More Thousand Sons

A box of CSM, my latest addition to my upcoming Thousand Sons army.

After taking a trip to Seetroll in Konstanz, I have some more miniatures assembled for my upcoming Thousand Sons army. As usual, the rules were "no spikes, no horns, loyalist parts" to give them a clean yet slowly disintegrating look.

My new 2nd platoon looks a little bit more chaosy despite the above mentioned rule simply because the CSM legs and torsos have a tad more skulls. The Sorcerer (Sergeant) openly displays a Tzeentch standard from which I cut off the horns to make it look just like any other artsy standard.

On the other hand, the Company Champion still displays proudly an Imperial Eagle on his chest armor. His Powersword is from a loyalist Assault Squad Sergeant, his shield from Scibor's Egyptian series.
The Apothecary has a loyalist Apothecary's backpack and an Auspex simply because I lack another Narthecium. I figure it's still good enough to scan the battlefield à la Leonard McCoy.
In the back you can see the Command Squad's Standard Bearer which I have shown in more detail earlier already.

Last but not least I built a second Librarian. All his bits are from the CSM box except for his Egyptian helmet, his pre-heresy Jump Pack, and his Purity Seal (taken from a Blood Angels Sanguinary Guard box). Once again, the goal here was to create a rather chaotic yet clean look that would easily let him pass also as a feral Space Wolf or a somber Iron Hand. Unlike the Company Champion's sword out of a loyalist box, this sword here also is from the CSM box and serves just as another powerful hint about the corruption of this Librarian.

One day, everyone is supposed to be painted to this standard.

Green bushes with red strawberries

As I am too tired to write a battle report and my smartphone's battery ran empty in mid game, I won't do a proper battle report of our latest game, but just show off the most epic photos of our Blood Angels & Elysians vs. Khorne Daemons matchup.

Building secured!

You know things may go sour when an Inquisitor watches over the field.

New aim!

Sergeant, why does this sand keep following us???

Eesh, I shouldn't have left the door to the kennel open!

See?

Shhhh, I'm huntin' wabbit!

I love the smell of Promethium in the morning!

Incoming!

The Story of Snubgubbin and Mission Objective 1

Winged angel vs. brute greenskin, that's how it is.

This battle reports covers my latest BA game vs. McMortison's Orks, both sides showed up with 1'500pts. Brother Techmarine Cephalus watched with concern the spread of an Ork infestation on Psimonis IV and decided to make haste to former Guard batiments near a strategic hilltop, but once he arrived there with his force the Orks were already at the doorstep, too.

This is how we set up in a bare green landscape with barracks, a watch tower, a hill, and a couple craters from a former conflict. We played corner to corner.

Round 1

On turn 1, the Ork tankz simply advanced. From left to right: Battewagon with BigMek (acting as the warlord), Trukk (on the hill) with 10 Nobz, another Battlewagon, Lotted Wagon.

That Trukk with the 10 Nobz had to die first, so the Blood Angels concentrated their disciplined fire on it. The Scouts on the watch tower managed to blow it up and scored First Blood.

Fire from the Battlewagon on the far right made this Techmarine lose his Stormbolter, close the Rhino's hatch, and have a cup of coffee inside with less lead in the air.

Once it was my turn to move, a miracle happened on the far left: the Meltagun and the Multimelta of the Tactical Squad in the Rhino (behind the watch tower) actually hit!!! The Battlewagon was a structure of molten metal after that.

In all of my games vs. Orkz, this definitely was the luckiest as I usually struggle against their vehicles with my Blood Angel's limited shooting.

The BigMek and his Boyz even started to run towards their table edge because of the losses they suffered from the exploding Battlewagon.

End of turn 1. (my D20 is the red one with the single point from First Blood)

Round 2

The start of turn 2 saw the arrival of the Ork flyers. This promised to become a very bad day - for someone. o.O

Snubgubbin felt the wind under the wings of his plane. Majestically it glided over a sea of green. The enemy was ahead, Snubgibbin's head was a crystal clear focus. Gently he swung in to that pesky red Spez Marinez Rhino, excitedly fingering that release button. A little red light flashed on his dashboard. Not yet, this was too soon. Three more red lights started to flash quickly. Snubgubbin didn't mind, he just felt the connectedness between him, his prey, and the bringer of death he rode through the sky like no Ork did ever before. And then the plane bore into the ground and vanished with a loud bang. The Brother Techmarine looking out of the Rhino hatch shielded his vision with his left hand from the falling dirt and then continued with his tasks.

The next tragic incident: where you can see McMortison's rulebook, just seconds ago was the BigMek and his Boyz. They decided to walk off the table rather than to rally and pick up the fight again. Hence I got another VP for killing the Ork warlord. I watched the Ork army dissolve without me doing much and started to feel sorry for them. :-/

At least the Nobz managed a quick hike down center to grab MO 6 for another Orky VP.

The remaining Ork Bomma fired at the Scouts, but their reinforced watch tower held.

So did this brave Rhino on the far right when it got sandwiched between a Battlewagon and a Looted Wagon.

Start of my turn 2. The Death Company, the Assault Squad, and the DC Stormraven with my Techmarine (and warlord) arrived from my table edge.

These two were left of the 10 man Nobz squad after the Assault Squad's Flamers and the DC Boltpistols were done with them. My DC failed their charge and foolishly I didn't announce a charge with my Assault Squad, so these two Nobz were left alive.

The Stormraven sent this abomination called Looted Wagon to its grave and had the Boyz inside exit it.

Right next to that (left edge in the picture above) the Third Squad's Rhino drove in a last effort right into this crater onto Mission Objective 1. The Rhino broke down, but the exiting Marines scored another VP.

So at the end of Round 2 I was able to build a thin lead of 2 VP.

Round 3

Start of Round 3.

The Bomma started by sprinkling Napalm onto the DC.

Then the last Battlewagon unloaded its Boyz right next to the DC, too.

Then the third and final Ork plane reduced the Assault Squad to its Veteran Sergeant.

The DC ate the charge and Brother Librarian Metipacus dulled the Ork Nob with the Powerklaw. Both were left standing because Metipacus hadn't activated his Forceweapon and the Nobz' Powerclaw proved to be too clunky to wield properly.

My lead shrunk to one point.

The start of my turn 3.

Once again, Brother Librarian Metipacus failed to activate his Forceweapon, but he gave himself The Quickening (I rolled a 2 on the D3) and Shield of Sanguinius to the entire DC.

With the power of the Warp, he finished off the Nob with his number of attacks.

The remaining Veteran Sergeant joined the fray, too, and started to hack a bloody path with his Powersword.

I hadn't won any VPs because my missions (kill something with a Flyer/Jump unit, kill something during your Assault Phase, kill an enemy flyer) were good, but my progress slow. While the DC can eat a charge and survive eat, it definitely slows down the VP hunt.

Round 4

Start of Round 4.

In the upper left corner, the Boyz from the broken down Looted Wagon assaulted the Tactical Squad still sitting on MO 1 because, well, they had drawn the card to capture MO 1, too. The Tactical Squad proved to be harmless with one attack each, but they did ungodly well on their Armor Saves.

To eliminate another unit and thus gain another VP, the green Bomma unloaded onto the Scouts sitting on top of the barrack on the far left and swiftly executed them.

Now the score was tied again.

On my turn 4, the Land Speeder finally arrived, shot the remaining Battlewagon into its rear with the Assault Canon, and blew it up. This meant the Orkz no longer had any big canons left that could be a threat to my jump infantry out in the open.

The Stormraven did a 90° turn and with its Assault Canon shredded the green Bomma for another VP.

Brother Librarian Metipacus executed the last Nob...

...and the rest of the DC mopped up the Boyz for two VP.

Hence I managed to gain a small lead of three points again.

Round 5

Start of Round 5.

The red plane came onto the battlefield again, aimed at the Land Speeder,...

...and had it crash and burn.

The score remained unchanged because my Tactical Squad was still sitting on MO 1 preventing the Orkz from scoring.

On my turn 5, I pulled the card to - you guessed it - hold MO1 as well. On the left side of the hill, the barely damaged Rhino raced to the buring Rhino and help its brethren, behind the hill you can see the shapes of my jump infantry moving up to do the same as well.

On top of MO 1, one Marine still weathered the Orkzez by successfully rolling all his 3+ Armor Saves - he even managed to take off one wound from the Nob by smashing his Bolter onto the Nobz' green head.

The score remained unchanged and the dice said (on a 2) that Round 5 also was our final round, so I won a small victory.

The battlefield at the end of the game.

Though I had many fun games in my life, this definitely was the most fun game ever simply because Orkz being Orkz. This could have been an entirely different game if my Melta Weapons hadn't hit their targets, Snubgubbin hadn't been such a vain pilot, and the BigMek with the Snotzogga hadn't simply walked off the field. Yet more than any victory points and tactical maneuvers I enjoyed this game for letting each army be its character: Orkz hitting like a brick but with their usual discipline problems, Marines being the few and elite who wouldn't break even in harshest conditions.

As I wrote this battle report, every second of the game bubbled up again and this probably was the quickest battle report ever written by myself, so you can take this as an indicator how much fun the game was. All rewards belong to McMortison for hosting this game and for being the awesome sportsman and fluff nut that makes any game with him an experience of its own.