Painting progress and the fight between motivation and discipline.

Good tidings to you my fellow wargamers and miniature enthusiasts and welcome back for your bi-monthly reading here at my den of ramblings.  It’s been a couple of months since we spoke but a lot of things have been going on so we have a good amount to discuss.  I hope things have been well for you all in whatever you are doing in life, and so with that let’s get to chatting.  So get a drink, sit comfortably, and relax while these slow beats soothe your soul…or let these pictures do something for you.

So last time we talked about my painting progress, some goals set out because of NoVA/other events, and saw some work being done.  I’ve been putting in some work on the projects, but I have to say these past few months have been semi-slow in terms of progress.  I’ve had some stuff going on in the real world that it made painting take a back burner and in turn caused a slow down on my overall progress.  It’s not been necessarily a bad thing that real life has taken priority, but it is what it is and as a result I don’t feel like I’ve gotten as much done in terms of model count as I had the period before.  Add in the fact that I ended up spending a lot of time assembling models and having to wait for bits and bases to roll in, time just keep plodding along and I was not making a lot of progress.  Though I had a lot of things going on, and I felt like I had excuses, there was something else in the back of my mind and heart that was inhibitive of my overall progress.

Which in turn has made me introspective when it comes to my hobby time because I certainly felt a difference in mood and outlook this period than I did before.  Before I felt like a machine, churning out models (60 some odd iirc) at a pretty intense speed from what I’m used to doing.  During this period I felt more like a grazing cow, sometimes taking a bite but otherwise just moving slowly.  When we look at this period and see I have reached about half that number, which admittedly I probably painted about half of those days, I knew something else was at work.  While I can point to a few things going on that slowed my progress down (studying for a state credentialing board, visitations with family, a friend being deployed, and house maintenance) I also recognize that there were more than a few days that I didn’t pick up the brush because I just…didn’t want to.  Like my motivation was suddenly…dried up and withered away at times.

Motivation is a funny thing like that, especially for me in this hobby and I feel like painting is in a weird spot in the hierarchy of this.  Motivation in general can be a great start to a task and is a great opportunity for growth in a particular area.  A lot of things can motivate us to begin projects or to continue past ones.  For example I can read a novel about the Horus Heresy and then I’m motivated to start working on my Thousand Sons and bring their tragic story of hubris, honor, treachery, and sadness to the table!  I can watch an episode of Game of Thrones and then I’m motivated to clean and paint up some A Song of Ice and Fire models so that I too can bring the raw fighting prowess of The Mountain to my enemies’ lines!  Motivation! Yeah!

Within the past couple of weeks I saw a meme/quote about motivation compared with discipline and in this time in my hobbying life it truly resonated with me.  You know how sometimes you see a quote and it does nothing for you until you find yourself in a new spot in life and next thing you know it’s like “ohhhh…there it is?”  That was me in this instance and I realized that instead of relying on motivation to keep me going (because that’s obviously worked before right?), I would need to start cultivating discipline to paint on the regular.  Then if you think about it, painting regularly probably requires the most discipline out of the other aspects of the hobby (for me at least).  When you assemble models there’s an end result that happens relatively quickly and there’s several rewards attached to it.  You have the model assembled and you can start playing games with it.  If you choose not to do anything else then most of the community won’t say anything because they too have unpainted models.  Painting though…painting takes some effort.

With painting you don’t get immediate results like you do with assembling and unless you have some great skills then you sometimes risk your model looking vastly different than you intended it for it to be.  If you are a slow painter then that squad of 10 guys might take you weeks to finish and when you look at an entire army it starts to look like a yearlong project instead.  It’s very easy to get discouraged with painting, especially with the advent of social media the great miniature painters can show off their amazing work and make it seem like they woke up one morning and painted a masterpiece before their morning coffee is done.  So it takes discipline to not only keep painting despite not necessarily wanting to and to continue even though the results are not immediate and are risky.

Couple that mindset of discipline>motivation with that I am to enjoy my painting time versus making it a secondary job of churning out models, I think I was able to find my painting groove again.  Maybe not at the same speed as before, but I even felt like some of those models had lost quality due to time constraints.  So with my shift towards discipline I am also shifting towards making the models good quality instead of quick quality.  Will this mean I will hit some of my deadlines?  Probably not but I will plan accordingly so that the armies that NEED to be painted (i.e. my Zone Mortalis force) will be done by the event time, and then I’ll return back to the others as needed.

So a quick update on where the projects stand:

·         Zone Mortalis (Warhammer 30k): 

o   32 models

o   Progress/Pitfalls: Models have had their assembly finalized and their insignia from Pop Goes the Monkey came in.  Army specific paints have been acquired.

o   Current status: Ready for priming

·         Aristeia!

o   4 models

o   Fighters outside of the core box have been acquired and a team of 4 has been selected.  They have been cleaned of mold lines which that ranged from hardly present to “holy crap that’s a lot and annoying to clean.”

o   Current status: Ready for priming

·         Infinity After Dark

o   A 300 point Yu-Jing force

o   Progress/Pitfalls: I was short of some models but due to some generosity from WaaarghPug I now have enough for 300 points and then some.

o   Current status: Some models are ready for painting, the new models require assembling/cleaning/priming and so I am about 50% ready

·         Blood Bowl:

o   Dwarf Team of 18 models

o   Current status: Painting and basing are complete and pre-varnishing has been finished leaving the final matte varnish spray.

·         Warmachine:

o   Crucible Guard 75 points, 2 list format consisting of 67 models (!!!)

o   Progress/Pitfalls: Models were assembled but had to wait on MDF base inserts from Laser Craft Workshop LLC (great customer service btw) but they are ready for painting.

o   Current status: 20% of the army has been painted but basing is being reserved for a final “done with the army” phase since I plan on putting in some effort in making some dope bases.

I’m overall pleased with my progress and as much as I have been enjoying painting up the Crucible Guard I know I will have to pause the overall project to take care of the NoVA Open projects.  It’s a situation of “do I keep working on the Crucible Guard until the event,” or “do I get those NoVA units out of the way first and then go back to my other stuff afterwards?”  Not sure on the answer to that just yet but I’m sure I’ll figure it out in the near future.

As always I want to extend thanks and appreciation for my local fellow wargamers to including WaaarghPug, The Ordinary Wargamer, and Mininomicon for being sources of painting and hobbying encouragement.  Insignia for the Thousand Sons can be found here again and the bases I used for my Crucible Guard can be found here again.  I want to also thank you the reader for spending your time here on this blog and reading the article, if there are any questions or comments please leave them and I assure you I will get to them.  Thank you for stopping by and I hope your wargaming and hobbying adventures continue to prosper in whatever format you want them to be.  Until next time, happy gaming folks.

A lot happens in 2 months

Good tidings my dear wargaming friends!  I hope things are going well for you all and many greetings to you and yours.  It's been a couple of months since the last update and it's been a busy time not only for myself but a lot of my friends, co-workers, and family.  Work has been killer so obviously the answer has been to turn to pursuits of relaxation and hobbying, and what a time it has been!  Hopefully it's not been as crazy for you all as it has me, but in case it has make sure to grab your favorite drink and take a few moments to relax as we dive into a shared hobby together (it might get long up in here).

So like the post suggests a lot happens in a couple of months.  For me there's been a lot of things going on in my own life that makes you appreciate the times you can snag to enjoy hobby time.  The career has been progressing in a great ball of crazy fire and times have been rough.  So what does that mean for the hobby you ask?  Well I've been putting in a lot of work on painting up models!  That's right I've been actually engaging in that oft-forgotten aspect to our hobby, at least I feel like it's the most neglected part.  It's like the icing on the cake in a lot of ways, it's not necessary for the cake to be functional but it's the difference in being great.  I felt particularly motivated to start painting at some point where a mix of staring at the horde of primed plastic/metal/resin, longing for color and creativity, and the desire to paint as part of my Blood Bowl league came together and caused me to just...start.

That's the hurdle isn't it?  Starting the process.  It's awkward at first when you've not painted for a long time but soon the fine motor skills get back to their old spot and you can even start to improve in some ways.  So I decided that I am going to try.  I won't promise to make myself do something everyday, because that's not reasonable or feasible in my mid-30s.  No, all I can say is that I will continue to make an effort to try and paint more.  I want to paint more.  I want to show up to events with painted models (because we all know that they roll better when painted amirite 😉) and not continue this cycle of buying more models without painting some first!

So now every couple of months I'll come back and let you know how this promise is going.  With that in mind I want to share with you my progress:

Blood Bowl Orcs

Blood Bowl Nurgle

Blood Bowl Humans

Necromunda Orlock Gang

Current WIP: Blood Bowl Dwarves

As you can see there is a common theme and since I've been playing Blood Bowl like a lot, it only seems appropriate to keep the pain train coming.  In total that makes 61 models I've painted in two months!  That's about a model a day, which is pretty good in my books because it was originally 0 models a day...or a month...or two months...it's been awhile.

It's a pretty solid routine to get some painting done when I get home from work and it's been lending to progress overall.  One thing I've had to learn is to let go of some high standards I have in my mind and just paint to the best I can right now.  So far I think the results have been working out and I've been able to try out a couple things, especially weathering on a couple of the Necromunda pieces/bases.  I also have been looking for opportunities to just try new things out, and I feel that Blood Bowl has some good models to be experimental with.

So while I am working on the Dwarves I am of course looking ahead for the future and I think no greater motivation can exist than attending a con.  Specifically:

Except totally not 2018

Yes sir/ma'am it is the NoVA Open.  I went last year with my brother and some friends and I had fun...buuuuuuuuut I didn't sign up for anything so really I went to watch people play games and let's be real with each other: it's not as fun no matter how hard you try.  A good break from your own game sure. Maybe to watch a friend, sure.  To watch games without really playing any yourself?

So this year it's going to be different!  I've signed up for events (yeah!), and I've got my schedule (aww yeah!), but now...now I have projects (oh).  See a lot of these events want your models painted and so now I have several goals in mind.  So to run down my list of events and accompanying model count (estimated):

• Zone Mortalis (Warhammer 30k): A One Thousand point list of Thousand Sons (heh).  
• 32 models
• Aristeia!
• 4 models
• Infinity After Dark: So it's a DnD style Infinity event where I am not sure what the model count will look like.  So I will just paint up my Yu-Jing and hope for the best.
• About 12 models?
• Blood Bowl: I haven't decided my team yet but it's an all day tournament.  I am probably going with Dwarves, but if I had access to Dark Elves I might swing that way.
• 18 models (including tokens)
• Guild Ball Regional Cup: A Guild Ball tournament you say?! WELL I NEVER.
• 0 models (I already painted my Morticians)
•  Godtear: Steamforge's new game but I don't need the buy any models or do anything other than show up.
• 0 models

So overall I'm looking at about 66 models which as I have shown myself that I can get it done in about 2 months.  So once I start the paint train I do believe I can get it done before the deadline in late August.  That and I have some plans for airbrushing the Thousand Sons and maybe the Yu-Jing that will help speed the process up.  For Thousand Sons I plan on using the method outlined by Epic Duck Studios (link right here) because not only is it reasonably quick but also I reeeeeeeaaaaaaaaally like that color scheme.  For the Yu-Jing I am looking at sticking with my usual palette of cool colors as I am used to those and would like the models to look semi-decent. I've got some friends, a couple of which are fellow bloggers, WaaarghPug and The Ordinary Wargamer, who are also going so it's going be a solid weekend I am sure.

I have another event I am going to try and get models painted up for and that's a local Steamroller in June and I've recently acquired some Crucible Guard!  With some trading done with WaaarghPug I have acquired a new project to get into and hopefully if I time things right I can assemble and get these buggers painted before June...before I paint everything else for NoVA...hoo boy.

Well that about sums up my current project completions as well as my future paintings.  I will be sure to take plenty of pictures so that with my next update I will have pretty models (and hopefully better skills too).  I hope you all are doing well and wish you best of luck in your own hobbying.  Until then, happy gaming!

Takin' a crack at what's to come 2019 style!

Welcome wargamers and the like to some new year ramblings!  I'm your host and writer for the time being so get comfy with a drink or snack and let's have ourselves a chat.  It's been a couple of months since our last visit but that's not to say that things have not been busy.  Quite the contrary!

So the holidays are over, and have been for almost a month, and hopefully you have had some peaceful times together with your loved ones and that your wargaming or hobbying as been successful.  I was commissioned by my brother to paint up the 30k version of the Primarch Roboute Guilliman and while part of me wishes I had made some progress posts while doing so, at the same time a project of that magnitude (in character not scale) I think posting about it would have been distracting.  So without further ado let me give you the final result:

Painting him up was pretty fun if not slightly stressful.  It did make me realize just how if you keep progressing with your painting, even if it's in small steps, that over time you can get projects done.  Which then resulted in some more thought about what I still have left on the project table and the need to refocus on what I have instead of what I "need" just keeps presenting itself.  If I were to sit down and catalog what I should be working, well let's just say I'm confident 2019 will be full of projects to work on.

So what's happening next you might ask?  Well game-wise I am still very much active with my Blood Bowl league and it's been a pretty great experience so far.  I've played with some great chaps who have been more than helpful with teaching me the gaps in my coaching and while I've not won any games since my last post I have managed to keep things to a draw at the very least.  I'm still pleased with the performance my Orcs have been doing, and my last non-skilled Black Orc managed to take enough Skaven out my last game to snag a skillup.  Despite being close to the league's end (I think 5-6 games left) I don't think I'll be making it to the league playoffs at this rate, but at the very least I can say that it's been a great time so far and I've been working on some other teams for a future league!

In terms of painting it goes without saying I have a ton of progress for a lot of different projects.  I'm currently in a assembly/prepping mood so while I've not painted a lot I have made progress on getting some holiday gifts put together.  To say that my interest in Blood Bowl is growing is an understatement and now with the addition of three more teams I have been thinking about some great ways to paint these up.  For the Nurgle team I've been wanting to stick with some non-traditional colors of blues and purples, for the Dwarves I want to try and experiment with a ruby red metallic scheme, and the Elf Union (potentially to grow to accomodate all 4 Elven teams) I have yet to decide.  My Orcs have been painted up (sans some goblins and a troll) but after Greebo released their P-Orc team...well...it's tempting to ignore the GW Orcs in favor of the cute buggers.

So here's hoping to a productive 2019 folks!  I've got a couple of friends who have also dedicated to playing with our current instead of buying for the new, so I hope that their dedication helps me through my own failings and vice versa.  Happy 2019 everyone may it be a good one for you and your loved ones and as always, may you have happy gaming!

100 post celebration! Where has this fool been?!

Good evening fine folks of the hobby and wargaming community!  It has been a damn long time since I've last slapped a post up on here but that's not to say that things have been quiet for the hobby.  Quite the opposite indeed, I just found that life has made it challenging to keep up with the blog for a bit but now I have some time so I figure it is perfect to get things caught up on here.  Coincidentally this marks the 100th post of this randomly scheduled blog so hey that's something!  While I'm on the train of typing I'll talk about the game areas I've been playing a lot of, some projects I've been working on hobby-wise, and some news about games that I've been mulling about.  Let's roll the dice!

Well we made it somehow!

So last we chatted my comrades I believe it was back in June and since then I've been keeping the irons hot with the gaming.  To start I ended up joining a local Blood Bowl league which to date I've had 7 games played.  It all started when my brother came to visit and for all the years I've known him his interest in anything tabletop has been...chilly at best.  It never really clicked for him and he had some interest in the lore, old Warhammer Fantasy especially, but the gaming aspect just never took off.  So one day we sit down and I got him to try out a game of Blood Bowl and that was the spark that lit the fire up!  We played at least twice a day while he was there and he went and bought a Skaven team the following day.  Since then I've played a lot of Blood Bowl both online and off, have joined a local league, and have been working on my Orc team, Da Great Big Bepis, and so far it's been rough, to say the least.

Da Orcs take on Safari Orcs!

My Blood Bowl acumen has not been fully developed yet so my games have been challenging and for the most part, I've not seen any positive results until my Black Orc line started to get some skills (i.e. Guard).  The thing about Blood Bowl is to accept that the game is quite utter shenanigans from the start and so that has helped me avoid a large amount of Grade A American salt levels.  Despite the positive attitude, my Orcs have been taking a beating from everyone up until my last 2 games where I finally got a draw and a win!  You seasoned BB vets probably have a lot of tips and know this already, but having 4 Black Orc Blockers with no skills versus some with Guard has made such a huge difference it's like night and day.  I'm looking forward to the rest of the league and I think I've got 9 more games scheduled at the very least.  Will I do another league later on if offered?  Probably, but I cannot say it would be an Orc team as GW has been pumping out the new sets often enough.

Cage Da Ball!

In terms of games I've played this game is probably the least out of the three, but I have been playing more games of Konflikt '47 than I have lately and I have to say I am feeling the hook digging in deeper.  For those who do not know Konflikt is an alternate history set in World War 2 where a discovery of science has led to a new momentum in technological advances and has changed the face of war since.  It's not super crazy sci-fi but it's enough of a divergence that someone like me who isn't a fan of true historical wargaming can take a serious look at it and find something interesting and fun.  Mechanically it is based off of Bolt Action rules by Clockwork Goblin and produced by Warlord Games so there is a lot of compatibility between the two ranges.  One person can play a pure historical force from Bolt Action and the other can play a Konflikt Force with only a few minor adjustments here and there.  Otherwise, it lets you pair up your Shermans with American walkers (yes that is right, walkers as in mech walkers) and puts you to the test of the German genetically engineered nachtjager (vampire bat-human hybrids) and the totenkorps (nazi zombies anyone?)!  What's not to love?!

Ghosts phase right through terrain...surprise!

When I first started Bolt Action my interest in it was lukewarm at best.  I liked the activation mechanics and rules itself but the overall WW2 theme just wasn't hitting it for me.  I like my projects to have some potential for random spurts of creativity or wacky themes but Bolt Action had that "no the uniform color for the Wehrmacht WAS THIS COLOR AND NO OTHER HOW DARE YOU" vibe from the community.  If I wanted pink British, God forbid I play with anyone other than my close circle.  With Konflikt that barrier is lifted and I feel that the creative spark is back again.  With that in mind, my allegiance was gifted to me by Mike to the glorious empire of Japan!  I've played a few games with them and so far I am really liking the force as it plays in Konflikt and I've been looking at expanding my forces with more of their exoskeleton suits, Ghost squadron, and also their walkers.  I even snagged some alternate heads from Puppetswar to differentiate my dudes from traditional historical gaming! (note: I think the ones I ordered are not longer available but there are some Bushi similar ones available!)

Japan vs Italy to see who takes the secret Ragu recipe home

Finally in terms of what gaming I've been relatively active in CMON's newest addition to the scene and that is the Game of Thrones wargame, A Song of Ice and Fire.  My Kickstarter order arrived earlier this year and I've managed to get a few games in and I will say I really like this game.  It's like if you took what I liked about old Warhammer Fantasy and streamlined it so that it plays relatively quickly and brutally.  I will say it's not super in-depth as WHFB used to be but it's also not as bullshitty as some of GW games can be these days.  Some of the things I particularly enjoy are: you purchase entire units that are equal sized (certain exceptions apply) instead of units of individually priced out models of different sizes and footprints, you have a Tactics deck which you play cards from to change the course of battle, the said Tactics deck is composed of cards from your chosen house but also who is your commander, and the models are pretty solid quality that has enough detail to be exciting to look at but not too much where painting them en masse would be annoying. It seems like CMON plans on supporting the game for some time as of right now the current range has a good amount of Starks, Lannisters, Neutral (aka House Bolton right now), and are coming out with the Free Folk and Night's Watch.  Speaking of CMON support...

A quick intro game mid/late battle

One game that I wish CMON would continue to support is Dark Age.  That's right folks I don't care about the scuttlebutt on the official FB group I feel like this game has been kicked to the curb by CMON.  I feel like it was a self-fulfilling prophecy for Dark Age in that CMON must have thought to themselves "hey this game isn't making as much money as we want, so let's not do much to grow the game past the small community we have."  Then when surprise surprise, the game doesn't grow because they failed to pump life into it (not that the community hasn't tried to, it's just hard to grow a game when the suppliers of said game aren't adding much to the plate) they must have said "oh gee, this game isn't making money like we thought, time to silently kill it off."  Sure there are some on the FB group who believe that CMON is just waiting until the dust settles from A Song of Ice and Fire, but when you don't restock ANYTHING for an entire game and refuse to answer questions (or give vague "I'm not allowed to talk about that" at best) from the community?  Once it became apparent that the game was not being supported by CMON any longer (until I hear something otherwise this is the stance I hold) I went ahead and grabbed as many Skarrd as I could.  Hey even if CMON doesn't want the game to grow I still want to dig deep into the psychotic gribblies the faction has to offer.

When the Collector bug bites you hard

Aside from the various things I've got going on I've recently been picking up models and bits to get started on a nice 40k project.  I ended up painting some of the Death Guard for a Kill-Team event at NOVA Open but the curse of too many details made painting them fun but also frustrating as hell.  Trying to find a logical pattern of models to paint outside of the Dark Imperium box? Yeah, how about no.  Not saying my Death Guard are being put aside but my Death Guard are being put aside for the moment to revive my original allegiance to the sons of Sanguinius, the Blood Angels.  Regardless of their spot in the current meta (screw that noise) I am excited to try out some airbrushing techniques and get a decent sized force put together.  I'm also attempting to use nothing but Primaris models even for non-Primaris units like the Death Company and Devastators.  Until the old style armor gets made with modern scaling I am just avoiding the old stunty marines and I'll take my time converting marines.  I'm working on the final details but I think the story plan will be my usual MO: urban winter fighting.  I'm just waiting on some stuff from Pop Goes the Monkey (absolute legend) before I start working on this project.

Fun to paint but damn that's a lot of unique details for a basic marine

Tested out the Minitaire Ghost Tint method...not a success

That's not all I've been up to but that's all I've got for tonight folks!  Here's to another spurt of blogging that hopefully doesn't get crushed by the weight of real life!  Until next time happy gaming and thanks for sticking around folks!

A 40k Battle Report: When 2 Legions go to War!

Good tidings to you happy reader and welcome to another battle report from yours truly!  I hope you have had some excellent times with your hobbying whatever it may be.  I’ve been busy assembling a lot of models myself and I’ve caught myself in a bit of a routine so I’ve not touched anything paint-wise lately.  However, I think I’ve put together 3 Necromunda gangs, 42 Plague Marines, some Cryx stuff for Warmahordes, the Blood Bowl starter set, and some other various models here and there.  That’s not why we’re here today though, we are here to read up on some fighting, killing, objective securing, and dice-rolling!  My good friend Josh came over one Saturday recently and we were able to get a couple games in during the day, one of which was a good classic game of Warhammer 40k.  Let’s get to it!

We agreed on a 2000 point game where the Black Legion and Death Guard would face off using the Vanguard Strike deployment and we went with a modified version of Secure and Control with 3 objectives instead of 1.  Prior to rolling off for the mission/zone, we had my lovely wife set the board up for us initially and we added a couple of touches here and there.  The limited space offered by the deployment zone meant that we would have to fight hard for the objectives as they essentially were turtled into our zones.  Would the resilience of the Death Guard overpower the wrath and hatred of the Black Legion, or will they succumb to Abaddon’s forces and relent control? (Side note: due to my irregularity with this game I failed to adhere to the new Psychic Focus rule of being able to cast a power only once, I realized my mistake afterwards and apologized to Josh as I spammed Miasma of Pestilence like a lot, but he also spammed Prescience and Warptime so it was a moot point) *Edit: Josh told me did not so whateva*

"Hey you shouldn't have done that." Yeah neither should you. "Oh yeah."

Our respective army lists:

Death Guard 2000 points, 9 CP

·         Battalion Detachment, +5 CP

o   HQ: Typhus – Warlord, Miasma of Pestilence + Putrescent Vitality

o   HQ: Malignant Plaguecaster – Helm of Fugaris, Miasma of Pestilence + Blades of Putrefaction

o   Troops: 9x Plague Marines w/ 2x Blight Launchers

o   Troops: 9x Plague Marines w/ 2x Plasma Guns

o   Troops: 20x Plaguebearers

o   Fast Attack: Foetid Bloat-drone – Twin Plaguespitters

o   Fast Attack: Foetid Bloat-drone – Fleshmower

o   Heavy Support: Chaos Land-Raider w/ extra combi-bolter and Havoc Launcher

o   Dedicated Transports: 2x Chaos Rhinos w/ extra combi-bolter and Havoc Launchers

·         Vanguard Detachment, +1 CP

o   HQ: Chaos Sorcerer –  Blades of Putrefaction, Putrescent Vitality

o   Elites: 7x Possessed Marines

o   Elites: Tallyman

o   Elites: Biologis Putrifier

Black Legion 2000 points, 10 CP

·         Battalion Detachment, +5 CP

o   HQ: Abaddon the Despoiler – Warlord, +2 CP

o   HQ: Sorcerer – Force Axe, Prescience + Warptime, The Eye of Night

o   HQ: Sorcerer in Terminator Armor – Force Axe, Lightning Claw, Prescience + Warptime

o   Elites: 5x Chaos Terminators – Power Axes, Heavy Flamer, Combi-Bolters

o   Elites: Helbrute – Multimelta, Helbrute fist

o   Troops: 10x Chaos Marines, Heavy Bolter, Meltagun, Icon of Vengeance

o   Troops: 10x Chaos Marines, Heavy Bolter, Flamer, Icon of Vengeance

o   Troops: 6x Chaos Marines

o   Fast Attack: 5x Warp Talons, Mark of Khorne

o   Heavy Support: Chaos Land-Raider, Havoc Launcher

o   Heavy Support: Chaos Predator, Twin Lascannons, 2x Heavy Bolters

o   Dedicated Transports: 1x Chaos Rhino

So we deployed and Josh seized the initiative, which he didn’t want to get but wanted to see if he would get a 6, and cautiously advanced up to get some firing solutions on the oncoming Death Guard forces.  A few lascannon shots lanced through the ruins slamming into my own Land-Raider as he brought his heavy weapons to bear.  A house rule we have at my place is that we take into consideration how much terrain covers up your model/unit and if it’s at least 50% then you get a cover bonus, unlike RAW 40k where it’s all or nothing.  This house rule alone helped keep my Land Raider from being a pile of molten slag first turn and while I took some solid damage to recognize that I might not get much mileage from the vehicle.  Josh also sent his Warp Talons up the midfield to get a head start on the hopeful murdering to take place, and a Rhino filled with marines moved along the edge towards my left side objective aided by Warptime.  The Death Guard responded by rumbling ahead in their respective vehicles, which amounted to not a lot of return fire back into the Black Legion’s ranks, but what did connect ended up causing some hurt.  The Heavy Bolter from the Land-Raider shot into the Warp Talons killing 2, while the 4 Lascannon shots slammed into the Predator causing it to go down to 4 wounds.  The Rhinos moved along with the Bloat-drones to engage the Black Legionnaires on the right flank, whilst on the left, I moved to counter the oncoming forces.

Our respective movements

Turn 2 passed and the Black Legion held their line to bring about more firepower to the lumbering Death Guard.  His sorcerer brought assistance from the warp to his Predator in guiding its shots, bringing it back to standard skill.  More lascannon shots slammed into the Death Guard Land-Raider bringing it to critical levels, which really put into perspective its limited time left on the planet.  The left flanking Rhino rounded the corner towards the objective, coming face to face with my own forces.  Josh’s Warp Talons attempted to pull off more damage on the crippled Land-Raider but failed to penetrate the armored hull.  The Death Guard sensed that this was the time to act and so out of the Land-Raider fell back, and it’s unholy hull disgorging Typhus, the Tallyman, and the Possessed Marines into the field.  The left side Rhino opened up and pestilent marines accompanied with a Biologis Putrifier, and the right side Rhino unleashed its cargo of marines and the Malignant Plaguecaster.  Typhus summoned forth a horde of Plaguebearers between the two buildings with a Plague Pact.  Where the field had only a few Death Guard units now there were many!  The Biologis handed out free candy for all the good boys and girls and encouraged his marines to do the same, so with 68 grenade attacks (Blight Bombardment + Veterans of the Long War) I ended up doing some obscene amount of mortal wounds to the Rhino and forcing the marines inside to fall back to a better position, but taking some casualties from the exploding husk.  Only to be followed by the spitting Bloat-Drone causing more casualties (who then charged in to poke them with its proboscis!). The Malignant Plaguecaster on the right hit the Helbrute with some Smite love and in conjunction with his expanded 10” of “get a free mortal wound on a roll of +7 sweepstakes,” ended up doing a decent amount of wounds.  The Plague Marines tried to capitalize on their ranged firepower power on the Helbrute as well but failing to do any lasting damage.  The Possessed charged into the Warp Talons and made quick work of the remaining numbers, the Fleshmower Bloat-Drone attempted to charge the Land Raider but failed to roll high enough, and the Plague Marines entered combat with the Helbrute because they wanted a close up to look at the dude inside the sarcophagi but otherwise were ineffective at scratching the dread.

Overall battlefield view

There was a Rhino and some Black Legion marines there...

Turn 3 started off with some slight moved on Josh’s part where he moved the 10 man squad of marines that were chilling around in the back towards the Plaguebearer mob with the hopes to inflict some casualties.  However the Plaguebearers are blessed with Granpappy Nurgle’s most annoying flies and so the fusillade of bolt rounds ended up being a light drizzle, which subsequently shrugged off from the invulnerable saves or their disgusting resilience.  In the ensuing melee when they were charged in only 1 of the daemons returned to the Warp, and in turn, ended up killing off 5 of their number underneath filth-encrusted blades.  The terminators in the Land-Raider left their protection with the hopes of killing off the Malignant Plaguecaster who was alone, but in the ensuing combat rounds, he will prove to be more than enough to handle these veterans from the legion days.  His sorcerer used The Eye of Night which ended up killing off the Land-Raider in the middle with a resounding zap of eldritch energy but not enough to cause it to explode.  Abaddon and his Terminator clad sorcerer teleported on to the battlefield, alone and detached from the Black Legion defense lines.  The small squad of Marines stationed on the building roof leapt down to join their Helbrute brother in slaying the Plague Marines, but even their added number to the melee made little headway against the members of the XIVth.  For the Death Guard, the Biologis accompanied Plague Marines hopped back in their Rhino and subsequently left for the greater battle towards the mid-line, leaving the Bloat-Drone to finish off the last remaining 2 Chaos Marines.  The Possessed sensed the presence of the Despoiler and with the assistance of the Tallyman, who had not been doing a good job keeping track of those 7’s, fervently charged the legion’s headmaster.  If it weren’t for the sorcerer protecting Abaddon and denying some warp powers the Possessed would have felled their warlord, but they managed to bring him down from 7 to 2 wounds.  The Malignant Plaguecaster kept ticking down Terminators in combat with him due to his “you get a mortal wound, you get a wound, everyone gets a wound on a +7” but also due to his stick of badassery (dear reader, I think that model looks dumb as hell with his stick but let me tell you…that stick was kicking ass).  The Plague Marines fighting the Helbrute made no progress on killing anyone and so slowly kept taking casualties.  The Plaguebearer mob, empowered by Typhus, killed 3 more of their Black Legion opponents.  The Fleshmower Bloat-Drone did this sort of weird dance where it wanted to charge the melee with the Helbrute but then wanted to charge the Land-Raider as well and so ended up sitting around and looking somewhat confused.

Side view of the field

Turn 4 started off with the Predator moving into firing lane with the Rhino that had moved closer earlier on, thus implying its impending doom.  Across the field, the Black Legion had come into contact with their enemy and there was not much need for movement, but the Land Raider switched places with the Predator and moved to counter the oncoming Plaguebearers, as they had finished their mission in killing the Chaos Marines.  Firing solutions were cogitated in the Predator, aided by a Warp entity, and the Death Guard Rhino exploded in an incandescent display as its armor was punctured by Lascannon fire.  The ensuing explosion was grandiose and caught Typhus in the blast as well as the surviving members of the squad inside.  The Biologis Putrifier did not survive the explosion and Typhus was wounded.  The Terminator-clad sorcerer moved to the side, allowing his master the glory of melee alone and projecting his psychic barrier further up the field.  Abaddon cleared out the Possessed with the Fist of Horus and Drach’nyen, dispatching the combatants with relative ease.  The Terminators continued to struggle to finish off Hootie and the Nurgle-fish and continued to take casualties from The Stick.  The Helbrute combat finally finished as the remaining Plague Marines perished under the combined weight of the blows, leaving the Marines to climb back on top of the roof and the Helbrute to move on towards the Malignant Plaguecaster.  The Death Guard responded by closing the gap between the remaining forces and the objectives laid out on the enemy’s lines.  The Malignant Plaguecaster finished off the remaining Terminators and the Helbrute with some psychic boogaloo Smite jam being shot everywhere.  The Predator has finally finished off this turn from the combined weight of fire plinking away from the Rhino and a spurt from the Plaguespitter.  The Fleshmower Bloat-Drone buzzed its way towards the sorcerer standing on top of the objective, and with a surprisingly quick burst of energy charged up the building and subsequently pulverized the psyker into a fine red paste.  The Plaguebearers moved up the field while Typhus slinked around the building.  I attempted to cast some powers from my remaining sorcerer, with the hopes of creating a Warp-infused combat machine, but with a timely Counter-Charge stratagem, Josh was able to activate Abaddon who swiftly murdered the sorcerer.  Drach’nyen was a little more hungry than expected so he took a mortal wound from the weapon biting the hand that fed him.

The Possessed did a hurtin' on ole Abby!

The last turn of the game (we rolled a 2 to end it) resulted in the Land-Raider making an effort to thin down the Plaguebearer ranks with not a lot of impact and Abaddon cutting down the Tallyman.  Unfortunately, that did not allow him enough time to get a move on the objective in my own zone and so he stood alone across the battlefield with the bodies of the dead and a sorcerer as his only companions.  The Plaguebearers charged the Land-Raider the turn before, mostly for big ole’ Pappy Nurgle’s amusement, but simultaneously securing the objective and causing the Land-Raider to disengage.  The Fleshmower Bloat-Drone flew towards the remaining Chaos Marines, but the combined weight of Blight Launcher rounds and psychically charged acidic bile a la Smite ended the small squad before the drone had a chance to eat something new.  My Rhino moved up to contest the objective held by the Land-Raider and so with the turn coming to a close the game ended with the Death Guard victorious with 5 to 4 victory points!

End of Josh's turn 5

End of game battlefield shot

Afterward, Josh and I decided to have a 1-on-1 with Typhus and Abaddon to see who was the better warlord since they never met in combat otherwise.  We decided no psychic powers and we would roll a d6 to see who struck first.  Josh won and swung with Drach’nyen and the Talon, but only managed to get a couple wounds in.  Typhus returned with a swipe of his Man-reaper, doing 4 wounds right off the bat to Abaddon!  The subsequent initiative roll-off led Typhus to follow up with another assault and in doing so did 7 wounds! Abaddon fainted, making Typhus the winner of this matchup! 

Here we see Abaddon in his natural state, prone before the better warlord.

Overall it was a great game with a lot of good moments.  I think my list was overall a fun one and I took a couple of things I haven’t before, and so I learned a few things about their use.  List-wise I felt more prepared than I did with Well’s Tzeentch daemons and I think pumping up the Plague Marines to higher numbers helped them last longer on the field.  Some of those Disgustingly Resilient rolls were phenomenal though and I think that rule alone makes up for a lot if played right.  I prefer the Plaguebearers to the Pox Walkers so having them come in, reliably with the stratagem, and being a nice sized blob to contend with was a good source of pressure.  Josh and I talked about the game afterward and one thing I felt like he could have done differently was putting the Warp Talons on reserve so when I came closer he could have shredded some infantry instead of being shot at mercilessly.  Also, Abaddon being so far away from the main combat didn’t help out either, the aura he projects to help his own troops would have been invaluable.  If he teleported let’s say right in the Helbrute fight, well I wouldn’t have had anything to really counter that over there.  Overall a good game and it was a lot of fun!

So that wraps up this battle report, I hope you all have enjoyed it and next time we’ll talk about the other game we played.  It’s a game you might not have heard, or have had much experience with, but you should!  Until then readers happy gaming!