Seraphon, I picked a colourscheme aaalmost a year later.

so I wanted a second colour after a few friends said they looked unfinished (they were but they still would have looked it). So I was gonna to a teal/turquise colour at first but I had just bought Squid pink from Vallejo in case I needed it for my Gloomspite Gitz army. And it contrasted really well with the blue of my Seraphon so I gave it a go and sort of fell in love with his neon glow/  hot & cold combo. Also it's how my favourite candy looks so I may have subconsciously thought about them... 

Seraphon paintscheme tests

Vampire Lord - Aos28

For more infor on AoS28: http://www.tga.community/forums/topic/7224-aos28-the-dark-age-of-sigmar/

This is my Vampire Lord of Hinterlands, an AoS skirmish ruleset. Very much like HoR Kill team or Mordheim, it pits small warbands against each other and you level up and get injured and hire new/more members between games. It's awesome fun.

Collecting AoS p.1 Death

My thoughts on viable factions within the grand allegiances that work and which ones you need to use multiple factions.  First off, some terms for new players that will appear here: Battleline, battleline is a unit type, sort of like a Troops choice or Core from other GW games. What that means is that there's a requirment to bring a certain number of Battleline units for your list to be 'legal'. The number of Battleline units required depends on the total points value agreed upon to play. So for example in a 1000 pts battle you need to bring 2 units who are battleline. Which units are battleline are explained in the generals handbook (or on the Age of sigmar app).

The second term that can be a bit confusing is Allegiances. What these generally mean though, is that if you bring an army where all of the units share a keyword that belongs to a faction, like Deathrattle for example, your army has the Deathrattle allegiance and may gain certain benefits from this. Sometimes you can pick command traits and artefacts only avaliable to that allegiance, and other times it might make a certain unit count as being a Battleline unit. Now not all armies have a battletome, as you will see below only one faction has one. But fret not. If all your units are from the same Grand Alliance, like Death, Chaos or Order. You get access to some general traits and artefacts (and a battle trait), meaning you're usually much better of sticking to one of these.

Death:

Flesh eater court: First of the death factions to get a Battletome, lots of synergy in-faction and some stuff in Death can buff them a bit, no Flesh eater specific relics/command traits so no reason not to splice in from other Death factions though. Their Battleline (Crypt Ghouls) isn't dependant on being Flesh eater allegiance either so that's no restriction either for non-flesh eater lists, but they perform a hell of a lot better within their faction with buffs and characters refilling their ranks. Overall their theme is ambush and leaders that either bring on new units or replenish existing ones. Beware the Terrorgheist's bite! Now you know why you fear the night.

Deadwalkers: Just 3 units, so not viable as a single faction but instead there if you like the zombie theme over ghouls or skeletons. Zombies are battleline in Death too so you can bring them in a general Death allegiance army as your required battleline troops.

Deathlords: Mostly the Mortarch heroes and Nagash, plus some powerful units in the form of Morghasts who are battleline in a Deathlords allegiance army (aka only deathlords). Doesn't sound that viable as it's 240 for two Morgasts and then between 340-900 pts for the Leaders who also are behemoths. No, you take these to bolster a Death Allegiance army, the Mortarchs make good generals, and a unit of Morgasts are pretty darn killy.

Deathmages: Consists of Necromancers and the Mortis Engine. 100% just something to add to a Death army, not something to pick as its "Core theme".

Deathrattle: This can easlily form the bulk of a Death army if you like the skeleton theme, skeleton warriors are straight up battleline, Black knights are battleline in a deathrattle allegiance. Other than that though they really only got 3 versions of a Wight king and some semi-heavy infantry called Grave guard. Their central theme is that they get models back in your hero phase. More of a tar-pit army, they will need some heavy hitters to support them.

Nighthaunt: Almost like deathrattle in that they could form your base or be your main 'theme'. On the other hand, only two units with their (battleline if Nighthaunt) Spirit hosts and cavalry hexwraiths makes them more likely to be filler. Like with Deathrattle a small army could easily be all nighthaunt but once you go up in pts you're going to be pretty limited, lack versatility and more hard hitting units etc. They have three characters, the cheap and quite killy against swarms Cairnwraith, the Tomb Banshee who has an attack against bravery and the "old-hammer" black coach that powers up from nearby death wizards (so requiring you to bring Deathmages, Deathlords, Flesh eaters or Soulblight into the mix). Nighthaunts specaility is lots of flying and immunity to rend, both are pretty good abilities, though they will melt to mortal wounds despite being ghosts.

Soulblight: Vamps! If you are dead set on making a Soulblight allegiance army you're going to have to be very limited as the fearsome and expensive blood knights are your only battleline, eating away at your points. I feel it's better to use skeleton warriors or ghouls as battleline, and spice up a Death army with Soulblight instead. They do have quite a few units so if they ever got another battleline they'd be quite good to go as an army in and of itself (fingers crossed). They have solid leaders with mostly buffs to Death keyword like the vampire lord, unlike other heroes who buff specific keywords like the Wight King for example. The vamp lord can also come on a zombie dragon, which can hit like a brick and tank like a god if the lord has a shield. 3+ save, abilities to regen wounds? Yes please. Other than this there's the Coven throne that has some shenanigans, fell bats and bat swarms (bat swarms debuff enemy ranged units in an AoE) and lastly Vargheists who can hit pretty hard and fly about but aren't the toughest guys around.

Verdict: If you don't play Flesh eaters you will probably splice in a little from every faction for Death, until they (finally) get some new love from GW.  Deathrattle, Nighthaunt and maybe Soulblight are the beefier picks as a core for your army, but you should probably sneak a peak at some Deathlord models too and maybe take something from several of the factions. For example a Necromancer can buff basically anyone with the skeleton, mordant or zombie keyword with his awesome Dance macabre spell (makes them pile in and attack a second time in one go), for some beefed up damage output, just make sure to keep him safe, So he could easily be added to a Deathrattle themed army to add some teeth to your skellies.

Tyranids vs Daemons, 2000 pts picture batrep

This was a really fun game, 2000 pts, Emperors Will

with my Tyranids vs Tim's Daemons.

This time I opted for the run of the mill flyrant with 2x TL-devourers with brainleech worms,
He performed so-so, mainly due to grounding himself with a perils of the warp on turn 2.

A last minute switch from a tervigon to the internet-loathed haruspex because I realized I only brought the 30 termagants that I was deploying and no extras for spawning. More on that later.

I got first turn and deployed my acid spray tyrannofexes on each side of the objective, supported by some warriors and a blob of termagants and a lone Zoanthrope in the ruin for extra synapse. Because of the previous battle where I used the long range rupture cannons I sort of placed the Tyrannofexes hanging back a bit, which was a bit dumb, but one of them went to town right away, moving up and spewing acid on a big blob of blood letters, killing four of them.

I also used two units of Genestealers (never used them before), one was Cryptus and his sons, the other was just 10 + a brood lord (with talons and toxin sacs for the Broody).

I infiltrated them and put one on my right flank as close as possible in a ruin, and the other I put in the central ruins, accidentaly super close to the bloodletter blob so it looked likely there was gonna be a turn 1 charge!

Hive tyrant tried to fix this predicament with casting paroxysm on the bloodletters, lowering their ws by 2, not enough this time to make them hit on 5´s though. (And it was literally the only good power I rolled).

The Daemons however had some really good spells going, 2x cursed earth for example as both the pink horrors and their herald managed to roll it. 3+ invuln bubble got off and things were looking quite dark for the central genestealers!

EDIT: apperantly we made a huge mistake and thought Cursed earth was a +2 to the invuln save!

lucky for me though the bloodletter failed their charge through the ruins, as Tim realized he hadn't brought their banner. Phew!

He did spawn some flamers of tzeentch on the pink horrors right flank and BBQ'd some hormagaunts, but not nearly as many as he could have, if he ever had managed to roll averagely!

his skull cannon on the right flank shot at cryptus and his unit, scattering over their heads, and only killing two and putting a wound on Cryptus himself (it could have done some serious damage, ignoring cover and being s7 ap5!)

the Seekers of Slaanesh charged into them as well, getting shred to ribbons by the insane close combat prowess of tooled up genestealers with an enormous broodlord! And ended up giving Cryptus a 5" consolidate move towards the skull cannon, he would easily get a charge in on my next turn now.

The Daemon prince advanced midfield, its eyes set on one of the Tyrannofexes, casting enfeeble on it. But after taking a wound from overwatch he also failed his charge! This is why you want fleet on your assault dudes! :0 

Turn 2 saw the genestealers and hormagaunts charge into the meatgrinder!

the genestealers did quite a number on the bloodlettes but their new found 3+ invuln kept them alive, but their low number of attacks when not charging kept the bloodletters from simply wiping the floor with the genestealers and instead turned into a complete whiff as not a single stealer of jeans died!

the Hormagants didn't fare much better, striking last as well, and killing only one pink horror!

the right flank saw Cryptus pluck the rider of the skull cannon of his gun and steadily advance up the backfield of the Daemon deployment!

Meanwhile the Haruspex and Tyrannofex considered double teaming the Dameon prince, but the tyrannofex failed to both wound and charge the Prince.

The Haruspex however, lashing out with his tongue, taking a second wound of the prince, then charged in.
the bigass Deamon did 3 wounds to the Haruspex no problem, getting bathed in it's acid blood in the process, but then the Haruspex struck wounded him twice, the dameons invuln save failing him, making the bug generate two more attacks, of which yet another found its mark, gravely wounding the Daemon prince and by the end of the combat the acid blood took its toll, killing the prince!
That's one hellova badass lunch you got there, Haruspex.

Hive tyrant cast paroxysm on the bloodletters before the close combat, this time lowering their ws by 3, making them hit on 5´s! this was pretty huge since they were still sitting on a 3+ invuln and the genestealers had no save whatsoever. 

However the Hive tyrant periled and rolled a 1! luckily he made his leadership test, so he only took a wound, but it did instead cause him to fall to the ground, taking yet another wound! He's half dead and on the ground, with only himself to blame...

This round however saw the four armed bug people attack at initiative, of course the broodlord whiffed all of his attacks (and I forgot about his toxin sacs for rerolling to wound). His lessers didn't however and managed to take out a few bloodletters, losing only 2 genestalers in return.

Daemons turn 2 saw the flamers jumpin to the aid of the pink horrors, dwindling down the hormagaunts to a measly 7.

A group of plaguebearers materealized infront of Cryptus, intent on stopping him from reaching the Daemons objective.

Daemonettes appeard on the other side of the meatgrinder to stop the advance of the now grounded hive tyrant and it's buddies tyrannofex and carnifex.

a skördetröska.... I mean Seeker chariot of slaanehs landed behind them, most likely gunning for the gants and warriors near my objective.

Speaking of my objective

Kairos was fluttering around it and dropped some khorne dogs almost right on top of it.

then the warpstorm took the damn hive tyrant, the dice might not be with Tim, but the dark gods seemed to be.

Turn 3 saw Cryptus slicing and dicing all but the plague herald's last wound, the other genestealers pushing the bloodletters down to 4 guys, the decked out melee warriors finally reached combat and killed the flamers, but he rolled double 1's so they came back!

The Haruspex had joined the genestealers too, but that's 3+ invuln kept him from making a thai buffet out of them. with only 4 attacks on the charge and ws3 he's a bit of a gamble if he will get anything done or not.

the tyrannofex melted a couple of seekers and charged in, mostly to prevent them from going after the warriors who were my only central synapse by now xD

The carnifex doubled back, shot the chariot in the back and immobilized it but failed his charge.

in return the warpstorm took the carnifex out by doing exactly 4 wounds to it with ap3!

the seekers did 3 wounds to the tyrannofex, the plagueberaer herald got snacked on and more bloodletters materialized to protect the objective.

This is how it looked after bottom of turn 3, genestealers in the centre broke through and obsec'd the Daemon objective, the haruspex drooled longingly for that new unit of bloodletters that just came in, Cryptus primed to charge them too, or the screamers. Warriors in the backfield had taken care of the Khorne dogs with a little help from the Termagants, there was just no way for the Daemons to recover from this.

8-1 to the Tyranids on start of turn 4/bottom of 3.

This was a brutal match, with two key failed charges putting the daemons up against the wall on turn 2 and only thanks to us messing up Cursed earth were they able to tank a lot of wounds that would otherwise have seen the Tyranids hold both objectives a turn earlier!

Post battle thoughts:

I think on the right flank, the seekers almost helped Cryptus slingshot ahead, his unit started 18" away in the back end of the run, moved up, ran with fleet just out of the ruin, and then mopped up the charging seekers to consolidate another 5" towards the Skull cannon, who had moved away 6" to get some distance and shoot, so on my turn 2 I was in decent charge range even before I moved up. if I had rolled a 1 or 2 on my consolidate or the seekers would have held off I might have failed that charge.

In hindsight a better move would probably have been to either screen the cannon with the seekers, as it ignores cover anyway, or simply to have hanged back and charged the genestealers on turn 2.
There was nothing really wrong with the deployment of the skull cannon, except it being on his far left flank so I could infiltrate and force him to shoot at Cryptus instead of my units protecting my objective (like the blob of 30 Termagants for example!).

The failed charge by the Bloodletters really cost him too, as they have such a low number of attacks and would greatly benefit from their furius charge, with twice the number of attacks and wounding on 3´s they could have really done a number on the genestealers, if they could weather the attacks first.

That was further not helped that the flamers of tzeentch killed only 8 hormagaunts when they hit like 16, wounding on 3's and ignoring all saves. and instead they gave them a 6+ fnp as well.

The Haruspex really surprised us, chewing the head of that Deamon prince in one round of combat and regenerating 2 of the 3 wounds it took, only to later regenerate that last wound too. Granted the Prince had taken two wounds prior to the combat but it would probably have been killed by the deamonic instability anyway.

The Haruspex only had 4 attacks on the charge, and was hitting on 5's because of its cruddy ws3, but its prowess comes from s7 base and s8 with adrenal glands and generating more attacks if it causes unsaved wounds, so it really did 6 attacks, plus hammer of wrath and single ap2 shooting attack and whatever acid blood can pull off as every unsaved wound it takes forces an initiative test on the opponent and if he fails he takes a s5 ap2 hit. It adds up but you need a fair bit of luck to get a good round of combat out of this thing.
Also it's lame that it only generates more attacks that way on the turn it charges.

Edit: it apperantly only regenerates one wound no matter how many unsaved wounds it causes.

And it has crushing claws giving it +1 strength. so it's s7 base with 8 on the charge.

Tyranids Vs Astra Militarum 1750 pts Picture Batrep

Anders is back in Sweden and he brought some new toys, the Astra Militarum!
pretty much wysiwyg all the way, with a commisar and a psyker in the big unit of infantry, and led by Pask in a punisher backed up by a standard leman russ.

I tried out the Skytyrant formation, 2 units of 10 Gargoyles form up with a flying hive tyrant to form one unit. It's a sweet way to have a melee Tyrant on the ground that can still move fast (12" due to all being jump infantry, basically). Instead of taking Tyrant guard who will slow you down considerably.

the downside is that in Purge the alien, this is 3 VP, 4 because it's my warlord.... And of course we rolled Purge the Alien as the objective!

I tested using 2 Tyrannofexes with Rupture cannons, and I gotta say I loved them, but I can see enemy vehicles getting any form of cover save would make them nigh useless because they only fire two shots each at bs3, and while being s10, they're only ap4 so your best bet is to hope for weapon destroyed or stunned, shaken is good too against tanks that fire blast or template weapons.

They did take out Pask pretty quickly though!

I lost most my little gribbles really fast due to well, all the freaking guns AM can poop out.
My Gargoyles just made it into close combat with, just to finally die there, but hey. They delivered the Tyrant safely, and he ended up sweeping the entire unit a turn later, netting me 3 vp's!

But the tyrant later fell, and in the end I only had my big Tyrannofexes left and a single carnifex, as the game ended. I think it was something like 11-9 to Astra Militarum, it was a freaking bloodbath!

Tyranid Swarm on the move!

my 1750 pts list for Sunday's game!

From left to right.

2 Carnifexes with scything talons & adrenal glands

5 warriors, talons and a Tyranid Prime with talons and rending claws, all of them have adrenal glands.

20 termagants

Another 20 termagants

A Zoanthrope

A Venomthrope (not in picture)

Flying hive tyrant in the skytyrant formation with 20 Gargoyles (here proxied as the all purple Gants)
the Tyrant has Talons and a stranglethorn cannon (& wings)

2 Tyrannofexes, acid spray and electroshock grubs

3 warriors, devourers and a barbed strangler

20 Hormagaunts (there's 30 in the picture, ooops!).

-----------------------------------------------------------


So this is my first game with my Nids (I have tried out Tyranids once in a 1k game).

I feel like I should have more synapse, but I might be ok, got 2 units of warriors, a zoe and the Hive Tyrant, I actually considered getting the Norn crown but it's so expensive I could almost fit another Zoanthrope instead!

The 2 Carnifexes are my main anti tank unit, with the Tyrannofexes being able to help out a little and the zoe could potentially warp lance something. Other than that it's mostly infantry mulching with Acid spray, Warriors, Hormagaunts and Termagants.

The Skytyrant formation works like this: A hive tyrant with wings joins two units of Gargoyles. They all become one unit and the Tyrant can make look out sir rolls on a 2+ to the Gargs. Pretty sweet, he can't fly but it's a faster alternative of a melee Tyrant over the Tyrant guard. And the Gargoyles can blind enemies in combat which miiiiight be nice if they pull it off. Going up against Astra Militarum on sunday so instead of boneswords I gave him a stranglethorn cannon.