40K - New Chapter Approved Mission Pack

 In their latest preview, GW announced an updated set of Chapter Approved missions for 40k. 

I am hoping that they put more thought into this pack than they did into the original set, which were very easily "solvable". Within a week in the wild, people released "killing" meant nothing and all you had to do was "survive" on objectives ensuring that you got your 45 Primary Points. This heavily skewed the most appropriate list builds and defaulted people to the either the "cheapest" or "unkillable" Obs Sec units.

Similarly with Secondaries; with my Harlequins I know for the initial release of the pack, it took me 10 minutes to choose "Behind Enemy Lines", "Bring It Down" and "While We Stand, We Fight" which pretty much guaranteed me 35 VPs minimum. The only time I varied from these was when enemy didn't have 10 points of vehicles or I was fighting Knights.

To their credit they did make changes in the FAQ update but generally you still saw the same small group of secondaries.

The other thing they need to look at is balance of Codex-specific secondaries. First, the elephant in the room - not every army has them. This makes the playing field even more uneven. Not only don't you have a 9th Ed Codex, you also don't have in some cases 30 VPs of "gimme" secondaries - I'm looking at you Dark Angels! I am hoping that they give all the races an army-specific secondary in this update to get them by.

Second, they need to at least try to balance them. As I said, some are "gimmes". They need to have the same level of achievement difficulty as the generic ones which also means balancing those.

Hopefully, the playtesters have spent a portion of their focus on balancing what is, to my mind, a key part of the game - the Victory Conditions.

40K - "A Dirty Secret"

Managed to get a second game in on the weekend, this time with my Harlequins against Dark Angels. Xavier is just starting to play 9th Edition and is coming along to the FOB NZGT, so this was a chance to meet and try out the Maelstrom of War missions.

I offered him the chance to play my Death Guard but Xavier was keen to play the Clowns so I got them out for the first time this year.

Azreal and Assault Intercessors storm the centre of the board to deny the Harlequins Area Denial

Blade Guard Veterans in front of the Shrine of the Aquila

In the end it was a very close battle with the Dark Angels prevailing 59-49. The key to their win was the extra cards they got each turn for holding more objectives (Rounds 2-5). 

The Blade Guard incurred no wounds from the charge of the Solitaire, finishing the battle with their full complement. Azreal, however, made the mistake of charging the Troupe Master who fought twice to finish him off. That victory was short-lived with the Clown King being brought down by the Ravenwing.

40k - Battling the Big Bugs

 Yesterday my Death Guard battled against Alastair's Leviathan Hivefleet "Big Bugs" for control of the streets of Chadaquay Prime. 

We were using the amended Maelstrom of War Mission Pack that I've put together for the FOB NZ Grand Tournament at the end of July.

The mission was Ambitious Surge which has a Hammer & Anvil deployed. The mission specific rule is that you must designate one of your opponent's objectives each turn to be worth double points.

Here is some of the action:

The Tyranid deployment ready to rush forward and grab ground.

Contrast this with that of the Death Guard. It's a lonely life on the streets of Chadaquay Prime. 

Leviathan gets the first turn and grabs ground in the centre of the battlefield.

The Scything Hierodule is met by Mortarion's Anvil close combat Plague Marines. They blunt the advance but he manages to repair the damage and eventually carves them up. However, they have bought time for the Lord of Contagion to arrive from Deep Strike and finish him off.

On the other flank the Barbed Hierodule pushes through the Death Guard lines supported by Leviathan's Psychic Choir.

The Death Guard Blightlords stop the Hierodule's rampage but die in the process. The Malanthrope has been killed in combat by the Malignant Plaguecaster to the right of the statue. The Plaguecaster has been a thorn in the side of the hivefleet, twice stopping Onslaught and dishing out a lot of damage via Curse of the Leper.

Thematically, the cards play ball. In the last turn Leviathan has to kill a Psyker, which they do. The Death Guard must kill the enemy's most expensive remaining unit which is the Psyker Choir. Charged with retribution, the Death Guard army combines to destroy the Choir.

The game proved highly enjoyable with various twists and turns as the two armies fought to fulfil the objectives confronting them. The Death Guard prevailed 38-15.

One thing I learned is to make sure you always have 1CP in the bank so you can retain a card for next turn.

40K Hobby - Dark Eldar Infantry Horde

 So continuing with the task of tidying up my existing armies and getting them into a playable form, this week I got out my Dark Eldar horde.

This is very much a 3rd edition army full of metal and plastic sculpts. Totaling up it up, there are:

• 60 Kabalite Warriors with mix of special and heavy weapons
  
• 30 Metal Wyches
  
• 8 Metal Incubi
• 9 Metal Mandrakes
  
• 5 Scourges
• 20 Wracks

There are also 5 Hellions, 8 Reavers (with metal Wych bodies) and 4 Warp Beasts (found 5 more unpainted down stairs).

Lots of characters too - 6 different Haemoculi, metal Lelith, Drazhar, Urien plus various Archons.

To back it up are 5 3rd Ed Raiders, a 3rd Ed Ravager and 3 Metal Talos.

The intention is to fix all the broken models, re-base where necessary and magnetise the bases

40k Hobby - Big Bugs

 On the weekend I sprayed the base colours on some big bugs I am painting for the large scale Citifight fight battle I am putting on at Call to Arms in July.

I had recently purchased Tervigon, Tyrannofex and a Harpy and had rescued a Flyrant from my bitz box.

I am batch painting the four of them currently. The base colour has been laid down on wing membranes and also chitinous shells and I have started on the bone.

Harry the Harpy

Flossie the Flyrant

Terri Tervigon

Tyrone the Tyrannofex

Batch painting on this scale is certainly different from the norm but I think gives me the best opportunity to ensure that they get finished for Call to Arms. Once all the base colours are completed, I think I'll switch to a model by model painting approach. 

Now waiting for an eBay rescue Trygon to arrive to join the brood.

Mournival Hobby Challenge - Sam Whitt (April)

 Sam painted some more Space Wolves, ready for the FOB NZ Grand Tournament

He also managed a game versus Cody's Minotaurs using the White Dwarf Maelstrom missions.

 

Mournival Hobby Challenge - Lliam Munro (April)

1.  Build new 40k army:

Completed three tyranid warriors and four hive guard. 

Begun three more ripper bases. 

Nearly completed two exocrines. 

Completion of exocrines and rippers will give me a workable 1000-point list. 

2. Add units to an existing army. 

Nearly done on a falcon grav tank. 

Nearly finished a farseer on jetbike. 

Begun work on a wraithlord and two additional wraithblades. 

Finished a vyper jetbike. 

3. Organise a campaign:

Had a test Crusade game with Carson. 

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Hobby - Happy Families With Hivefleet Cerebane

 What better way to spend Mother's Day than to spend the morning putting together a happy family group while watching the football.

A couple of weeks ago I purchased two Tyrannofex/Tervigon kits off a local Facebook group. The intent was to have them join Hivefleet Cerebane in time for Call toArms at the start of July.

So here is Terri the Tervigon with her current baby-daddy, Tyrone the Tyrannofex. Really nice kits to put together and I expect they will paint up very easily. Effectively, this is another 400 points for the Hivefleet which is growing by the day. 

Unsure which of the three weapon options was best for Tyrone, but in the end went with the Acid Spray gun because of its short range nature. 

Hobby - "You, Flock of Seagulls"

 This week continued the Tyranid paint up.

Got out a bunch of half finished projects and finished them up to Battle Ready.

The first of these was sixteen METAL Gargoyles. These have sat around 15 years uncompleted....in fact, I think it may have been a Jack project. They have now had wings finished, claws etc done and been based.

You forget how unwieldy and painful metal models were. These Gargoyles are 5 pieces each plus a bloody annoying clear flying stand.

Nice to finish a unit you absolutely never see on the table

Mournival Hobby Challenge - Bruce Manning (April)

 1. Paint a new 40k army

2. Create a table of terrain to support a game

Got some foam hills from MA, I like them for 2 reasons. You can stack small on large to make a reasonable LOS blocking piece of terrain. And you have to move around the hill or fly over so it adds another aspect to the movement tactics. It's not just hiding behind ruins and then charging out. More planning is required.

3. Build and paint an Adeptus Titanicus engine

4. Run a simple narrative campaign for the group

5. Add two new units to an existing 40k army

I am still working on my SW and added 2 new units.

Some Assault Intercessors and Wolf Guard Terminators. I forgot I had the assault troops and was looking for something to paint one day. Got them in a Recruit box with some necrons.

Had these for years not painted. I must admit to just painting them because they now have 3 wounds and are just better!

6. Paint a 40k hero from an army you don’t own

7. Play a game a month and post a photo of it

Steve is still flogging his GSC and having a hard time vs my Necrons. Really shows the difference between 8th and 9th edition codex. We tried the Valley Con rules and decided it was fun and very different to chapter approved GT 2020 rules.

8. Build/Paint a Warcry warband

9. Organise a multiplayer game

10. Attend two The Long War events at the Warlords

Mournival Hobby Challenge - Pete Dunn (April)

Another month done and time to chart progress on the Mournival Hobby Challenge.

The challenges are:

1. Paint a new 40k army

2000 point Death Guard army completed

2. Create a table of terrain to support a game 10' x 4' Ruined City table completed

3. Build and paint an Adeptus Titanicus engine

Legio Vulpa completed.

I have purchased some 3D printed terrain which is next project.

4. Run a simple narrative campaign for the group Nothing done

5. Add two new units to an existing 40k army Five or six Tyranid units added to my bug army. The latest being some Lictors. Purchased two Tyrannofex/Tervigons off local Facebook group. Intention is to have 6000+ painted points ready for Call to Arms multiplayer.

6. Paint a 40k hero from an army you don’t own

Nothing done

7. Play a game a month and post a photo of it Had three games at home with new Death Guard.

8. Build/Paint a Warcry warband Starter set purchased. Also picked up Cursed City.

9. Organise a multiplayer game Looking to run a 6000 point a side game at Call to Arms, local Club convention. Building/painting Nids currently

10. Attend two The Long War events at the Warlords First one was last Saturday. Took Death Guard, going 2-1 and finishing 6th out of 16.

Blog - Fields of Blood Twitter Account

 For the last month I have been posting material from this blog to Twitter as I know people consume their hobby social media differently.

I had an inactive Twitter account but decided to start afresh. The new account is:

@40kFields 

Generally I'll post notifications of new content plus additional pictures or stuff I'm working on that I haven't blogged.

Hobby - A Tray of Bugs

 Yesterday I pulled out all the Tyranid models that I could find in the house. Over the past week I have been painting random Nid models and following on from this I thought I would corral all my bugs into one place and go through them over the next month and paint them.

The first thing to do was to repair all the painted and partly painted models. Which brings me to the tray of bugs.

Phase One - Remember the Fallen

There is a real plethora of models there. Raveners, 3rd and 4th Edition Tyrant Guard, a Flyrant, Biovores, Zoanathropes....and my favourite, The Red Terror.

Last evening I repaired them all - with metal models aerosol CA accelerator is your friend - and those that need painting re-touches have been primed ready to go.

So over the next month expect to see pictures of a series of older Tyranid models as I comlete them.

40K - The Long War 021.M3

The first of the 2021 Long War Series was held at the Warlords this weekend. The event was organised by  Sean Sullivan and attracted 16 participants.

THE LONG WAR CONTINUES

Going into the event, my major concern was my lack of practice with my new Death Guard army. I didn't want to curtail the experience of others by any slowness on my part. In the end we got through three turns in the first game, four in the second and five in the third......so an "Improving" grade.

Game One - The Scouring - Sam Whitt (Chaos)

Sam grudged me in the week leading up to the event which, for me, was excellent as he is my favourite opponent. His army was a mix of CSM and Daemons. Basically the game game down to a single set of die rolls. I had to make saving throws of 6 on three wounds and (of course, because I was on top of my game) i made them....oh how we lol'd. This denied Sam 10 Primary Points.

Win: 45-37

Game Two - Search & Destroy - Kent Jackson (Ultramarine Successors)

Key in this game was a 7 point Command Point dump in Turn One which allowed me to survive Kent's three Invictus Dread charge. I managed to get extremely lucky inflicting 6 Mortal Wounds from Curse of the Leper on a unit of Eliminators who were picking off my characters. As the game wore the Death Guard resilience won out.

Win: 78-62

Game Three - Scorched Earth - Aaron Wilson (Imperial Knights)

Going into the last round Aaron and I were playing for second place (except in the unlikely event of a draw in the other undefeated game). We had played with the same armies the previous week where I had managed a solid win. Aaron had learned the lesson from that game and tried to maintain range between the armies. It was a tight game of cat and mouse but effectively came down to poor placement of my Lord of Contagion, who was bearing down on a Knight. I failed three 9" charges which meant that I failed to kill a bracketed Knight. This allowed Aaron to reposition the Knight to shoot the Lord off the board. I had thought I was ok if I dumped 4 CP on Cloud of Flies but had forgotten that the strat doesn't work if you are still the closest. Really good game, and well done to Aaron.

Loss: 76-81

Wrap Up

I was pretty happy with the overall result given it was my first run with the army. I finished 6th out of 16 (between Kent in 5th [well done] and Sam in 7th). Aaron was 2nd.

My score was inflated by some pretty clutch die rolls - especially the one vs. Sam. I felt I had the best of the in-game dice but really suffered in pre-game. For the three games, I failed both the roll-off to pick deployment zone and for first turn......1.56% chance of that happening, thanks for asking.

My speed with the army is increasing and my knowledge of the various unit rules is better. Apologies to all three opponents for anything I got wrong. Certainly by game three my mind was a mush.

Great day. Thanks Sean.