Reflections

This is a quick filler post for that inter Christmas\new year period, where mostly of us just want to relax and enjoy. I wrote this a while back and it doesn't really have an aim of objective, other than to give a very rough overview of the Eagle Knights and there mindset. Hope you enjoy.

He stood on the ridge line, looking down over the fires below and the figures hunched around them. They were slowly growing in number as they woke from there slumber, though there was little noise. As he stood on the ridge looking down he could see without issue, but he knew that he would still be invisible to the invisible to those below. That would change soon, as he could see the first signs of dawn, the sky behind him was starting to lighten and soon the light would frame him, showing him to the soldiers below and once this happened, he knew that the actions of the men would change. Any talk would stop, all actions would cease and they would stand and stare at the warrior on the ridgeline.

They were fools the lot of them, dead men walking. He would stand and watch as they would make their signs and kneel in prayer or some kind of respect, as if he needed their respect. He could feel the anger rising in him, he could feel his fists tightening, could feel the rage building in his hearts.

"Your shaking, maybe that pack is getting to heavy for you old man"

The voice shook him, he had not heard the other approach. He was about to chastise himself when he recognized the voice and let himself relax. It was not really a surprise he hadn't heard anything, not that that stopped him being brusk in his reply.

"At least I can still carry one"

The second man stood just as still as the first, looking down on the encamped guardsmen, going about their morning routine as the sun rose behind the two orange clad champions of the Eagle Knights Space Marine chapter. Some of the guardsmen were starting to look to the ridgeline, just being able to make out two figure in the morning mist, not quite knowing yet whom or what the figure were, but that would change soon enough.

"You sound angry, battle is not yet joined and won't be for a few hours yet brother. Maybe you need to reflex somewhere else?" Brother Champion Raphael was not a tall astarties, nor was he broad. He was average in almost every way, at least average for an astarties anyway. It was not his strength or his sngththat made him a champion but his sheer ability with shield and sword. He was the best swordsman in the company, he was probably the best man with an axe and maul as well and many believed he could easily be chapter champion, if he ever chose to challenge for the position.

Brother Champion Furian on the other hand was not skilled with blade, axe or maul, no his abilities laid in other areas, namely the ability to completely overwhelm an opponent through relentless overpowering attacks, relying on his relentless attacks to deny the opponent any chance to counter. Against many opponents this worked, but against truly skilled opponent, such as brother champion Raphael, it was all but useless and this was the main source of conflict between the two champions.

The Champions were silent for a long moment, standing immobile as they looked down on the camp below. Their presence had been noted now and they could see numerous guardsmen kneeling, others making the sign of the Aquila, others still just standing and staring up at the two figures. The dawn was truly here now and the sun itself was starting to crest the horizon, giving the two an even more imposing stature. Furian was the first to break the long silence, he tone was dark and angry.

"Look at the fools, if they put as much time in to their weapons and training as they spend on their knees they might actually live long enough to be useful."

"Brother, you are always so quick to judge. Remember, we are few and they are many, its not everyday that they wake to the sight of a battle brother, let alone two! We are the Emperors Angels, harbingers of death. It is their lot in life to die for the Emperor, it is ours to ensure their deaths are not wasted. Allow them their moments of worship, for it is those moments that will carry them in to battle and on to the enemy."

"Sometimes I think your as deluded as they are. Their duty to the Emperor should be enough to carry them to the enemy and if its not then I would happily kill them myself. Only the weak need to delude themselves with talk of religion."

"They are but men, they are not astarties like us. They are not forged in the fires of battle. That is why we exist. If they need to worship us, then I will not stop them, if duty is enough to carry them alone, then it will but remember, without them we cannot hope to win this war, for we are few and they are many, and even we need help occasionally"

Furian did not reply straight away, his attention was caught by two things. The first was the black clad man, the second was a half naked soldier.

The black clad man, a commissar he guessed, both from the dress and the reaction of the men around him. There was fear in the mens movements, all averted their eyes and threw themselves in to whatever task they were doing with renewed vigor. It was clear that the men despised  the black clad man, it made Furian chuckle, well, if duty wasn't enough to motivate a man, nothing worked better than fear. It was another thing that Furian despised about guardsmen, that a commissar should be necessary. That they could be that weak willed still astounded him, even after all these centuries.

It was not the commissar that interested him most though, it was the half naked soldier. Naked from the waist up, a sword strapped to his back and a bolter slung at his side, this guardsman did not look like any of the others. He strode through the encampment of guardsmen, all dressed in their cadian pattern uniforms and with their cadian pattern rifle, like a man walking amongst children. It brought a dry smile to Furian's face, it was most likely how it looked when he went down to see the latest bunch of initiates. This man was obviously a veteran and most likely a sergeant or even a platoon commander with the sword on his back. He strode with confidence and arrogance, he looked up at the champions but showed no signs of awe, if anything he looked bored by the spectical. The men around him seemed to be equally in awe of him and fearful, not in the same way as the commissar, more like they did not want to upset or dissapoint the man.

"They are Hrossey Yeomanry troops I believe and that I would guess would be a Hjaltland Infantry man, a commander by his weapons."

It did not surprise Furian that Raphael had all but read his mind, for despite the animosity between the two, the had fought together for many many years, across more battlefields than he could remember, from when they were new and young battle brothers, experiencing their first taste of combat as fully fledged marines.

Furian would have thought longer on the subject, but the vox chimed in his ear, the company master had called a meeting and he was being summoned to attend. With one last look at the encampment and the guardsmen below, Furian turned and activated his pack. Let them see and hear, let them witness the true power of a marine he thought as he arched high into the sky.

Raphael had hear the same vox chime and turned away to, laughing to himself at the childish need for Furian to show off.

Below many of the guardsmen looked up is awe and astonishment, many praising the Emperor, one guardsmen however stood in the mist of everyone, sword strapped at his back and bolter slung at his side and watch as the astarte lept in to the sky and mutter just one word;

"Wanker"

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas one and all, I hope Santa has been and to you and you have lots of wonderful new toys to play with!

40k update

After running through my Deathwatch kill team and starting a post on all my other teams that I have plans for (it'll be up soon), I thought that I really should give an update for my 40k stuff. I haven't talked about 40k in a long time, apart from the games I played when I was hoping to get to the Northern Invasion Tournament. Unfortunately there have been a significant shift in my thinking I. Terms of 40k armies, one I'm not to happy about but I unfortunately don't really see another sensible option.

I'll start by talking through my guard armies, as these are my main armies. I currently have 3 armies, my Hjaltland Light Infantry, the Hrossey Armoured Yeomanry and the Dagr Ormr Militarum Tempestus force.  The Hjaltland Light Infantry force is pretty much complete, with only a few extra units that I need to paint up, a couple of heavy weapons squad and special.weapons squads. These shouldn't take much to finish, it's just a case of getting the time to do so. The second force, the Hrossey Armoured Yeomanry, is also complete, although far less finished. All the tanks are primed\based green and the troops are primed but there is still quite a bit of painting to do but it should be fairly easy as most of it is formed of vehicles. The final force is the scions of the Dagr Ormr. The scions are built but not primed or painted, except for a hand full of models. The scions only form part of this force though, the other being formed of the Hildasay PDF, of which all but two vets squads and a couple of characters are painted.  I would love to get all the models in my guard armies painted and I will one day, as these are going to be my main forces for the foreseeable future. I can't see the guard changing dramatically anytime soon and I'm sure all the models I have will remain current for quite a while too.

That fact may not have seem relevant a couple of years ago but with the changes to the space Marine line it has taken on a new meaning. I currently have 2 main space Marine armies, a small faction and was planning another smaller faction as well. These plans have now been shelved and all marine armies have been put on hold. Why you ask? There are a couple of reason for this move, the most obvious one is that they are comprised of old school mini Marines and it's pretty obvious that they are living on borrowed time. The only thing that's is keeping many units alive is that there is, as yet, no direct replacement for them in the primaris line up. This will change over the next couple of years, as more and more primaris units are created. My main focus has always been on my Eagle Knights (Blood Angels) and as such they actually have a 2000 point list of fully painted Marines but there are about 1000 points of unpainted models as well. I will paint these up in the future, to complete the force as I see it but there will be no hurry for this. The Dark Guardians (Dark Angels) are even less complete, as although the colour scheme is simple and pretty much all the models are based black, only about 3 or 4 models are completed. Formed entirely of Raven wing and Death wing units, they are again mini Marines and it's only a matter of time before they are replaced as well.

I have also  mentioned the second factor a couple of times above, the fact that these models are unpainted and I have moved a long way from playing with completely unpainted models and now like to have the majority of models painted, as it does look a lot better. As I mentioned before, I do want to have bother these armies full painted one day but at my current rate, that could be several decades away. It's a shame that I haven't gotten around to painting and playing with these armies more. I started with the Knights but never really got to grips with them, loosing all the games I played with them.

The other two armies I mentioned were my stone dragons (Space Wolves) and Deathwatch. The Stone Dragons were to be a small, around 1000 point, very elite army but I never got time to get them going, however, they will continue with two kill teams being formed out of the remnants, which will also provide a small force that could be used in 40k proper if I wished. This will probably be around 500 points, certainly not up to the 1000 point minimum I was planning. The Deathwatch are in a similar position, as I have a 25 Marines ready, primed and part painted for kill team, plus one venerable dread primed and based black ready for 40k. I also have a contemptor dread that was going to be used for the Stone Dragons that will most likely be used for Deathwatch now.

Although the forces of the Eagle Knights and Dark Guardians are going to be boxed up and put into storage, a select few will find themselves else where. Both forces have dispatched 10 man kill teams, based around the characteristics of the chapter. The Eagle Knights force includes lots of close combat weapons, including three with jump packs. There are only 2 weapons capable of firing more than 12 inches, in the form of two bolters. The Dark Guardians have 4 terminators and a number of company vets (armed with plasma) in the roster. These teams are, in general, based around combat and shooting respectively but there is also the two stone dragons teams, one of which is formed almost exclusively of scouts, 17 to be exact, with 3 full Marine mentors and a second team is formed mostly of elite units, with a lot of storm bolters and a mixed combat and shooting. The three teams will all operate in different ways, which I will go in to in another post.

I also had plans for an AdMech army, again only about 1000 points,with a knight, a couple of Armiger's and some Skitarii troops. As it stands I will just be using what I have, just the two Armiger's and the Skitarii I already have. I would live to own a knight or two, but I can't justify the cost nor do I have the time to really paint one up properly. The Skitarii are all painted and ready to use, I just need to paint up the tech priest Dominus to lead them.

In addition to all these I had considered other armies, such as grey knights and sisters of battle, both of which would have been around 1000 point armies, aimed to ally in with the guard or Eagle knights. Again, this idea has been down graded to kill teams with one command element to form a patrol detachment for 40k if I want to.

So where does this leave my 40k hobby? The guard will continue as is and be completed. The Dark Guardians and Eagle Knights will be boxed up and put into the loft. The Deathwatch will be completed to a small force around 500 points, as will the AdMech force but that's it. The other armies I had planned are also being shelved. This is not the final say though, there will be a revival of sorts for all the armies at some point in the future.

The Eagle Knights will be reborn when some proper combat units and death company units get released in the future. The whole army is based on fast moving, close combat units with vehicle borne support units. There are rumours of primaris combat units coming so we'll see what happens.

The Dark Guardians will have to wait for some heavy troops, Terminator equivalent, units with fast moving biker units in support. The army is supposed to revolve around the bikes providing mobile firepower while the terminators get stuck in to the main force. At the moment neither of these units exist for primaris Marines.

The Stone Dragons are supposed to be an elite mobile hunting force and are probably the only army that I can see moving forward at the moment, as the new vanguard units could work for my idea of a hunting force but I've no plans to start anything yet.

The Deathwatch will also get an update in due course as well but in what direction I don't know and only time will tell.

Another great wall wa text! I seem to be writing a few of these posts at the moment and there's a couple more to come as well, hopefully I'm not boring you all to death with my ramblings.

Kill team: deathwatch

It's been a while since I had a bit of a sit down and ran though a kill team and my thoughts on it, so up for discussion are the deathwatch, the quintessential kill team, designed and built specifically for this type of mission. I think that I said that I would be looking at my chaos team but I'm not, I'm going to do Deathwatch, mostly due to the elites supplement.

So, I could spend many, many hours thinking carefully about the best models to bring and the perfect weapon selection, all tied in to the most appropriate specialism or I could just get one box and build every possibly combination from said box. I went for the latter version of events in case you were wondering.

Now, it's not going to be a very good list, most heavy hitting lists are full of frag cannons and inferno heavy bolters but I've just one of each. Also, I've added in some of the vanguard vets to add some extra mobility. So what have I got exactly?

I've two leader, Watch Captain Artemis and a Librarian. For kill team purposes they are playing Watch Sergeants, with Artemis playing a Sgt with Combi melta and power sword and the librarian is playing a Sgt with bolter and Xenophase blade. This is a bit away from WYSIWYG, as Artemis has a Combi flamer and the Libby has a bolt pistol, but hey, I doubt anyone up here will mind, although I don't know why I can't take a combi flamer anyway.

Next up are the Black Shields, two of them as well. One has a storm shield and maul and the other has a shield and sword. The maul will run as a combat specialist and the sword as a zealot. This is because the maul gets a bonus to strength anyway but the sword needs a little help from Zealot.

The two Deathwatch gunners are armed with the infernus heavy bolter and the frag cannon. Now, the issue I have is what to run them as, either heavy or demolitions. The issue comes from that fact that both can benefit from both specialisms. Both are either assault or heavy, so would get the bonus from the heavy specialism but both also have auto hit weapon that would benefit from the demolitions specialism as well, although I think that that bolter would benefit more due to it's lower strength but that only effects T3 or lower.

Next up are the vets, and there's a lot of them, 14 in all, made up of a mix of shooting and melee units. I'll start with the heavy hitters, the two heavy thunder hammers. These guys will also run as Zealot and Combat. Why? Well with the -1 to hit the extra attack will be useful, plus the +1 strength have a very useful but niche benefit, taking a Marine to ST and so to S10 with the hammer, useful for doubling out nurgle (death guard) units.

Following from the hammers, are the Deathwatch shotguns. These are in for several reasons. Firstly there there for some short range fire support for the hammers, effectively taking the place of a flamer but with some extra flexibility with the various ammo types available. Secondly, these guys are cheap, so they can be thrown In to a team to fill a roster.

That's all the short range vets, granted there's not many of them, two Black Shields, two hammers and two shotguns, not a great selection but good enough for basic games. I do however have a solution to this but more on that later.

The rest of the vets are made up of bolter wielding troops, the first of which has a stalker pattern bolter. I'm not to Keen on this one, in the games I've played with him, he hasn't done to well, taking 3 rounds of shooting to put 3 flesh wound on a guardsman in one game! After this we have 5 bolter troops, 4 of which also have power swords. This are the basic fill in troops and I usually always have at least 1 of these guys in a list. While a power sword is cheap at just a coupe of points, I still have one vet without one, just in case I don't have to points and I don't really want to be running a lits that's 15 points down. There's nothing much else to say about these vets, there just there to fill the list and be cannon fodder basically.

Lastly we have the combi armed vets. We have two combi plasma and two combi meltas. I didn't really have a plan for these vets when I built them, I mostly did because I could. The plasma is always useful, especially when over charged. Having the bolter as well is also useful, especially when you don't need the extra strength of plasma. The meltas were a bit overkill before Elites came out but with the inclusion of terminators and the like, they have become a lot more useful. In addition, one of the plasma is armed with a power maul and 9ne of the meltas is carrying a power swords. The other two are just with the combi's, to keep points down.

Lastly I have decided to take some vanguard vets from the Elites book. There are two reasons for this; one, they look cool and two, they add some extra combat punch, not to mention some extra mobility. I did think about adding in terminators but decided against this in the end, mostly as I don't really see terminators as being sensible for kill team style missions.

Anyway, I went with the vanguard vets for a couple of reasons, mainly the extra mobility that they offer, with a maximum move of 12 or 18 when advancing! With a board that's only 22 by 30, getting around the board is considerably easier. Also the combat ability and weapons choice is considerably better than the standard Deathwatch vet. I chose to go with 5 models, mostly to enable me to switch them across to 40k proper if I feel like it.

There's not much variation in the models, as three of the five models have storm Shields and either a sword, axe or hammer. They all fill the same basic role, charge up and hit stuff but it depends upon what there going to be hitting, as to which will be deployed. Of the others, one is armed with a pair of claws and one with a grav pistol and chain sword. They will all be combat or zealot specialists for extra punch as well.  Now, you'll notice the odd one out the grav pistol and chain sword. Now there is a reason for this, basically I didn't know what to do with the last one and decided that maybe some shooting would be good. Also I don't have a grav pistol anywhere else, so I thought it would be fun to include.

Wow, that was a wall of text! Hopefully I'll be able to get them painted up some time soon!

Storage project

Recently I have been trying to sort out my storage issues. While I still have lots of other storage issues, as I still don't have proper storage for my blood angels or my dark angels armies. However, my main concern at the moment is my kill teams and getting them out of their butter tub storage boxes. After looking around various websites and looking at lots of different options and possibilities, at all sorts of prices, I finally settled on something more home made. I would have liked to get something like the tabletop tyrants skirmish case or the KR half case but there were several issues with this approach. The main one is pretty obvious, that of price. While the various foam storage cases are great, my KR cases have been around the block a few times and are still in good condition, they are still quite a few pennies. The second, and possibly just as big a factor, is model size. To get a foam case that is interchangeable between different armies would have meant that either I got a tray with a few big slots and things like my guard would rattle around or trays with small compartments and the likes of the Deathwatch would have to squeeze in and not fit properly. I could just get lots of different size trays and solve this issue but again that's lots of money I don't have. The other issues are not as big a deal, things like token storage and the roster cards. Also I wanted a system where I could switch around teams quickly and easily, without having to spend ages switching models from one storage to another.

After searching for a while I settled on the idea of a magnetic storage box but there were a whole multitude of options and ideas out there. In the end I decided to go for a magnetic sheet in the plastic storage trays and also magnets on the bases of the models. This was due to a convention of factors, such as weight, availably and ease of construction. So I ended up with this;

The box is a 5 layer craft storage box, with 10 sections to a layer. I took out most of the dividers on each layer, to create just a couple of sections. The top layer was dedicated to tokens, dice, tactic cards and specialist cards plus a tape measure, everything I need to play, except a board obviously.

The next 4 trays were all magnetised, more or less to the same area, only the guard box has a slightly bigger area of magnetic sheet on the right hand side, to accommodate the extra models in the guard roster. All the trays also include space for the teams data cards and faction tactic cards plus a few other print outs, such as orders, canticles and specialist ammo charts. I also have a couple of peice of paper with other details on, such as the AdMech Rad Saturation rule or the marines transhuman physiology rules on, just in case I forget.

The set up is fairly simple and easy to construct and all the necessary items were purchased of amazon, including the craft box, magnetic sheets, magnets for bases and (as yet to be applied) sticky dots for marking the models positions.

There is one slight problem with the system at the moment however. In the picture above, you can see some foam in the bottom right, this is surrounding and protecting the metal models, as they are to heavy and the magnets don't have enough power in them to hold them in place. I tried with the small rare Earth magnets I have, about 3x1mm ones but this didn't help, even with two of them. I have purchased some bigger magnets, 8x1mm, but these have yet to arrive. When they do I will try them out and see if that solves the problem. It's not much of a problem really, the guard only have 2 models that are metal and the scion\inquisition only have 6 but none of the other teams, as yet, have any at all (the scout Marine team will have quite a few!).

The other problem I ran in to was down to my miscalculated measurements. I thought I had the right depth of magnetic to go under the bases but apparently I didn't and they were a little to short to make a nice contact with the sheets in the trays. This was fixed very easily by sticking a thin sheet of card in between the magnet and the base and super glueing it all together.

It was a very quick and easy fix, that doesn't seem to have caused any issues to the overall construction.

Most of the models sit nicely on the magnetic sheets in the trays and nicely on the actual ground. A bonus to all this is that there is now a little extra weight in the bases and so the models are a little more stable on uneven ground.

The final test! I took the metal models out for this, as they would have just fallen strain out and bounced on the ground! The rest stayed firm, even with a little shake. Now I don't think that they will stay put if the box takes a proper hard bash, but I don't 0lan on taking it anywhere where it might receive such a bash. I know that the idea is to protect the models and those hard bashes are never planned but so far I'm really impressed with the box and how it works.

I plan on getting another box, with 5 more layers to house the remaining teams I have (scout Marines, elites Marines and chaos) and the teams I plan on having (grey knights and sisters of battle), giving me a system where I can chop and change which trays I take and which I leave behind, as all of them will be interchangeable with each other. Right now this does all seem a little overkill as I haven't actually played a game of kill team in months, but I'm hoping that after Christmas I will get back in to things as live settles down again with the wife going back to work but we shall see.

Kill team: AdMech

Well, I've always dreamed of an AdMech army and now I have on, sort of. What I have is 20 models, split between 10 vanguard and 10 rangers. Now, I know very little of AdMech, so choosing what to do was very difficult but I just went for everything and that seems to have solved it. However, even once I had the force sorted, writing a back story for them has been very hard. Understanding what all the terms mean has taken some time, I mean, what does Mechadominus really mean? Well, it took me a while to understand it all but I think I've got there! So here is a brief backstory;

The Skitarii forces of the are lead by the Tech Priest Dominus Actus Ar Primus 961.34534 and we're once part of the Forge world of Xupra, a minor forge world located in the segmentum pacificus. However, they are now exiled from the forge world and have settled on a new world, a knightly world, where they work with the local Laird and his household but also mount expeditions to the surrounding systems to try and locate useful information, materials or any else they deem necessary. This force is one such force, expedition Omega I5KX and they are tasked with tracking down and identifying the source of rumours detailing apparent archeotech on a nearby planet.  The force is lead by the Skitarii Ranger Alpha-XXVII, one of Actus Ar's most devout followers.

The expeditions forces are split on in to two elements, the Vanguard forces and the Ranger forces and although these forces work in harmony with each other, they still maintain very distinct identities, with The Vanguard forces are commanded by Vanguard Alpha, Alpha-7.

The vanguard Skitarii are the main skirmish troops on the mission, designated for first contacts, search and retrieval and scouting duties. They will lead the way into any situation.

Alpha-7 is the leader of the Skitarii Vanguard forces. He is a seasoned warrior, with many decades of expeditions completed. In all his years, it is not only his knowledge that has grown but also his dedication to the omnissiah, so much so that he would not hesitate for a second to sacrifice his men to secure or defend the precious works of the Omnissiah.

Beta-IV is the second in charge of the Vanguard Skitarii and is very protective of his unit. Not a man to act without first calculating every posibility. And when he does act he will chanting prays to the Omnissiah through the language of the Can't Mechanicus.

Tov-XIX is forever in motion, never resting as the motive forces of the Omnissiah course through his body. Armed with his trusty Plasma Caliver in his hand, Tov can be seen striding across the battle field, constantly in motion seeking his next target or chasing down his chosen quarry.

Delpa-656 is the second member of the Vanguard that is armed with a Plasma Caliver and is quite a different character to Tov-XIX. Where Tov is constantly in motion, Delpa will slowly and carefully stalk and watch,  waiting for the perfect shot, making sure that every burst of plasma hits it target with optimum precision, never wasting the god given munitions.

Fel-110, the wielder of the omnispex and tactical databank, Fel is often at the heart of the Vanguard forces, feeding tactical data and optimal attack angles to his fellow warriors, helping to ensure a successful mission. Fel can usually be found near to Delpa or occasionally Tov, to help ensure that every shot hits home, regardless of where the enemy tries to hide.

Eq-744 is a warrior exemplar, for there is no weakness that can be hidden from his augmented vision. It is for this reason that he has been honoured with carrying the Enhanced Data-tether. As a solid and steadfast figure on the battlefield, never flinching from the enemy and constantly transmitting rallying signals to all members of the Skitarii.

Zhu-79.09\5 is a devout follower of the Omnissiah, following every tenet of the cult mechanicus. Such is his devotion and purity of soul that anything but the most pure machine spirits recoil in his presence. While this is seen as a blessing by many members of the hierarchy it can be very problematic missions in to enemy territory, where many machine spirits have been corrupted or twisted by malignant powers.

Sy-yex-745 is a devout follower of the cult mechanicus and dreams of the days when he can attain a true mechanical body and bring himself closer to the Omnissiah. When ever he goes in to battle he can be heard chanting prays to the Omnissiah, both to call on the help of the Omnissiah in completing whatever task is at hand and also to cause fear within the enemy, knowing that the the unstoppable Force of the adpetus mechanicus is coming for vengeance.

Tyba-666\2 is often looked upon with some suspicion from his fellow Vanguard for his extremely Hardline views on the cult mechanicus. He follows every part of the cult to the letter allowing no deviation, no corruption of the purity of the Omnissiah. This purity of soul is projected so strongly by his conviction that all but the purist machines will recoil and falter in his presence.

Dak-575 follows the tenets of the Omnissiah with unthinking reverence for it is all he has ever know. His belief if the power and omnipresence of the Omnissiah are unshakable and as such he will call out his devotion with every action, especially in the face of the enemy.

The Skitarii Rangers are designated as the main command and control elements on the expedition and also to act as fire support and long range "artillery" while the vanguard go about there duties.

Alpha-XXVII is the leader of the Skitarii Rangers and also in overall command of all Skitarii forces on this mission. Alpha-XXVII has proven himself a loyal follower of the Dominus and an excellent expedition leader, heading many dozens of successful missions. All this knowledge has given him an almost unparalleled databank of information on the enemies of the Omnissiah, no matter what there form, information that can be shared in seconds to the other members to ensure maximum chance of success.

Bheta-668.2 is XXVII's deputy and is often left to lead the Rangers, while XXVII's attending to his other duties as mission leader. Bheta is no less devoted to the Omnissiah than his superior but has yet to reach such levels of seniority. This is mostly due to his zealous nature and his willingness to disregard mission parameters in order to protect the precious work of the Omnissiah, even if such actions will jeopardise the units mission.

Tyba-089 is armed with the Transuranic Arquebus. Known for it's range and accuracy, Tyba uses it to maximum effect for he keeps the weapon and the sprit within as pure and untainted as can been. Through the recitals of litenaries and prayers Tyba keeps all malicious forces from corrupting the workings of his prescious rifle.

Decima-2918 is a warrior exemplar, deadly with any weapon in his hands. However, it is with the Transuranic Arquebus that he has excelled. With his augmented sight and his natural, Omnissiah given patience for the perfect shot, there is little that can escape the attentions of Decimal and his weapon.

Chu-511 strides forward on to the battlefield pronouncing his devotion to the Omnissiah and incantations to ensure his arc rifle functions at the peak of efficiency.

Sek-666\2 hordes knowledge like others horde gold. Sek uses this knowledge to wield his arc rifle with maximum precision, searching his data banks for information and reference points to identify weaknesses and flaws in the enemies armour that can be exploited for maximum impact.

Kas-111 has been gifted with the rangers enhanced Data-tether, for he has a deep reverence for the works of the Omnissiah and will do anything to ensure there protection and with the gift of the enhanced Data-tether he can ensure that all members of the mission are fully committed to the act at hand.

Tyr-2918 is Kas' counterpart and in many respects his twin. While They both have a deep reverence for the works of the Omnissiah and are prepared to do anything to ensure there survival, the both do so in different ways. Tyr believes the best way is to make sure that every shot fired by his brothers strikes home and so carries the Omnispex to identify any hidden targets and guide his fellow Skitarii on to them, so that they maybe destroyed before they can taint or damage the Omnissiah's blessed works.

Dox-744 does not strive for recognition or promotion, he only wishes to ensure the missions success. Dox can usually be seen holding back, data bank collating, sorting and processing any information gleaned from any rangers before ensuring it is passed to all the others, never leaving anyone without information that may ensure victory.

Delpha-404 seeks knowledge with a single mindedness of any tech priest, yet Delpha does not seek knowledge of machines but of flesh and blood, for knowledge is power, the power to destroy. Delpha uses this power to destroy the enemies of the Omnissiah, seeing this as the best way to gather knowledge of the forgotten Machines of the Omnissiah, for with your enemy dead, you can collect and study at your leisure.

Ork waaaarrrhhhh

This short story was written a long time ago now and was originally based on a batrep, played between myself and another member of the club. I had grand plans for writing a story like this for each game I played and making them in to a full narrative but alas, I only wrote one or two and never really got the time to write more. I had originally set up a whole other blog specifically for this purpose but I've since deleted it as it was just sitting there not being used, I did however copy across the few stories written. I decided to put this one up now seeing as the last report was against Orks, I hope you enjoy.


There had been little time to prepare and now the sun was up, it was evident that there preparations wouldn't be enough. The defense line had been erected between a couple of ruined building, part of the old prometium pumping station. The surface pipes were still visible to the front, rising out of the ground only to end in a twisted mess of ruined plasteel pipework, the last signs of an earlier battle that had taken place, some years ago. The fighting then had obviously been brutal, none of the remaining buildings were intact, some were nothing more than piles of rubble, and very little of the structures that were left could be fortified. Even if they could, there was little time for such actions, at best they had an hour, at worst, minutes. Either way, commander Jhonisoun was worried, but then, who wouldn't  be when you've an Ork mob bearing down on you.

The reports were sporadic, conflicting and wildly inaccurate, some stated there were just a few orks, no more than a dozen, others told of thousands, rampaging across the land. If all the reports were accurate, there were just a couple of squads, each a thousand strong, slowly wondering across the land in battle wagons. It didn't matter to the commander though, one Ork or a thousand Orks, they needed to die and they would do so here at Pipe Relay Station 34.

"Contact FRONT!" the shout was loud and clear, albeit in a voice filled with panic and fear. The should had come from one of Lt Wischert's men, up on the forward line.

Jhonisoun looked to his left, at the men who where man handling the quad gun in to place "Is that thing ready yet?" The quick shouts of confirmation was all he needed. Good, at least they had some air cover until the navy planes got here, now if only he know where Lt Sandesoun's lot were. They had left on a recce before dawn and should have been back by now and if this fight got up close and personal, just as the Orks like it, then he would need those men.

The noise grew louder every second, and barely a few minutes had passed since that first warning shout before the bulk of 5 Ork trukks could be seen screaming over or rather through, the remains of the pipe lines.

"Mister Mace, target target the left vehicle. Corporal Leask, shoot one of them, anyone, but hurry up will you. Runner! Runner! Order the Battery to openfire on the lead vehicle. Red Troop, gunners target the vehicle half left." The orders tumbled out, one after another as the commanders mind raced to take in to account everything he could see and hear. The trucks were moving fast, too fast, there was no way that they would be able to deal with them before the mobs were upon them. To his left Master of Ordnance, Artillery Captain Mace, spoke in to his vox caster, issuing coordinates and fire missions in the cool calm voice of a season veteran. Mean while to his front, the veteran Corporals,  Leask and Irvine, lined up the closest trukk in the sights of the missile launcher.

Within seconds the air was alive with fire and smoke as every weapon seemed to come to life at once. The deep thump of the Wyverns against the sharp crack of the autocannons and the roar of the missile launcher against the shriek of the incoming rounds from the MoO's artillery strike. But despite all this, the Orks came on with barely a scratched paint job, all that is except the trukk that bursed in to flames, ork boyz spilling from the flaming trukk. Jhonisoun would  like to have taken some satisfaction in that small victory but it seemed that the Orks had other ideas.

Almost as one, all the trukks slammed on their brakes, skidding to a halt barely meters in front of the defense line, a space that was very quickly filled with huge green skinned monstrosities, and at the center, almost directly infront of the commander, was possibly the biggest and ugliest thing the commander had ever seen. There was no time to do anything else but watch the events unfold before him. It was at time like these that generals were useless, there would be no order or disciplined firing line, only raw fury and the instinct to survive. The gouts of flame off to his right told him that Lt Wischert's command squad were doing their best to hold the right flank and the distant tink and crack of grenade launchers told him that Sandesoun's command squad was off to his left. In front of him was turning in to a blood bath. He had seen a few of the green skins go down under the panicked firing of lasrifles as the brutes charged, but now the Orks were making short work of the guardsmen, although they were not having it all their own way.

One of the few things that Jhonisoun could do, he did. The Quadgun picked up the screaming ork bomber as it flew in low to their left, opening fire in a stream of bright tracers. It was not clear if the rounds struck home or not, the monstrosity was belching black smoke and weaving all over the sky already, it was impossible to tell if there was more or less smoke and movement once the Quadgun had spoken. It was almost the last thing it did as well, as no sooner had it targeted the xenon flyer, it found itself a target of multiple rockets, fired from the trukks, although it appeared that the recent actions and the excitement of the charging mobs had broken the gunners aim, as all but one sailed harmlessly overhead. The one that did strike, only glanced the machine, doing minimal damage.

By the time the initial charge had settled, most of red platoon was down, with just a few guardsmen still standing to his right, most likely due to the priest in their mists. There were few that would run or falter under the glare of one of the emperors chosen disciples. He would have to hope that they would hold.

"Incoming, sir! To the rear! Navy by the looks of it"

The noise of the aircraft engines grew louder, Wolf Slayer and Deliverance, and aboard one of them, probably Wolf Slayer, was Captain Thomassoun and his command squad. Jhonisoun could feel the relief amongst his squad, they had some support and hopefully with it Yellow platoon would emerge. Wolf Slayer made an immediate impact as the lascannon bolts streamed overhead to slice through the ork bomber to Jhonisoun's left and deliverance wasn't far behind, the rocket pods opening up with their characteristic ripping sound, churning up the ground to Jhonisoun's front. It was reassuring to hear, what was not was the whoosh of the heavy Flamer on the front of one of the Wyverns. The sight of the building bellowing flame and smoke was something to behold, but it was not a good sign, that the enemy was so close to the vehicles that the crew were having to use such a close defense weapon.

There was little Jhonisoun could do about it though, as Yellow platoon had yet to show up and the ork warlord and his unit were moving towards his position. It was the sight of the last guardsmen being overrun, as the priest was cut down, that showed just how desperate the situation was. Jhonisoun steeled himself for the Orks attack, but as the Orks approached and raised their weapons, it was clear to Jhonisoun that the battle was lost.

 The flames ended all further though.

The flames leapt from the barrels of the Orks guns, washing over Jhonisoun and his command squad, it was all the commander could do to pray for a quick death.

.....

The lights were a dim red. The vibrations unsettling and constant. But As the commander came to, it was the noises that had the most impact, not the humming of the engines, no it was the moaning and groaning of dozens of men. Jhonisoun could not move, couldn't look around, all he could see was the underside of the stretcher on the rack above him. He blinked and stared at it for some time before he could figure out why it didn't quite look right. He was looking through only one eye, his left. The memories of those last few minutes on the battle field were painful, almost as painful as the sensations that were starting to return to him.

"Commander, your back with us then? For a moment I didn't think you were going to make it"

The commander stared at the man. Was he one of his? No, wrong uniform. A Yeoman, one of the Hrossey Yeomanry. That would explain the chimera.

"What happened? Who claims the field?"

The answer was not what he had hoped to hear, but he had to admit, not as bad as he had feared.

Thomsssoun had dropped from the vendetta to try and save the commander, but had been gravely wounded taking down several of the beasts. Both the wyverns of the 56th had been damaged by the rampaging Orks and would need the careful ministrations of the techpriests to function again, but worst of all, red platoon had been decimated. Yellow platoon had swept through the position, arriving too late to do anything but collect bodies. While the Orks had been eliminated, there was no way to hold the field and so yellow platoon had gathered up the wounded, loaded the worst on the the navy planes and had withdrawn, leaving the Orks to do the same.

The 851st were out of the fight for the moment. They needed to lick their wounds, deep and painful as they were. But they would return, they would reclaim the field, Jhonisoun swore to that, or at least he would have done, had he not have fallen unconscious.

Game 2

This was the second game that I played a few weeks back and I forgot to say that these games were 1250 point games in preparation for Northern Invasion tournament. While I didn't attend due to family and work commitments, I did have several games against people who were going, mostly just to give them some practice.

The game itself was one of the missions from the Chapter Approved 2019 book and although I can't remember the name now, it's the one with the objective on the middle that you score points for when your within a certain range. Now, mistakes were made, big ones at that. The main one really was the Null Zone rule was missed and so the big blob of Boyz in the middle with the nob(?) With a kustom force field shouldn't have been getting the 5++ save. Anyway, we didn't pick up that one until the 3rd turn, by which point it was pointless changing the rules.

Anyway, let's talk about the game and I'll mention the other mistakes as we go.

Deployment

The guard, screen to the front and heavies to the back, plus a few units strung out to stop anyone da jumping in to my back field.

The orks, blobbed up around the mech(??) With the kustom force field. There's some Gretchen strung outs around the place to stop my deep striking units as well.

A closer shot of the mass of Orks

The orks did what was expected turn 1 and charged forward and as expected a big squad of 30 Boyz da jumped forward smashing a sentinel to bits and then, thanks to an. 11 inch initial charge, consolidate in to my lines, where mistake number 3 happens (I'll go back to mistake 2 shortly) my opponent payed 2cp to fight again, wiping out 2 squads of guardsmen, mauling a third and then consolidating in to my hellhound. Now, this shouldn't have happened and was actually picked up by my opponent after the game because as the guardsmen we're not targets of the charge, the couldn't have been targets for the second attack. Yes they could have been consolidated in to but not attacked. That would have left my right flank almost intact instead of badly mauled

The Boyz swarming the lines

Mistake 2, if you can see, there are 4 guns in the centre building. They are vehicles and that's a ruin, so they can't be set up there, so they should have been on the ground and out of cover, plus there lines of sight would have been a lot more restricted.

The fight back 

After the initial hit the guard fought back, managing to clear the lines of the initial Ork attack but this left much of the middle untouched. As a result the orks took the points in the first turn, plus first blood, putting them up 2-0.

The Orks at the end of turn 1

Turn 2 started as turn 1 did, the Orks advanced. There was a bit of shooting, mostly from the cannons, with the tractor cannons doing most of the heavy lifting, destroying one of my wyverns and somewhere along the line my hellhound also went pop. By this point I had taken a battering with the orks being relatively untouched.

The advance

I was running out of options at this point, so gambled and dropped in my scions on the flank, hoping to take out some of the orks and more importantly some of the characters. While it didn't take out any of the characters, it did cause the Boyz in the centre to pivot and came across the board to take them out, this along with a very brave platoon commanders charging up the middle did cause some issue for the Orks. Unfortunately they were dealt with pretty easily.

The brave and soon to be very dead platoon commander.

By now things were pretty dire. I was down 3 to 0 and with only 1 point per turn for the objective and only slay the warlord and line breaker on offer I would have to perform miracles to win. Any thought of miracles went out the window when my opponent played the stratagem that let him bring one of the Boyz squads back at full strength (endless green tide I think). So a squad that was down to about 4 or 5, went back to 30 and my second wyvern, while still alive, was wounded badly.

Lots of Orks, not many guard.

I did what I could in my turn but it really wasn't enough. The big group of Boyz on the flank we're still locked up with the last member of the scions, so couldn't be targeted, the KFF was doing a Sterling job keeping everyone safe in the middle and my dice were horrible. My opponents dice were on fire however!

The final stand

He's in there somewhere! Mines the grey one in the middle of the ring on the right hand side!

So at the end of turn 3 I was 4 - 0 down and time was definitely running out for the guard. Turn 4 was the final straw, as the remaining Orks or rather the Gretchen went to work on the remaining guard squads, removing over half of those that remained and claiming the centre objective for a 4th turn.

The few remaining guard.

Lots of orks

At this point I conceded as I was running out of units and we were also running out of time. At this point I was 5 to 0 and was looking at that going to at least 6, but likely 7 to 0 with line breaker. If I was really unlucky, then they might have got warlord for the full house and an 8 - 0 score line.

As I said at the beginning though, mistakes were made. Without the KFF and the 5++ save it gave, then a lot more orks would have died. The case in point was when a boy took a melta gun to the face and survived. Knowing the Null Zone was in effect would have changed a lot, including how my opponent set up, thus, how the how game played out. Not having my right flank wiped out by a charge that shouldn't have happened would also have changed the game. I lost nearly 3 whole squads and my hellhound got shut down. With 3d6 auto hits on the flames and the -1ap, quite a few orks would have been BBQ'd, plus all the extra lasguns and flamers that were in there would have taken down some more, freeing up at least one wyvern, or possibly both, to go after the other squad of Boyz, who probably wouldn't have been under the KFF. Finally, without the artillery being in the ruin, they probably wouldn't have been able to see the wyverns without being open and exposed and more vulnerable to the wyverns as well. Of course, you can never tell what the dice will do but the game would have been very different and who know maybe the guard would even have won!

I would like to add that I know my opponent was not cheating or being dishonest in any way, shape or form during this game. It was a new army and he was learning g the rules, if I had picked up on any of the errors during the game, they would have been rectified with no argument and so also accept that part of the blame for these errors lies with me. Hopefully we'll get time for a rematch sometime soon.

Game 1

This is the first of three games that I played a few weeks ago. The yearly local tournament is coming up shortly. This tournament is a 1250 point tournament and although there are few restrictions the key one is that there is only lord of war option allowed. this was due to last years tournament when a knight army (at 1500 points) wiped the table in all three games and took the trophy with little difficulty. While there was nothing wrong with the list, it wasn't very much fun for everyone else by the sound of it.

Anyway on to the game, we played a Maelstrom of war game at the above mentioned 1250 points of guard against Space Wolves. My opponent was running a fairly heavy list with three dreads, including one redemptor.

There was little was really bothered about in the list apart from the blood claws in the drop pod.

The three dreads.

The guard lines.

Turn 1 was as expected with the drop pod coming in and the blood claws charging the guard lines.

The charge

The wolves did as they were expected and tore into the lines taking out several squads of guard.

The result.

All of the rest of the wolves either stood still.and shot or advanced forwards.

In my first turn the primary goal was to clear my lines, which ianaged to do, although some mistakes were made, such as leaving the hellhound until last, meaning most of the targets were out of range!

The fight back starts.

The guard rally

At the end of turn 1 things weren't really going my way, with my opponent t scoring all 3 of his cards (21,33 and 52) and first blood and me scoring nothing (cards 11, 51 and 52, discarded 11). This out me 5-0 down already

End of the turn 1

Turn 2 started much slower, with the dreads reaching my lines, while much of the rest stayed back. The plasma long fangs did some damage to one of the wyverns but the guard survived fairly intact.

Dreads in the line

A better view of the danger.

The big thing to happen this turn was the charge of the dreads. Despite what it looks like in the pictures, the dreads went a different way and the right dread charged the hellhound and the left dread charged the units in front of the right hand dread. The left hand dread made it's charge and went chop chop through a number of guardsmen but failed to do enough damage to kill them and consolidate on to the wyvern. The other dread, well we've no idea if it would have made it's charge as the hellhound barbequed it before it had a chance, granted it was already wounded, down to a handful of wounds but still.

Reinforcements arrive

Slightly out of order but it's a pain to reorder pictures on mobile, the final result of the dreads charges.

During my turn, I dropped in my scions, only for one lot to get wiped out by the redemptor using a stratagem. The others did there job, taking down a number of long fangs and grey hunters between the two remaining squads. The rest of the army dealt the other dread, clearing the lines once more.

By now the scores had even out, with my opponent scoring nothing (cards 26, 36 and 46, he discarded 46). I on the other hand did pretty well, scoring all of mine (21, 51 and 52) plus stealing his card (26), to give a score of 5-4.

Turn 3 was unfortunately the last turn due to time constraints. I didn't as many pictures as we were busy trying to get the turn done. The wolves we're lacking in numbers by now but still managed to put a take down the majority of my reserves.

Two SW characters charge in, the result of which can be seen in the back of the picture below.

While the wolves struggles to really dent the remaining guard, the guard also struggled to dent the remaining wolves.

Somehow the sentinel survived a round of combat with a redemptor, it didn't survive two though.

At the end of turn three things weren't as I had expected. My opponent had managed to score 2 points from his cards ( 64 and 65 but not 46) and I had not managed to score any of mine (34, 35 and 41). Once we had taken line breaker in to account the scores were 8-4 in favour of the wolves, despite how few of there units remained on the table. At the end of turn 3, the wolves had the redemptor, an injured iron priest (who was also the warlord), one plasma cannon long fangs and a couple of grey hunters (I can't remember exactly how many but it was only 2 or 3) where as the guard had both wyverns, a hellhound, 3 incomplete squads of guard, several characters and a couple of scions. At this point we did some quick and rough mathhammer and we look at the cards we would have drawn. I cat remember what cards we drew but with what was on the table and looking at the cards it was looking like the guard would have been able to take victory should the game go on. The big issue was the redemptor as I was rapidly running out of things to damage it, however, there was little in my army that it could not damage in return.

So the final score went down as a 8 to 4 loss for the guard, which should have been an 8 to 5 if I'd actually though a little at the end and ran a model in to my opponents deployment zone. Oh well. So, although it was a loss for the guard, I really don't think I didn't anything wrong or would change anything to much, as if the game had gone 5 turns I think I would have been able to pull in to the lead as I had the bodies left to get to objectives and claim points.