1250 pts Picture batrep! Iron Hands vs Tyranids.

Trying out some 1250 pts lists for an upcoming tournament, I brought my Iron Hands:
5 Honour guard, 4 with power swords and 1 power axe + the Chapter banner (giving re-rolls to morale/pinning tests as well as +1 attack).
10 Tactical marines, flamer, heavy bolter and a combi-flamer for the sarge.
3 Attack bikes with Heavy Bolters
A drop pod with an Ironclad Dreadnought
3 Centurions with 2 Grav-cannons and the sarge had a Twin linked Lascannon and an Omniscope. all three had missiles launchers as well.

The Nids had about the same list as in previous battles (Tervigon, Flying Hive tyrant, termagaunts & hormogaunts, hive guard etc) But this time no genestealers, and instead 3 warriors, one with a corrisve blast weapon of some kind. a Trygon as well.

the game was Big guns never tire with Dawn of war as a deployment. Night fighting was on first turn.

I got first turn and dropped the Dread right behind the Tervigon, shooting off two wounds out of six directly!
My Chapter master tried to call in an Orbital bomardment on the clumped up Termagaunts and warriors but it scattered and nearly hit the drop pod!
Anders was not aware that Chapter masters had this ability, so maybe it was for the best that it missed.

The Centurions, having night vision thanks to the Omniscope, shot of a lascannon at the warriors, causing one to die outright (instant death due to the high strength of the lascannon). Though the Grav cannons were out of range because they had moved, and I forgot to fire all three missiles launchers.

The scouts moved out of the ruins to get a better view of the oncoming enemy.
The tactical marines, deployed on the right flank, did likewise and moved towards an objective with the Attack bikes moving up and putting some fire on the hormogaunts.

The Tyranids mostly advanced up, the flying hive tyrant was indeed not flying this game but he nevertheless made his way towards my lines, hidden (for now) behind the bastion.

the warriors fired and managed to kill a single Honour guard, failing his 2+ save and his Feel no pain as he threw himself infront of their sargeant to save him.

The tervigon charged the Dreadnought, opting to use a smash attack instead of using all of its normal attacks, he actually penetrated the armor, clipping of the Dreads Power fist! (we did an error here and had them both attack at the same time, my dread was really supposed to go first but it didn't matter really)
In return the Dread took another two wounds from the Monsterous creature! 1 left!

On my 2nd turn the Honour guard moved up to take some cover behind the bastion, awaiting the inevitable charge of the Tyranid swarms. My Centurions split their fire as one of them could see the Hive tyrant. Firing 5 shots with its Grav cannon, hitting with all of them it then failed to wound with all shots (needing 3 or higher to succeed!), the grav amps that the cannons get allows them to reroll to wound though. 

But alas! I agian rolled 5 dice all under 3, so not a single shot wounded! I then remembered his missile launcher, fired it and hit. but again failed and I needed a 2+ this time! What the hell man?

The other two centurions killed off the warriors, not having the same bad luck as their comrade.

On the right flank the Attack bikes and tactical marines decimated the hormogaunts down to a single model who scurried off after facing all that firepower.

The fight between the Tervigon and the Dread continued, but at this point someone had pointed out that Dreads ignore the Unwieldy rule of weapons so he got to strike first, one less attack though since he had lost an arm. But he still managed to strike the Tyranid down. My Ironclad Dreadnought is somewhat of a champion by now!

Turn 2 for the Tyranids saw the Hive tyrant moving around the bastion to fire 12 rerollable shots at the Honour guard, getting almost all of them to wound I then made all but two armour saves, but Iron Hands having a 6+ Feel no pain (an extra 'save' basically), I actually rolled two sixes! So no Honour guard fell to the shooting. The Hive tyrant wasn't done however and charged them, Apperantly monsterous creatures, due their Smash ability, always have ap2 (meaing they ignore up to 2+ armour saves!). My Chapter master went first however but failed to wound the damn beast (I did forget the extra attack from the Chapter banner, do'h). The foul xenos then easily slaughtered all but one Honour guard and the chapter master.
I failed their morale test and they fell back, towards the Centurions.

the Hive guard managed to put another hole in the Dreadnought, resulting in a crew shaken result.

The Trygon however failed to appear, luckily for me I felt. Even though it was looking pretty dark for the Tyranids at this point. Having lost the warriors, tervigon and the hormogaunts while I had only lost most of the honour guard.

Turn 3 for me meant opening fire on that damn Hive tyrant with the centurions, putting 10 Grav cannon shots, 1 lascannon and 3 missiles into him. Killing him outright. These guys can really hunt Monsterous creatures, holy Emprah!

The scouts did their best and shot at the termagaunts, killing one despite having a missile launcher and 4 sniper rifles.
The Attack bikes moved up, targets set on the Hive guards, while the Tactical Marines secured their objective.

On Tyranid turn 3 the Trygon still didn't arrive! Things were looking grim indeed for the Tyranids as to add some icing on the cake the Hive guard failed to take away the Dreads last Hull point too.

The Termagaunts surged back into the ruin to claim the objective there, as we realized the Hive guard, standing on the third and last objective, couldn't score points from it as they aren't a scoring unit type!

Turn 4 had the Centurions and snipers shoot at the termagaunts to no great effect, because like a total dummy I forgot the three missiles launchers the Centurions had, I could have fired a total of 4 small blast missiles into that horde of xenos!

Not that it mattered as the Dreadnought charged and killed three of them, they in return being unable to hurt the metalclad champion opted to flee, to let the Hive guard try and shoot it down instead.

The Attack bikes tried to do something about the Hive guard but only managed to do a single wound on them.

Tyranid turn 4 finally saw the Trygon appear, but as you can't charge out of a deepstrike it just sort of stood there for a turn, making its shooting attack but failing to kill any of the Marines.

the Hormogaunts failed to recover from fleeing from the Dreadnought but luckily stopped 2 inches away from the table edge, some luck there at least. 

But again the poor Hive guard failed to kill the dreadnought! (even though I had forgot all game that he had It will not die so he could have regenerated back hull points!)

On my Turn five I lit up the Trygon with both the tactical squad and the Attack Bikes who swiveled around to face this new threat, I wouldn't be able to kill it but if I put enough wounds on it now I could perhaps stand a chance in the coming melee. I did actually manage to out 3 wounds on him, wich was more than we figured would happen.

The Dreadnought chased down the Termagaunts and eradicated the whole swarm, what an MVP!

I begun to move the Centurions towards the Trygon in case there would be more turns I hoped to be able to shoot it down if it chewed through the Tactical squad, the scouts moved up towards the ruins were the termagaunts had been to try and claim the objective there.

On the Tyranid turn 5 the Trygon charged the marines and killed all but three of them, and they managed to get another wound in using their grenades.

It turned out this was to be the last turn as the dice gods decided it wouldn't go on to turn 6.
Victory for the Iron hands!

FOR THE EMPEROR!

Another set of 2 Infinity games!

 Anders and I played two games of Infinity at his place, 200 pts. same armies as last time.

1st game I got killed pretty good. despite being more clear on the rules for drop troops they stilled kicked a lot of ass.

my AP HMG managed to ARO (basically react to his move) and down his HMG as it was moving to a new position in the ruins.

My AP rifle Moblot took out a drop troop that scattered into his LoF (line of fire)

but was later put out when he tried to dash past another drop troop that had a HMG

The second game I actually won. Thanks to careful placement of my troops, making sure they covered every angle to prevent drop troops. My Scout placing some anti-personell mines to block of the Knight coming in and assist the drop troops. But it was still pretty close at the end, with only my leuitenant and his Knight left, luckily I got im in an ARO after failing to shoot him dead in my own turn.

Sorry this was a bit haphazardly as I can't quite remember what happened in what game (including from last time!)

Glory to Ariadna!

My space marines. Update #5

Setting up the Centurions

this ís how they 'should' look like, with their full leg guards. In my opinion it makes them look too stocky,square and stiff. (they should have gigantic shoulder pads as well!)

This is completely without the leg armors on the front. I was gonna go for this but it makes the torso look very top heavy.

So I added these waist pieces back on, as a happy middle ground.
Now you can more easily see the marine in the Centurion suit, plus I get to keep the cool details on the waist pieces and the model doesn't look as evenly thick, wich just looks bad.

Before the game I added some finishing touches like the cables, primed them in black and filled in most of the steel colours to make them look a little more tabletop worthy!

Decimator Protocols is quite possibly the most badass name on a special rule ever!

Centurions of Forak

I must say the kit wasn't very fun to assemble since both arms and legs are in a very fixed position, I did some minor changes however. I didn't put on the leg guards because they make the suit look so square/stocky. I also never put on the shoulder pads, they're so big and make them look even more square set and clumsy.

Also switched out their heads, the sergeant got an Iron hands kit helmet and the others are from the vanguard veteran kit.

First two games of Infinity!

Anders and I finally got around to trying out Infinity. first a 100 pts game and then a 200 pts. 

My Ariadna force against his Pan-Oceania.

First game I god beaten up pretty badly because of the darn drop troops he had. 

my Heavy machine gun toting veteran Kazak has a very fab pose for such a grizzled soldier!

some really nice terrain thanks to Effekt in Karlshamn, Sweden!

Damnable drop troops, really really hard to counter or even just protect yourself against!

I lost the second game as well, though it started very much in my favour as my HMG started out by taking down his HMG.

my ltd. veteran kazak crit killed his Knight of montesa who had wounded him, but because veteran kazaks are Dogged he stayed alive for another turn before succumbing to his wounds. So in effect they killed each other

(we used the large blast template from 40k to represent areas were someone used Surpression to cover it)

Infinity is a very very good game, were every single action you make is nail biting, also it's nice to only have a few models on the field, but more detailed rules regarding them as a result. the small unit count and the extreme lethality makes for some very tense moments, making your decisions matter all the more.

Can't wait to play more, both Anders and I have already ordered some more models to bring us up to 300 pts, wich puts us on a total of 10-11 models each.

My Space marines update #4

Above is my Honour guard Chapter Champion, pretty much done

this is the entire Honour guard and my Chapter master, before painting and
below is the work in progress on the Chapter master

I just recently got my hands on an Iron hands bits pack
and it included a unique thunder hammer so I changed him up a bit

and gave him a new head and a storm bolter instead of the shield, partly because I have no right hand shields
and because he looks way more badass this way!

Customizing some Iron hand Scouts

So I've never been a fan of the scout heads, they look a bit goofy to me for some reason, despite night the night vision goggles. Plus they certainly don't look like Iron hands.

So to remedy this I took 4 of the cultist guys of the kind that you see in the center of these guys above. And I cut off their heads and put them on my sniper scouts instead!
My line of thought was that the hood would go very nicely with the sniper scouts cloaks, and the gasmask would make them look more 'robotic' or at least more badass.

And this is the result, the missile launcher guy doesn't have a cloak so he got one of those helmetless space marine heads with a rebreather on instead. I think they turned out hellova nice!

(the colours are still work in progress)

2x500 pts Space Marines VS 1000pts Dark Eldar

500 pts Iron Hands (My force), allied to 500 pts Blood Angels (Anders forces)
against a guy called Nicklas and his 1000 pts of Dark Eldar.

I brought A Captain kitted out with the Emperors Wrath (s4 ap4 salvo 3/5, shred, master crafted)
a storm shield, and a thunder hammer.
He was joined to a unit of 5 Tactical marines with a Heavy Bolter.

I also brought 5 sniper scouts with a missile launcher and a Ironclad Dreadnought in a drop pod.

The Blood Angels had a 10 man Tactical Squad with a sanguinary priest in it and a missile launcher

And another priest and an assault squad, with a chaplain in it as well.

the DE had 2 Raiders, one with 5 Incubi and one with 5 Wyches and a Succubi.
2 Venoms with five kabalites, two ravagers and I think around 8 Reaver jet bikes. So lots of fast vehicles!

We rolled off and got the Relic mission (again!)
We got first turn and the Blood Angel Assault jumped straight up to the Relic and picked it up.
His Tacticals moved up into some cover and snap shotted a missile off, hitting a venom and blowing it up!

My units mostly stayed put, the Heavy bolter taking off a hull point from another venom, and sadly my snipers were out of range so they moved up a bit.

My Ironclad however dropped in perfectly behind enemy lines, firing its meltagun and two Hunter-Killer missiles into the Raider containing the Dark Eldar HQ (the succubi) and the wyches, blowing it up and killing one Wych. The Storm bolter on the Drop pod picking off another wych as well.

On the DE's turn they moved the Wych and HQ away from the Ironclad and lit it up with 3 Ravagers...Only making it lose one hull point!

The Reaver jet bikes soared over the Blood angels and caused some mayhem with their cluster caltrops.

Turn 1 started of extremely well for the Emperors chosen sons, and not so much for the Dark Eldar.

On our next turn the Ironclad moved up towards a ravager on the left flank, charged it and totally wrecked it, but failed to regenerate any hull points due to the It will not die rule Iron hands have.

The Blood Angels disregarded protecting the Relic from the Xenos filth and instead charged onward towards the enemy. My snipers tried to pick off some reaver jet bikes but their jink saves was too great to let even a single wound through. 

Finally the combines firepower of the remaining Ravagers put down my Ironclad Dreadnought, after it had killed two vehicles and a wych. The drop pod was still standing though and took some amazing pot shots here and there!

The Blood Angel Tactical squad got charged by the Incubi as we failed to bring down their transport (but did kill another venom and most of the Kabalites inside it).
The Incubi however failed at what they do best (Killing anything with a good armor save...like marines)
And it ended in a stalemate. And in the next turn the Marines won and caught the fleeing Incubi and slew them all! 

The Assault marines were not so lucky though, the massive firepower of the Dark Eldar whittled them down, Splinter shots and Dark lances tearing them apart bit by bit. Leaving the Relic exposed.

My Iron hands Tactical squad met a similiar fate and only my Captain was left standing
The Snipers got taken out by the reaver jet bikes

both the BA and my Iron hand tacticals rushed to try and stop it from falling into the Dark Eldars hands, but the remaining kabalites took it with some help from the wyches and their leader.
There were two kabalites left, one holding the relic.
My Captain opened up a salvo with his bolter, the Emperors wrath, killing one, alas not the carrier of the Relic. He started to make off with it as the marines frantically chased after.

As my Captain made his way around the ruin, trying to cut off the relic carrier, he got intercepted by the wyches and their leader challenged him to a duel. The lightning fast succubi struck first, but failed to get any wounds through the Captains armor. He struck back with his thunder hammer, instantly killing her and sending her minions fleeing! The flesh is weak!

We were now somewere on turn 7 or 8 I think!
The kabalite fled further away witht the Relic, trying to deny us the 3 victory points. deftly hiding from the deadly storm bolter on the drop pod (wise move!)
the last ravager tried to block my captains path and got to feel the wrath of his hammer. As the Blood Angels Tactical squad made it around the corner and opened fire on the lone kabalite, sending him to his grave (finally!). 

It was an intense match, that swung in our favour early, but then it turned pretty grim when we lost the relic, but thankfully the xenos didn't get to keep it and we won on turn 8.
Really fun game, hopefully there are many more to come.

Next we are going to try our hand at Infinity though! So we'll see how that goes, I'll keep you posted!

Fear the Dread drop!

My Space marines: Update #4 IRON HANDS

I finally made up my mind (again!)

It's gonna be Iron Hands. Just looks more interesting and has more/cooler fluff going on as well. Pretty nice Chapter Tactics as well.

1000 pts Dark Eldar Vs Tyranids. Picture batrep!

First time me and Anders actually rolled for deployment and mission type...And we got the Relic and short table edges deployment (can't recall its name). We forgot night fighting however.

My Dark Eldar consists of
Archon with an Agoniser, Shadow field and a Blaster
Haemonculus Ancient with a Hexrifle, Agoniser and a Liquifier gun.
2 units of 5 Trueborn, one with a splinter cannon and 4 Blasters - this is the Archons bodyguard.
The other five trueborns have 2 splinter cannons and 3 shardcarbines - this is the haemonculus bodyguard.
10 Kabalites with a splinter Cannon riding in a Raider with splinter racks, flickerfield, nightshields and torment grenade launchers.
5 Wyches, because I have to have 2 troops choices :c
Beastmasters, 3 Bm's, one with an agoniser, one Khymerae pack of 5, and then two packs of razorwings with 2 in each.
And finally 3 Reaver Jet bikes, with Cluster caltrops and I forgot to not bring a heat lance.

I deployed my Beastmaster on my left flank to counter the hordes of termagaunts and hormogaunts, and behind them the Reaver jetbikes. I then hid my Raider and Wyches behind the large rock outcrop in the centre. My two Trueborn squads got stuck on the right flank in the open, I didn't have the fear a lot of shooting coming my way, and I needed good fire lanes.

The horrific horde of Tyranids, from bottom to top included something like this:
Genestealers, Hive guard, Flying hive tyrant, hormogaunts, termagaunts and a tervigor.

Thos blobs of troops were pretty darn scary to be honest!

TURN 1

The Nids went first, rushing up towards the Dark Eldar position, the Hive Tyrant flying across the board, firing at the Archon and his squad. I had placed the Archon first to protect the unit with his 2+ save, as I didn't expect a lot of shots coming his way at turn 1. There wasn't a lot of shots but I still managed to roll a 1 and fail the shadow fields save, reducing him to the basic 5+ save from now on and losing a wound. Ouch!

On my first turn I flung the Reavers across the board over the hive guard, my thinking being that their s8 shots that need to LoS and ignores cover needed to die or they would get the reavers on the Nids next turn no matter what they did, but I whiffed on rolling the number of attacks, only getting 1 s6 attack and 2 s4. It did nothing against their high toughness so the reavers were pretty screwed.

My Raider moved up and filled the skies with splinter fire against the hive tyrant. wounding it and bringing it crashing down. It still lived but had only one wound left. My Haemonculus and his trueborn opened fire on the now walknig Hive Tyrant. An enormous amount of shots were fired (6 each from the splinter cannons and 3 each from the shardcarbines + the hexrifle)... And I failed to cause any more wounds!

The Beastmasters moved up an impressive 12" and then charged the hormogaunts. The close combat was pretty brutal, but I whiffed on the khymeras 4+ invuln so they all died, and then in my agony I completely forgot the 20 rending attacks from the razorwings and so I lost combat and the unit broke and got caught and oblitirated. Good first impressions from my Beastmasters!

TURN 2

On turn 2 my Archon fell to the Life leech of the hive tyrant! getting it back up to 3 wounds, Gross!

it then charged the Trueborn but only killed one of them and they held their ground, despite the loss of their glorious leader.

The hive guard blasted two of the three Reaves out of the sky but the third stubbornly held as well. At least sometimes it's a good thing to roll low numbers!

The hormogaunts and termagaunts surged forward, the termagaunts reaching the Relic as the Hormogaunts charged the 5 wyches. The combat was a bit surprising though, as the Wyches struck first and killed 6 Gaunts, the Gaunts had to kill them all to win combat, but only managed to kill 4 thanks to the Wyches 4+ Invuln in close combat (dodge!) and then the single Wych ran the remaining Gaunts down as they failed their break test, and therefore gained a pain token. Badass!

My Raider moved up and the Kabalites inside fired on the termagaunts holding the objective, trying to free it because I really really needed some victory points by now, having failed to kill the hive tyrant, get first blood or grab the relic! The Raider itself fired at the hive guard and managed to kill one of them.

My Haemonculus and Trueborn could not fire at the Hive tyrant as he was in close combat, so they chewed through the Genestealers who had been slogging it across the board towards them. the hail of fire left only two genestealers, who fled off the board.

My Reaver swooshed off to try and heat lance the Tervigon, but missed the gigantic target. Geez!

TURN 3

A sight a bit too familiar already, the Hive tyrant shoots and psyche the Haemonculus and his troops to near death, and then charges the remains. How different it all would have gone down if I only had managed to get one additional wound through on turn 1.

The Tervigon had spawned even more Termagaunts and again took the Relic. and the Hive guard put a hole in the Raider, leaving it with 2 hull points and a shaken crew.I think we forgot that it was open topped so it should have been one result worse though.

My last Trueborn died on my turn 3's close combat, the raider moved and fired again, I contemplated at shooting the Tervigon, but changed my mind and disembarked the Kabalites and moved them into position to kill a small unit of 5 termagaunts, killing them all and giving the Kabalites a pain token for a 5+ FNP. They're gonna need it!

the raider snapshotted at the hive guard but missed. I really didn't want them firing back because it would doom the Raider (well, I had already lost anyway, but still)

TURN 4.

Well, to make a long story short, the Raider got wrecked about ten times over, and the Kabalites were slaughtered down to two men... Who stood their ground. Turn 5 came and with that I declared good game, and charged my two Kabalites at the termagaunts, one got shot in overwatch but the last one made it, and then died, as exptected, in close combat.

It was a really fun game, can't wait for the next one!