Just for Pago, because he is so annoying

All right, all right! I give up! Although the pics from our last Mortheim session aren´t really good, here is your upload Pago. I hope you´re happy now. *sniff* :-)

Next project until the Infinity Military Order comes in

In one week or two, my Infinity Military Order starter box will arrive, so I´ve got plenty of time to glue my Dark Elves and maybe paint some. Those who have been following my Blog or YouTube channel, know with what I´ve been busy in the last few weeks. But however, these are the miniatures I´ll glue, and some kind of preview on my Druchii Corsair based army:

Haqqislam 4 Alex - finished

One week ago, I´ve been asked by Alex if I could paint his Infinity miniatures. "Of course", I said, so he came up with 19 Haqqislam guys. Now, after a week hard work and beating from my wife for which I had no time due to my brush swinging maneuvres, they are finished.

Geralds Chaos Space Marines - finished

One of my friends asked me to paint some stuff for him. I said ok, but then he came up with something about 4.500 points Chaos Space Marines ... damn!!

Painting Druchii - Black Guard

Because my local retailer made some suspicious decisions about when his painting contest would expire, I missed to bring in my models. But anyway, the painting of my own army must go on. So instead of leading you precious reader through a painting guide, I would like to interduce you the finished parts of my Druchii Corsair themed army. Lets just start with the Black Guard:

 

Starting with just 10 models I had to apply about 80 layers of colouron just this unit which will consist of 20 models when the work is done, my fingers broken and my temper raised.

Painting Druchii 2 - skin & hair

Actually I wanted to paint just the skin, but somehow it looked stupid with black hair. So I decided to paint eyes and hair too. This is the actual stage of my painting contest entries:

Painting Druchii 1 - bases

As I´m always busy with commission painting, my own miniatures have always to wait. So a painting contest is the best way to get myself motivated to paint my own stuff. My retailer has started such a contest, so the decision to unpack my dusty Druchii was very tempting. The categories are  "character", "unit" and "monster". So these are the units I´ll participate with:

Wind of Change

As I´m not making any progresses on my blog, I thought about closing it. But although I probably could spare myself some evil glances and beating from my lovely wife, I decided not to.

WFB Double Team Tournament 1.500 points

Due to little time left in my tabletop infested life, here a short summary of the last double tournament I participated in:

As almost usual I fielded my Dark Elves consisting of:

Project Druchii Corsairs

First of all, dear Lords and Hags, I would like to accomodate you to my thoughts on this project. I wanted to field a corsair list consisting of models I like (COK, Corsairs, BG) and fluffy ones (Hydra, Shades, DR, Harpies). After some constructive comments in this forum and from some friends the following, competitive so I hope, list emerged from my misty mind:

BatRep Warhammer Tournament 2.500 points

Now, finally I´ve found my cam under tons of dice and other treacherous game utilities. So, I´m ready to repent my sins during my first 5 games of Warhammer Fantasy according to the new edition. As you can see 2 posts earlier, I fielded a Lizardmen army. But enough of beating around the bush, lets start with my semi-castratio Battle Report:

Codex Dark Eldar Cover

Enjoy:

Dark Eldar Mini & Prequel Warhammer Fantasy 2.500 Tournament

First of all, for you hungry guys out there, here a pic of a new Dark Eldar warrior:

BatRep Carinthian Championships 1.850 points

Ouch, that did really hurt. An unlucky combination of desastrous dice rolls and my own stupidity has cost me dear. I have to admit, that I ended 17th out of 20 participants at this years Carinthian Championships. The tournament itself was really nice and full of 40k-crazy guys. The highlight was a participant from the Netherlands which I had the honour to play against. But lets start with the appologies for my bad results:

Carinthian Championships - prelude

This weekend the Carinthian Championships will commence in the holy halls of our gaming club "Gilead". So the Hivefleet Aurantius is preparing 1.850 points of DNA-hungry creatures to drop out of the sky and devour everything that moves.

BatRep Tournament 1.500 pts.

And again my Hive Fleet clawed out of their army case and invaded the local store. With only 6 participants it was rather small, but hey, its for fun and ofcourse for the swarm. As usual I fielded my planetfall armylist consisting of a flyrant, 2 zoas in pod, 30 genes, 10 termas in pod, tervimom and a trygon prime.

BatRep Team-Tournament 1.500 pts.

Nobody was happy about this unholy alliance. The Blood Angels had to stay calm in order to avoid ripping their allies apart. But the chapter needed some bucks to "buy" new recruits. My Tyranids decided to devour the bio-mass after the tournament and so we started to plan our unholy pact we would unleash on our dear enemies. So the swarm brooded its "planetfall army" with a flyrant, 2 zoas in pod, 10 termas in pod, tervigon, 3x10 genestealers and a trygon. The Blood Angels decided to play a deep striking army consisting of a scriptor, furioso cybot in pod, sanguinius priest, 2x10 stormmarines, 10 tacticals in redeemer and a stormraven.

BatRep Tournament 1.500 pts.

This saturday I visited a 1.500 points 40k tournament with my Hive Fleet Aurantium, fielding my favourite infiltration/outflank/deep strike armylist consisting of the following:

Flyrant (230) Hive Commander (25) Toxic Sacs (10)
2 Zoantrophes (120) Spore (40)
10 Termagants (50) Spore (40)
1 Tervigon (160) Regeneration (30) Adrenal Glands (10) Toxic Sacs (10) Cluster Spines(0)
10 Genestealers (140) Toxic Sacs (30)
10 Genestealers (140) Toxic Sacs (30)
10 Genestealers (140) Toxic Sacs (30)
1 Trygon (200) Prime (40)Regeneration (25)

1st game was about KP vs Black Templars.

I deployed the Flyrant and Tervimom because we started with 1HQ and up to 2 troops units just in order to make a influence in his movement phase because I knew he would stay away of my Flyrant and run into open space where I could deep strike and outflank easier. I expected most action in that area of the tabletop.

And I was right. Within 1 additional turn that area was bursting with activities. While my genestealers ripped the Assault Termies out of the way, the Tervimom sliddered pathetically on her temporary Good-Bye-Lenin-DVD-base and managed to lose wound after wound while my Termagaunts were forced to rush into the combat and save the day. In the upper left corner of the pic you can see the feet of the big Templar unit which wanted to support this chosen area but I rushed in with my Flyrant, knowing he would die, but he would take the Champ of the Emperor with him so it was a KP exchange. Further it was a goal to get those Templars busy until my 3rd Genestealer unit arrived to finish the job.

This is about the 5th turn in a 6 turns game. The jerking Tervimom found its end but also did most of the threatening units in my dear opponent´s army. In the 6th turn I lost a Spore but rushed in with my Trygon and destroyed his Drop Pod in return so I won 8:6 KP.

First game won, 2 more to go, and the next one was a Tau player and 2 MO to conquer.

Early in the game I concentrated on holding my MO (Mageknight guy bottom left) and contesting the second (right upper corner behind the tree). I also deep striked in the middle of the table in order to distract a little bit.

After a disapointing Tau shooting phase the way was free for my party animals. I also managed to destroy a transporter with my Spore, so the fire warriors were forced to continue on foot. My Tervimom bred 2 Terma units (14 and 12) and conquested also the second MO (half Mageknight guy right). With murderous beasts at their heels and in brutal close combat actions, the Tau were beaten in turn 5.

2 games, 2 wins and now against a Ork guy with 2 massacre wins ... gulp! We were playing 4 MOs, so I placed 1 in my corner (hold) and 1 near one of his near the table edge (contest). He placed his second MO somewhere in the middle where it would see no action, as I thought.

Blessed with 3 of my 4 synapse cratures I attacked a weak wing of his "deployment" (end of movement turn 2) and destroyed a Pikk-Up with 12 Boys within. He could just respond with a Boss-Biker mob and 12 other Boyz from a near Pikk-Up. And this is where hell began to burn my lady Fortuna. The Orkz shot and killed a lot, because I failed most of my save rolls.

This is how it looked like after the Ork close combat phase. Fething hell!!! I just had one chance left. Outflank on the left table edge (which I managed) and hold 1 MO. The second thing was not so easy. I outflanked my Tervimom in the middle of the Orks and hoped to breed a lot and survive in order to contest. But the Orks were just to many and to tough. I got all my guys erased and there were 2 MOs on that side. But I managed to distract his troop units by charging at angles which pulled them away from the MOs. I was just partially successfull, because I couldn´t prevent him from also holding 1 MO, but at least from holding 2 instead. So at the end of the game I had just 1 unit genestealers left while he was hovering around with his troops just where I distracted them.

So the last game ended in a draw (with terrible losses for me, but never the less) and I was placed 2nd in a 10 players tournament.

Things I´ve learned:
- Again, always keep the victory conditions in mind. Count KPs and keep an eye on subsequent turns and how you could hold/contest MOs.
- Don´t waste your units. But if it seems advantageous, sacrifice them in order to win the game (e.g. sacrifising a Hive Tyrant for a Emperors Champ sounds silly, but it kept the bigb Templar out of action until my own reinforcements arrived).
- Even if everything seems lost, think about the options. I´ve got my butt kicked by greet feet. I was about to head into nothing. So what do I have to lose? Nothing! I made a risky plan which I followed until I turned a desastrous defeat in a draw.

BatRep Tyranids VS Necrons 1.850 pts

Yesterday I playtested my Tyranid armylist with wich I intend to bring in the battlefields of the austrian championship this year in Vienna. My list was the following one:

HQ:
1x 1 Winged Hive Tyrant with Old Adversary and Hive Commander
1x 1 Tyranid Prime with a pair of Boneswords and Toxin Glands
EL:
2x 2 Zoantrophes in Mycetic Spore
TR:
3x 10 Genestealers with Toxin Glands
1x 10 Termagants in Mycethic Spore
1x Tervigon with Regeneration, Toxin & Adrenal Sacs
FA:
1x 10 Gargoyles
HS:
1x 1 Trygon Prime with Regeneration

Friend Lipse fielded the following miniatures:

HQ:
1x 1 Nightbringer
EL:
1x 7 Immortals
TR:
3x 11 Warriors
FA:
2x 6 Destroyers
HS:
1x 1 Monolith

It was all about 3 mission objectives with a spearhead deployment. He got the first turn, deployed everything but a single warrior unit which should come through the Mono. The first turn was dominated by Necron maneuvring as I kept all my units in reserve in order to outflank/deep strike. In the second turn Lipse maneuvred a little bit more and then aprox. 1/3 of my army came in. 2 Zoas reduced the Mono´s firepower by 1, the Gargoyles covered the Immortals with their spit, doing nothing else, but ruining their paint. The Hive Tyrant deep striked near the Destroyers at a border edge the only unit Genestealers came in in order to use Old Adversary, but was to far away, even through running. So the Genestealers assaultet the Destroyers without support and managed to kill two (one rending). The Trygon Prime deep striked in front of a building full with 22 Necron warriors in order to charge next turn.

In the third the C´tan laid a hand in the cc, but only managed to kill two Genestealers which killed one Destroyer and passed the Ld test. In the meanwhile the Mono thinned my lines by failing the most hit or wound rolls with his 12" "round it goes" weapon and costed a Mycethic Spores 2Ws. The Immortals shot at the Trygon Prime and tore a W out. Then 22 warriors and the Destroyers opened fire and made just 6 wounds. With a grin I rolled my 3+ saves and regarded my opponent with 4 "2s" 1 "6" and a "1". So much about my mighty monstrous creature. In my turn everything came on 2+ from reserves. Thus 2 units Genestealer and the Zoas with the Tyranid Prime chose to stay abord my mothership for a while. With a sigh I continued my turn and killed with my Genestealers in that everlasting cc 2 other Destroyers but lost 4 Genestealers. I passed my Ld test and the cc lasted on. The Zoas and Gargoyles shot at the Immortals and managed to kill all but two, which turned the metal tail and fled. The Tervimom entered the board from the wrong edge and made her/him/it- self to the MO in the middle of the field. The Hive Tyrant charged the warriors in the building which dared to massacre my Trygon and killed 4 of them, but suffered a W in return. The warriors made their Ld test with 7 on a 7 ... damned, I wanted to overrun them.

The 4th turn was interesting as 2 Immortals stood up and killed one Zoa. The Mono reduced the other Zoa to 1W and killed 5 Gargoyles and the Mycethic Spore. The Destroyers on the Tervimoms side opened fire, but could do nothing but tingle on her carapace. The Necron warrors decided that this was the time and visited us from the reserves, sniping 2 Gargoyles (the rest was to far away). In a demonstration of incompetence in the cc Deathbringer/Destroyer VS Genestealer hugged each other and did no damage. The Tyrant killed another 4 warriors but they held their ground with a 3. The surviving Gargoyles and Zoa roasted 3 Immortals. My fresh arrived Zoas with the Tyranid Prime shot at the warriors which emerged from the Mono and killed 6 metal warriors. The rest fled. On the other side of the carnage my Tervimom bred 14 Termagaunts (6,6,2) and sterilised herself for further breeding. In the following shooting by 2 Mycethic Spores, 15 Termagaunts (some of the new brood were in range) 4 Destructors hit the ground. Crazy! The cc with the Genestealers ended as all faded by the hand of the Deathbringer without being able to do any damage by themselves.

The 5th turn began with a desaster for the Necrons as neither the 4 dead Dessis returned, nor 3 of the Immortals which have even been ported through the Mono. The Hive Tyrant emerged vicourious from the combat with the warriors and repositioned himself on the roof of the building. My 1W Zoa died a horrible death through the Mono, and even the Gargoyles were reduced to 1 model. The 2 surviving Dessis and the one survivor from the Genestealer cc shot at the other Zoas but did no damage (3+ just rocks, but don´t let the Trygon Prime hear that). Lipse positioned his last warriors in the first floor of the building so I wouldn´t be able to charge them in the subsequent turn. After some shooting my Tyrant was reduced to 2W. Having just little units left, his turn ended very quickly. So it was my turn and as a suprise I made both bad behavior tests for the Gargoyle and the 10 Termas units which were out of synapse range. So I rushed and run toward 2 mission objectives with the Termas I just mentioned, the new born Termay, 2 units Genestealers and the Tervimom ... 5 scoring units on 2 mission objectives - that should be enough! My Tyrant descended from the roof, regained a W by leeching the fleeing warrior unit and braced himlesf for impact, contesting the MO in the building. The Tyranid Prime seperated from the Zoa unit and disembowled the 2 remaining Dessis. The Zoas shot concentrated psychic lances at the surviving one Immortal but failed to do any harm. Being of no use, I let the Gargoyle charge the last surviving Destruktor and made 6 to hit, which has been the end for the poor Dessi. I just love sucidal runs, when they work and that´s rare enough. We rolled for another turn, which came. But as the shop was closing and it was rather clear that I would contest his MO and keep my both, we agreed on letting the game end, so I won with 2-0.

Things I´ve learned this time:

1. Setting priorities works.
1a I´ve tried to kill his contesting fast units (Dessis)
1b I´ve kept my plan to get the Deathbringer involved in a cc and hope he would be kept out of business for a while (it worked better than I thought)
2. Always take a look at your opponents strenghts (here I´ll be back, Dessis)
3. Always take a look at your opponents weaknesses (here phase-out which didn´t work and expensive units like Deathbringer and Mono)
4. Keep ´em busy! In the meanwhile you can eye on what really matters - mission objectives.

4 Generals 2nd game at 1.000 points

Last Saturday I grabed my swarm and warped to the mighty halls of conquest and glory in order to face my opponent. But suprise, Kevin, the copyright-violator used my own tactics against me. He fielded an Eldar army following the mean strategies I´ve posted on my blog when I used to play Saim-Hann. And this was his tribute:

Farseer, Soulstones, Doom, re-roll hits "spell"
8 Banshees, Exarch, S5 blade in Serpent with 2 ShurCas (Farseer within)
5 Firedragons in Serpent with 2 ShurCas
2x3 Jetbikes
3 Warwalkers with 2 ShurCas each
1 Fire Prism, Holo

First thing I thought was "damned" and the second one was "hmmm, just 2 scoring units at a mission objective mission? Yeah baby, yeah!"

Before a game starts I like to think about what I want to do. In this game I´ve seen that I´ll be troubled by all the skimmers, contesting and claiming mission objectives. So the primary targets were:
1. Kill all jetbikes (so the worst case could be a draw)
2. Destroy or imobilise the skimmers

1st turn:
As I kept my whole army in reserve (army list see previous blog entry) the first turn was rather quick. Suprisingly Kevin deployed his jetbikes instead of keeping them in reserve ... ok, works fine for me. He maneuvred his skimmers so, that the firedragons had a difficult terrain in their back and the other two tanks were exactly at the tableborder. That would make it impossible for the banshees to jump out of their serpent and charge.

2nd turn:
I began the second turn with rolling my hive tyrant, a zoantrophe and two genestealer untis into the game. As the Eldar massed his units at the centre of the board I deepstriked the tyrant in my table quarter in order to charge next turn. The Zoa immobilised the firedragons serpent and the mycethic spore desintergrated one jetbike unit with a little help of my hive tyrant. The genestealers attempted to charge the warwalkers, which were about 15" from the table edge (both genestealer units got to choose from which edge to outflank). One unit made it into cc and destroyed a warwalker (thanx randing there are no chances to a glancing hit and I need a 4, 5 or 6 to destroy a warwalker).
I lost one and he continued the slaughter by "firedragoning" my mycethic spore and the zoa lost a wound as the farseer (!!) shot at the creature. Despite of doom and all the re-rolls, my hive tyrant didn´t even lose a wound. On the other side I lost a genestealer but destroyed a warwalker too.

3rd turn:
The rest of my army came in and I deep striked my termagaunts infront of the bikes but shot at the firedragons which lost 3 men. The trygon prime also came in front of the bikes and with some help of the mycethic spore, his second and last scoring unit was dead. Now I´ve got to get rid of the fast skimmers. One was immobilised, so I charged the other one with the hive tyrant. Maybe he will die in the subsequent turn, but I´m playing toward a possible win, so I have to eliminate all fast moving threats. I managed to immobilise the serpent which wasn´t what I hoped (damaging the banshees insede) but for the purpose of eliminating his fast units, it worked well. The hormagaunts deep striked behind my trygon and run towards the assimilation party and to a mission objectives. The genestealers killed the last warwalker and ran to the next terrain to get cover.
Realising he couldn´t win this game, Kevin tried to do as much damage as possible. He pired his prism at my genestealers and killed 3, so one genestealer remained. The serpents shot at the termagaunts and killed 4 of them. With a ear-popping shreek, the banshees charged my tyrant and the zoa and ripped them to pieces ... oh, feht!! The Firedragons fired on the one-genestealer-unit but he made his cover save.

Time for a second glace at the options:
1. He can´t win any more (no bikes left)
2. One fast skimmer left and the rest of his army shouldn´t be near enough to contest a mission objective.
3. At the beginning of the game I deployed a mission objective near one of his. I outflanked the genestealers there and deep striked the hormagaunts (termagaunts would have bin better, but I needed them for the firedragons). Now this strategy began to work as I would concentrate my scoring units in that area (the objectives were 7" away from eachother.
4. I could charge the banshees with my termagaunts in hope to cause some causualties. But I want to keep the banshees out of contesting range. If I charge they would get nearer through the massacre movement. So I´ll let them get slaughtered!

4th turn:
I double charged the immobilised firedragon serpent and the fireprism with my trygon. I destroyed the serpent, but as it had moved previous turn, I had to roll a 4+ to hit (re-roll missed hits thanx talons) the fire prism with 5 attacks. All missed (incl. re-rolls). I was not amused! I shot 3 banshees with termagaunts and the mycethic spore and devoured the firedragons with my hormas. But the point was, I´ve let the damned skimmer alive ...
... which laughed at my luck and flew to my hormas (holding objective 1) to contest and shot at my 5 genestealers which lost 2 (face down in the dirt behind a tree gives a 3+ cover save). The bansees shot with the last sperpent at the termagaunts and killed 5, then the chicks charged and killed them all.

5th turn:
I drew back in the woods with my hormas and followed with the trygon in order to keep them in synapse range as they moved out by retreating. The one-man-genestealer-unit moved to the 2nd objective to help holding it. The trygon shot at the banshees (with a little help of the mycethic spore) and killed all but 1 banshee (incl. farseer ... har har har, autokill spores are nice). I widened my horma line and claimed both objectives with this one unit
The banshee moved, ran (6") and charged in difficult terrain (6") into the hormas just to be slaughtered by the fearsome foe. But Kevin achieved what he wanted and pulled my hormas away from the second mission objective as I rolled to low for the massacre movement. Grabing his last chance (and contesting my second mision objective) the prism shot at the genestealers and killed three of the three genestealers unit and killed one horma. My one genestealer unit made its cover save and as it came to no further turns, I won the game with 1 mission objective to 0.

Things I learned:
1. Keep an eye on the mission objectives
2. Make a priority list (which enemy units can harm you, claim mission objectives, ruin your plan to win the game,...)
3. Follow your priority list (I shouldn´t have split my attacks between the two skimmers, but I should have throw everything a trygon can deliver on the still intact fire prism)
4. Always take enough troop choices.
5. Sometimes sacrificing a unit can be the right thing. In my case I sacrificed the termagaunts in order to slow down the banshees.