I actually won a game!!

...Although I got the feeling a couple of times that my opponent, was letting me off a bit lightly (and he even helped me with my tactics at times) :-)

Thought Id do a brief review of how the units performed :

HQ: Forgefather Vulkan He'stan (1#, 190 pts)

I didnt really get a lot of chance to use his special rules as pretty much all my meltas and flamers got wiped out or immobilised very early in the game. He was attached to the squad of Terminators and performed okay in combat but then was killed via an instant death shot due to not having the Eternal Warrior ability. I'll definitely have to try this guy out again as i know that given the right circumstances the melta/flamer thing can work out very well but overall for this performance he's going to have to get a 5/10

Troops: Scout Squad (6#, 148 pts)

All but one were wiped out very early on. In their defence they were being shot out by three different tanks. Overall though Ive tried this unit quite a few times and not been overly impressed so its another 5/10

Troops: Tactical Squad (11#, 240 pts)

Split into combat squads and pretty much wiped out early on. The Sergeant and melta did survive though and despite not killing much they hung around until the end and were claiming an objective. 6/10

Troops: Tactical Squad (11#, 225 pts)

One of the combat squads was still pretty much intact and also claiming an objective at the end. Limited offensive output though. 6/10

Fast Attack: Land Speeder Squadron (2#, 140 pts)

Proved to be very fragile against IG heavy weapons, not entirely surprising I suppose but it would have been nice if they had at least go within Melta/Flamer range. The surprising result of being immobilised mid-table was that they provided some nice cover for units behind them and they had at least caused a few wounds on some of the heavy weapons platforms. 6/10

Elite: Terminator Assault Squad (7#, 490 pts)

It took a while for the Terminators to get into the game due to the Land Raider being immobilised before it had even moved. Once they got within striking distance though they mashed through a couple of squads and absorbed quite a bit of heavy weapons fire afterwards. One remaining terminator at the end was contesting an objective, if the game had gone into another turn though he was about to get smashed to pieces. 9/10

Fast Attack: Assault Squad (11#, 245 pts)

Like the termies they suffered from having their transport crippled early in the game, again though once they got into striking distance they were pretty effective. I certainly wouldnt take them in every game but against IG they were excellent, despite some very unlucky dice rolls (lots of 1s) meaning that they got stuck trying to smash up a vehicle for several turns. 8/10

Fast Attack: Space Marine Bike Squad (3#, 120 pts)

Wiped out before doing anything useful at all, probably my fault for poor tactics though as i thought that going flat out and getting a 4+ cover save would stop them getting  killed too early on. In this case, that was not a good idea. 6/10


Summary

After having pretty much every single vehicle destroyed or immobilised before Id even fired a shot I was able to re-group fairly well. Connor was a great opponent to play against though and I suspect if I had been a more seasoned player he would have tried a lot harder to wipe out one or two squads. Im playing against him next week as well, Orks this time, and Ive got a feeling that he may not be quite so nice to my marines and that the result might turn out a bit differently :-) I definitely owe him a big thanks for helping me out a lot as we went along and for being a really fun bloke to play against.

Space Marines vs Imperial Guard

Im playing an 1800 point game this evening at York Garrison against Imperial Guard. Ive only played one game against IG so far and it actually went surprisingly well, I lost of course but if the game had gone to one more turn then Im pretty confident I would have won due to one objective in my territory being contested a single guardsman who was up against a ten man squad of tactical marines. I also had two terminators and a librarian in terminator armour who were about to capture the other objective but were just an inch out of range of contesting it as the game ended.

My previous game against IG was apparently slightly unusual in that the opposition fielded no tanks at all, just massed ranks of infantry, but Im expecting several tonight so I decided to go with a melta and flamer heavy armour and Vulkan as an HQ to make the most of these. It will be the first time that Ive fielded Vulkan and also the first time that I will have used a bike squad as well so Im quite curious to see how these will perform.


1800 Pts - Codex: Space Marines Roster

Total Roster Cost: 1798

HQ: Forgefather Vulkan He'stan (1#, 190 pts)
   1 Forgefather Vulkan He'stan, 190 pts

Troops: Scout Squad (6#, 148 pts)
   5 Scout Squad, 148 pts = 5 * 13 (base cost 13) + Missile Launcher 10 + Sergeant Telion 50

Troops: Tactical Squad (11#, 240 pts)
   9 Tactical Squad, 157 pts = 9 * 16 (base cost 16) + Meltagun 5 + Plasma Cannon 5 + Sergeant 51
      1 Sergeant, 48 pts = (base cost 23) + Power Fist x1 25
      1 Rhino, 35 pts

Troops: Tactical Squad (11#, 225 pts)
   9 Tactical Squad, 157 pts = 9 * 16 (base cost 16) + Meltagun 5 + Plasma Cannon 5 + Sergeant 36
      1 Sergeant, 33 pts = (base cost 23) + Combi-Meltagun x1 10
      1 Rhino, 35 pts

Fast Attack: Land Speeder Squadron (2#, 140 pts)
   2 Land Speeder Squadron, 140 pts = 2 * 50 (base cost 50) + Multi-melta x2 40

Elite: Terminator Assault Squad (7#, 490 pts)
   5 Terminator Assault Squad, 200 pts = 5 * 40
      1 Sergeant, 40 pts
      1 Land Raider Redeemer, 250 pts = (base cost 240 + Multi-melta 10)

Fast Attack: Assault Squad (11#, 245 pts)
   9 Assault Squad, 182 pts = 9 * 18 (base cost 18) + Flamer 10 + Flamer 10
      1 Sergeant, 63 pts = (base cost 28 + Melta Bombs 5) + Thunder Hammer x1 30

Fast Attack: Space Marine Bike Squad (3#, 120 pts)
   2 Space Marine Bike Squad, 65 pts = 2 * 25 (base cost 25) + Flamer x1 5 + Meltagun x1 10
      1 Sergeant, 55 pts = (base cost 40) + Power Weapon 15

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First batch of Necrons completed

I've recently finished painting my first batch of Necrons so thought Id post a few pictures. So far Ive completed 20 warriors with lots more to follow (hopefully) in the coming weeks and months.

 

 

 

Introduction

It didnt take me as long to recover my original post as I thought it would so here it is again (with a few edits and additions)...


This is my first proper post to the blog (hopefully it wont be my last but I guess only time will tell if I will bother to keep contributing). Ive written a very simple introduction to who I am, which should currently be listed over there to the right somewhere --->

I decided in late 2011 that it was definitely time to cut down on my weekly alcohol consumption and I came up with the bright idea of swapping the glass of beer that I usually had in my hand on an evening, preferably something Belgian (and no I dont mean crap like Stella!), with a paint brush instead. It took a little bit of effort to convince my wife that painting small plastic/metal figures wasn't overly nerdy or childish (Im still not totally sure she is convinced about that even now) but once that was taken care of I stepped in to my first Games Workshop since approximately '96. I didnt pick the greatest day to go in, a sunday morning, as it turned out that the place was extremely busy and, aside from the staff and my wife, I dont think there was anyone else in there who was even born in 1996. Still, I left with a few miniatures (Space Marines, no particular reason for picking them at the time) and a selection of paints and brushes and set to work on re-discovering a long lost hobby.

Initially I didnt have any intention at all of ever actually playing 40k again but after painting my first few Ultramarines and then buying a copy of Assault on Black Reach I thought I might as well give it a go. With a little bit of googling I discovered a local gaming club called York Garrison and started going there a few months ago to learn how to play.

So far my gaming record stands roughly as follows :

Played : about 7 or 8
Won : 1 (with rather a lot of tactical help from someone who happened to be watching)
Lost : all the others

Summary : Aside from the 1, somewhat dubious, victory Ive been well beaten (totally and utterly humped in most cases) in all the other games that Ive played and have still clearly got a hell of a lot to learn. So far its been good fun though and hopefully I'll be able to keep this blog updated with my progress over the coming weeks/months


....oh yeah, and the one plus side Ive discovered is that Im actually not too bad at all at painting the miniatures these days, so maybe I'll post a few pictures of my Ultramarines at some point soon....or maybe even my new army that Ive started working on recently

Lost in the warp

So, technically this is my second proper post but its going to appear to be my first one on here. The reason for this is that I was messing around with Blogger and Google+ last week and didnt really have a clue what I was doing, or how they integrated. I still dont really have a clue but I decided this morning to delete my Google+ account and it seems to have left the structure of this blog alone but deleted my first post, very annoying really.

I will attempt shortly to re-create the introduction that I wrote which explained a little about why I created this blog in the first place and also why I started playing Warhammer 40k (again).