as the Wraithguard assaulted it.


 

On my turn I tried to regain my rear right quadrant with the Scout Bikes. I knew it would be a tall task with Banshees inside of that WS. The failed to blow it with the Astartes Launcher, and waited out the return.



The rest of the game was mainly strategic movement to capture objectives and thin the enemy forces. The Scout bikes held up the assaulting Howling Banshees in the WS for a full turn and a half, while an Attack Bike turbo boosted across the battle field to capture the drop bastion. When the Banshees finally destroyed the Scout Bikes, they captured BOTH bastions in the area. The Attack Bike positioned himself to fire, along with the unit inside and other automated weapons dropped the Banshee squad to just one Aspect Warrior left, no longer stopping me from holding the last bastion.

On the other side of the board a unit of Banshees down to the last member held another bastion. A Wave Serpent was able to weather The Avenger again to hold the center bastion. The Without Number unit of Wraithguard were able to march onto the board and capture the upper right objective. But again for the second time in the Planetstrike League, a lone attack bike has won the game for me by capturing an objective late in the game and surviving the final turn.


Thursday, October 8, 2009

Ultramarine Venerable Dreadnought

Well, that didn't take long. After putting him together and base coating him, I just couldn't look at the model without wanting to finish it. The last "vehicle" model I purchase is in fact the first I ever finish painting for my Ultramarines! I'm happy with how everything turned out except for maybe the gold. It looks worse in pictures than in person, so at least he will look great on the table top. I paint for play anyways, haha.

So here is my Forge World Ultramarine Venerable Dreadnought:



Barbarian

Yes, yes. This is a Games Workshop blog. But I wanted to share my Dungeons and Dragons player character that I am particularly proud of. I'm not the greatest of painters, but I enjoy it, and I do really like how he turned out.

This is Broll, a level 14 Half-Orc Barbarian in D&D 4th Edition.


...Rats!

 Rats are invading the Ultramarine blog!

I've been creeping up on the desire to play Warhammer Fantasy again. Back in the day (third edition?) when I actually still played, I had what I thought was the sweetest army out there. Lizardmen. With the release of Skaven next month, I'm thinking I'm going to dive right back into WHFB and start a ratmen army. I'm going to try my best to move at a slower pace with this project, as my Marines still have a LOT of painting to be done to them. That and I don't want to drop $500 on plastic Skaven to have a large tournament sized army the first week they are out.

Here are some of the new plastic Skaven. The characters are really what sealed the deal for me. Space Marines are very generic, which is a good thing as well as a bad thing. These models really have character. I think this has now become a blog about both Fantasy and 40K. Hopefully the Ultras don't mind sharing space.






Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Work In Progress

More additions, and I have to say that these are my 2 favorite looking units in my entire collection. The Forge World Ultramarine Venerable Dreadnought is a sweet model. Expensive as hell... I thought about buying 2 more Dreads for the price of this one, but I think it will be worth it when it is finished and on the table. I got 4 of the Scout Bike squad used, and bought the 5th and made him my Sergeant. I love the power fist on the bike, leading his unit. I still think I may switch out 1 bolter for another grenade launcher.

Here is the Scout Bike Squad, with the Sergeant freshly assembled, and the basing added before priming.



 
The Venerable is a great looking model. I decided to not put the large banner/standard on the model. I'm just not a fan of it on the Dread, similar to my Ironclad not having one. I used the other banner as an objective, and I think I may do the same with this one. Here it is so far, with a once over base-coat. I probably won't have time to try and sit down to finish him until at least next week.






Ultramarines!




If you're reading this blog, first let me thank you. If you're reading this blog, and haven't heard about the upcoming Ultramarines movie and video game... where have you been?! Here is a preview for the videogame. Being an Ultramarine player, I'm definitely looking forward to watching and playing both on my XBox 360.

http://www.ultramarinesthemovie.com/

http://www.spacemarine.com/

Space Marine preview on YouTube




Thank you 40K Fight Club

I have particularly enjoyed my re-emergence into Warhammer 40K because of the gaming club I joined that is focused on 40K. We had a club-only tournament that was excellently run and full of good sportsmanship. We are now running a 14 man Planetstrike League that has 5-7 full tables of Planetstrike going every Tuesday, filling the store with excellent terrain and great games.

Last night I played the most fun game I have ever played in 40K, and I lost. Space Marines attacking Eldar in the Desperate Assault mission for Planetstrike. It looked like I was tearing it up, but my forces were slowly whittled away, and I was unable to capture every objective on the last turn of the game well enough. On turn 5, I had a Land Speeder go full out to come into contact with the final Bastion's wreckage I needed to win. My Assault Squad intercepted the Warithguard that would have meant immenent doom for the Predator tank holding another objective. Then on the Eldar turn through all of the shooting, I failed ONE cover save on the Speeder, and it was immobilized (which means destroyed because it moved Flat Out), and then proceded to roll a 2 to see if the game went on. Epic!

I think what turned the game on me was when I was unable to kill a Wraithlord with 3 vehicles shooting at it (Land Raider, Dakka Predator, and double HB Land Speeder), so I assaulted it instead of the Fire Prism to destroy it. The Fire Prism then destroyed my Land Raider, leaving my Assault Terminators stranded. They eventually captured an objective, but I think that if they were in the main fight, rather than on the fringe, then they would have made the difference.



Thanks to the 40KFC my return to 40K has been a great hobby experience, all around.


I picked up a Forgeworld Ultramarines Venerable Dreadnought and a unit of 5 Scout Bikes this week, so more on them soon.