Friday Knight Games

Sisters of Battle + Grey Knights vs Tau + Eldar at 1850

I was going to write up a battle report for this battle, but my phone was dead at turn one and I didn't get any pictures, I then failed to get any pictures of a couple other turns, while getting to many of the turns I did.  As such, I'll just briefly summarize that the game was hammer and anvil and the relic.  I went first but having focused all my shooting on his commander, who was 2+ with FNP and leading a drone squad, that I failed to get first blood.  Mike wrecked my immobilized Exorcist for First blood instead.  At the end of the game I chose to try to play for a win rather than a tie and moved Justicar Thawn out of Mikes deployment and tried to assault his firewarriors to then slingshot toward the relic.  He died for the 3rd time in the game, the second to overwatch fire, and I ended up losing 1 point to 2 (nobody had the relic, we both had slay the warlord and Mike had first blood.)  If they hadn't nurfed Celestine to only getting back up once a game, It could have been a tie game still but they did, and she was dead at the end of the game, no linebreaker for me. 

Had I not been trying to play a more "friendly" list with no Dreadknight I probably could have managed a win here, but at least Mike doesn't run any Riptides so it was a good game that came down to turn 6 to decide a winner. 

As to my list, as expected the dominion squad with 3 flamers and a meltagun sucked.  I need more meltagun sisters models so I can run them properly with 4 meltaguns in a heavy flamer immolator.  Also the squads of 5 sisters with 1 heavy bolter just never seem to do much.  Their volume of fire is not sufficient to matter, nor does it have the range to play shooty versus the Tau.  All in all, the Grey Knights "allies" always seem to do all the heavy lifting, while the sisters still feel more like a tax than an asset.  I may try losing the terminators and thawn, and the stormraven, and instead take 1 12pt henchman squad and a Dreadknight with Personal Teleporter, Sword, and heavy incinerator.  Then use the spare points to try to make the "Sisters" component contribute something more to the list.


Here are the pictures I did get, mostly of Turn 3 and 4 I think as the terminators assaulted the wraithguard blob on turn 3 which is shown in this first image having lost some models to shooting, but not yet being assaulted.

I did my best to minimize the supporting fire options prior to my assault on the
wraithguard, but he still managed to get in shooting from 2 units plus the wraithguard.

The stormraven wrecked the two piranha squadron on turn 2 when it arrived.

  

Top of turn 3, rolled a 2" consolidation move after assaulting wraithguard
so I just spread out some to avoid being hit by large blasts.

I called this cock-blocking the relic with my Stormraven in skimmer mode.

Remaining Dominion squad chasing that interceptor Drone.

Mikes Deadpool at the bottom of the image, still wasn't enough for a win.

Stormraven died having gone to skimmer mode on my turn 3 so the termies
could assault the wraiths.  It pretty well paid for itself in the two turns it
was on the board.

Ah celestine, you killed those three firewarriors, but should
have stayed in cover by the Piranha instead.

This was bottom of turn 4 I think.  Before Thawn got back up and tried
to assault the firewarrios that had moved over to the ruin near the Relic.
Also before Celestine died the 2nd time.

Progress: Grey Knight Terminators, 3 more Rhino/immolators, others

Hobby Progress - December 04, 2013

Rather than spamming my hobby progress shots to various facebook groups I've decided to just post them here to my blog instead.  Lately, I've been working on getting my old Sisters of Battle army painted, but have also worked on my Grey Knights which were meant to be allies, but have turned into their own army as well.  In addition my son Trystan painted 54 firewarriors for me last week to a tabletop standard which was a huge relief.  I've had those guys laying around unpainted for over a year and never play them because they weren't painted.  I never painted them cuz they were not usually played.  Now I have no excuse not to put them on the table.

10 GK Terminators, including a Justicar Thawn, 2 Daemon Hammer
Psycannon models, a Justicar with Warding Stave, a regular warding
staff terminator, and 5 force halbards.  That seemed the best range
of models to run either 1 or 2 full squads with the best options.

I just built 3 more immolator chasis, and added some base tones
too 2 more along with 3 exorcists.

Trystan's work on my firewarriors.  He did all these from
based dark green to three color tabletop in about 8 hours..

A close up, need to do some detail work, and tone down the
blue man troupe heads.. But otherwise very pleased with these so far.

My army as displayed at the Turkey Shoot.  Photo by the T.O.
as I took best painted there.

My army as I intended to run it with the skyshield which wasn't
allowed due to Nova Rules being in effect.   No big deal, the TO
was cool and let me swap it out for a defense line and comm's relay

One of two Dread Knights painted up the day before the
Turkey Shoot, along with the Venerable Dread, and a Riptide
that also were painted that day.  These all have a bit more
painting to go before they are finished.  Also, I plan to do
a walk through on my servo skulls visible in the back there. 
I scratch built those the same evening and am quite pleased
with how well they turned out also.

2000 pts Tau vs Eldar

I had the opportunity this evening to get in my last, or next to last game of 5th edition prior to 6th hitting Saturday against Eric of http://thewildriderhost.blogspot.com/ 's Eldar army.  The game was 2000 points and we rolled seize ground 3 objectives, and capture and control as our missions.  The deployment was dawn of war and I won the roll off to go first, and Eric failed to seize the initiative.
My phone died after turn 1 deployment, so I have no pictures, sorry.

Army list wise, I ran a Farsight enclave with a 955 point farsight and bodyguard squad, with 7 helios (fusion blaster, plasma rifle, shield generator) body guards, 4 with target locks, one with failsafe detonator, and one with stimulant injector.  I mixed up the other options enough to have 7 unique suits for wound allocation, plus 6 shield drones.  I also had 2 6 man firewarrior teams with Shas'ui with EMP grenades (just the shas'ui), 2 Broadsides with Plasma team leader with 2 shield drones, shield generator HWMT, HWTL, and the 2nd broadside running a multi-tracker.  One shas'vre Crisis suit (mandatory) with MP, Flamer and Pos Relay and a shield drone.  1x 3man stealth suit team, teamleader with markerlight.  Skyray.  Eight Pathfinders including Shas'ui, DFish with DPod and drones.  Lastly I had an IonHead with DPod and Bust Cannons.

Eric ran 2 9man jetbike squads with Warlock and attached farseer's with Fortune and Guide.  2 Wave serpants with holo fields carrying 5 man Fire Dragon teams including Exarchs with flamer, 2 Dire Avengers troops of 7+1 Exarch and a night spinner.

I deployed Farsight and friends strung out along the center of the board, with the firewarriors at either flank  in terrain 12" from the edge or so, and in cover to force him to deploy in the 6" band on his edge.  All but my 3 stealth suits (deepstriking) walked on on turn 1.  Eric deployed one jetbike squad with attached farseer in the far right corner.  The rest of his forces came on on turn one.

Since I don't have pictures, I'll save the play by play..  Due to some amazing roles by my pathfinders, skyray and stealth teams markerlights, I managed to wipe out both Jetbike teams and their Farseers'.  I wrecked 2 Wave Serpents, depleted a Firedragon team down to just the Exarch and wiped out most of a Dire Avenger team and removed the twin linked wpn from another wave serpant.  I also got my first ever glancing hit with an EMP grenade on turn one from a Shas'ui which charged into a Wave Serpant along with his team.  It took a Dire Avenger squad and a Fire Dragon team 4+ assault phases to finally wipe them out.  Unfortuneately, the Shas'Vre that was contesting his Capture and Control Objective Died while Jumping into Difficult Terrain in the Top of Turn 6, leaving his 3 remaining Dire Avengers in that area to Cap the point.  All the other points were contested, and so Eric won One to nothing.

All in all, it was an amazing battle, and as always Eric was a great opponent and we had a great time.  I plan to get in one more 5th edition Game at Big Kidz Games tomorrow before 6th hits on Saturday.  Hopefully I can redeem my Farsight list which is now something like 5 wins 1 loss in the last month or so.. 

Or, I think tomorrow, I'm going to try to run a Shadowsun list, that has at least 1 of every unit possible ( I don't own a space pope model, and can't run Farsight, but I will run my Ethereal with honor Guard).. I will probably leave the Skyray at home so I can run 3 sniper Drone teams, I'll skip the gun drone squadron, but will make a gun drone team by detaching them from my Piranha squadron, and will otherwise make the army as stealthy as possible.. 2 6 man stealth teams, 2 16 Kroot Kroot Teams infiltrating, Pathfinders outflanking and Tankshocking on turn 2 if possible.  It's not a winning strategy, but when the Vespid hit the board, oh look out.. no ones gonna know what to do then..

On another thought all together, I bought 3 more Mark I Rhino's from Eric today bringing my Total up too 8 Mark I rhino chassis for my sisters of battle army.  3 will get converted to Exorsists, 3 into imolators for my Dominion squads, and 2 as Rhino's as transports for Jacobus and the Battle Conclave, and 1 for my Sisters Repentia..  Assuming 6th doesn't have some rules that make that a horrid build.