Day 1 - Games 1, 2 & 3 - Throne of Skulls Doubles Tournament Feb 2018 - Part 2

Following on from our first post HERE about our participation with our Astra Militarum army in the Warhammer World Doubles tournament in Feb 2018 and Rich's post about slow play and our experience at combating in the tournament HERE I am going to cover the games we played across 2 posts.

On day 1 we were scheduled to play 3 games and this is the story of those three games - not in massive detail but a selection of highlights and a recap of our experiences of each game. Day 2 will be covered in a future post.

Prelude
We were going to the tournament to win. Have a great time yes, but win. As you may know from our previous posts Rich and I didn't have much time to play before the tournament but had done our research and preparation as much as we possibly could and were ready...

Friday Night
We had arranged to get to Warhammer World on the Friday night to play a quick friendly(?) game against Dave (@errantwolfdave) and Chris (@ChrisFrosin) to test our theories and strategies and to give me my first play of Astra Militarum in 8th edition - eek! (Our list is HERE if you are interested)

The game was super fun and was great to meet Chris and his Necrons for the first time and catch up with Dave and his Space Wolves. We lost!! What?!! How did we lose??!! To be honest I expected to struggle a bit as this was the first time that we had played our army and we made a few mistakes:

Early on against the pesky Necrons

- We deployed poorly - it was our first time and we set a screen of infantry up but too close in to our corner deployment which meant that we left a couple of tanks outside the line!!
- We put Pask on the side closest to the enemy and so he got targeted straight away.
- The main mistake - we took too long and run out of time! We played 4 turns and if you have read Rich's post (HERE) you will know we need 5 at least! If we had played that extra turn we should have won the game. Dave had no models left on the board and Chris only had a handful whereas we had most of our army left. Gah!

Overall a good game though and very tight. It was a good benchmark for what we needed to work on for the next day so we swiftly reconvened to the pub to talk tactics...

Beautiful Models v Time - The ultimate rivalry

You might well talk about Man Utd v Liverpool, The Bengals v The Steelers or The Yankees v The Red Sox but I think it is universally given that Beautiful models v Time is the ultimate rivalry in history.

The greatest rivalry?

I came up against this particular rivalry once again in my life the other day. This time of year (September - December) is generally my busiest time. It is the start of a new school year, we have many birthdays through October and November in our family and then Christmas hits. During this time of year I get precious little hobby time and when I do I need to be very efficient and focused in what I do. It is usually in these situations where I hate Games Workshop the most!

As you may know I have been working on expanding the Death Company for my Flesh Tearers army this year. It has been an incredibly slow process for me but I have been grinding through them as the year has gone by. Finally I had got the main torso's finished and in my hour spare I thought I could make some good headway on the arms and weapons and they would be very close to getting on the table.

Finished torso's on the Death Company

40k Flesh Tearers v Grey Knights - 8th edition comment on the Grey Knight Codex

 The last time my Flesh Tearers played against Steve's Grey Knights was well back in 7th Edition and I got well and truly tabled in about 4 turns! I was determined to get my revenge as Steve wanted to try out his brand new Grey Knight Codex for the first time.

Game 2 - 8th edition 40k - Thoughts and comments on the new system - Blood Angels v Blood Angels

For my 2nd match up I managed to get a game with dad Steve for the first time in a while for a head to head with my Flesh Tearers v his Blood Angels in an all assault clash!

This was always going to be an interesting battle as we both have a good amount of assault troops and so I was really looking forward to how the new assault phase works and how devastating it would be after the rumours I had heard that it was vicious. This would also be Steve's first game so we kept it fairly simple by using the same armies to help each other out with getting to know the new rules.

The Mission
We decided that we would keep it simple playing the standard Only War mission with 4 objectives and the battlefield was set up with an average amount of terrain (below)

Battlefield

The Armies
The two armies were 1500 points and assault based to the point that I brought absolutely no long range guns at all!!
I had a power level of 97 to Steve's 95 so we were fairly matched.

The armies

8th Edition - First Game and thoughts on the new rules and stats - Dark Angels v Blood Angels

4 days after release and I could hold my excitement no longer and managed to get together with a friend for my first game!! I acquired a 40k 8th edition rulebook on my 40th birthday which happily coincided with the release day of 8th edition - Bonus!

Index & List Building
The day of the game I nipped out to my FLGS and picked up Index: Imperium 1 book (I wanted 2 to play my Astra Militarum army the Emperors Feth but unfortunately they had sold out so Blood Angels it was!) to get an hour or so to pick an army list for a game of 1500 points - I don't quite get the power levels yet!

My first impression of that book was definitely one of complication as it certainly had a load of stats - 220 odd pages of them - blimey. However a lot of them are for different armies or are repeated and after using it alongside the game you quickly find the reference pages at the back.

"Guns. We need more guns." Astra Militarum v Nurgle Battle Report - Round 2

Having played the first battle (here) and been sent away with my tail in-between my legs as my assault army got out assaulted by a bunch of Plague zombies who are amazing in combat (enough for you yet Mike?!) revenge has always been on my Death Company Chaplain's mind. As he crawled off the battlefield a bloody mess he vowed to take down Typhus once and for all and amassed an Astra Militarum force with a squad of Death Company to lead Typhus and his zombie horde into a trap...

The preview for the battle can be found here where I outline how I approached the game and offered up my list.

"Guns. We need more guns." Blood Angels v Nurgle the rematch - preview

Thrashed
About a month ago I received a proper thrashing from my friend Mike and his Nurgle traitors who proved far too durable for my Blood Angels assault force (see the comments on the battle here).

I made a couple of mistakes in the battle but ultimately the extra bonuses given by papa Nurgle for using a specific formation was too much for my assault force. Extra cover saves, feel no pain, zombie regeneration and, the one that most hurt, reducing my WS, S & T by 1 meant that my - not amazing I will admit - assault focused force just could not get the job done. During this battle I also said that the Nurgle army was not great in combat. Mike has never let me forget this as all of his army demolished me in combat!!! - Gah!

Revenge
However, crawling from the field, covered in blood the Death Company Chaplain vowed to exact revenge upon the foe and take the head of Typhus. In the last month he has been amassing a new force to crush the traitors once and for all.

Comment on a battle - Blood Angels v Nurgle Chaos

Recently I played a game with my Flesh Tearer Blood Angels against a friends Nurgle chaos. I didn't have time to set up a proper battle report and take amazing photographs so I thought that I would just comment on the battle itself seeing as I haven't played for a while and have never played against this army before.

First and foremost the game was a tactical objectives game with objectives numbered 1-6 scattered around the table. We played 1500 points of which the armies were picked to the theme of the army. The Blood angels were fast moving units with jump packs, drop pods and a baal predator and very assault orientated while the chaos nurgle army was a plague zombie army with lots and lots of zombies and a few plague marines and champions thrown in for good measure.

Effectively could the Blood Angels charge the Chaos acolytes and hit hard enough before being swamped and overrun by zombies?

Flesh Tearers army
DC Chaplain
2 units of DC
5 Terminators
2 Assault squads
2 tactical squads - 1 with a drop pod
Baal Predator

New Year - New Hobby Ambitions

I find that as a busy, working dad it is supremely hard to find time to hobby. For those regular readers of our blog you will already know that I don't play as many games as I want to and that I have not finished a hobby challenge yet!! However I love the hobby and need to make time for it in my life and so, like many other things, I always give myself targets at the start of the year to try to achieve during the year. With targets in mind I find that I progress towards them even if I don't always complete them which keeps me and my model collection happy!!

The key with setting targets is adhering to the SMARTER Principle:

Death Company Chaplain - Based & Finished!

My favourite model to date is finally finished!!

Stage 7
After completing the highlights it actually took me ages to do the easy bit - the base.

Death Company Chaplain Progress - Update 4 - Highlighting

This was how I left my chaplain at the end of the last post (Here).
 At this point I had completed all of the base colours and washes and highlighted the wings of the jump pack.

I was now at the part of the process I had been dreading - the highlights!!!

Death Company Chaplain Progress - Update 3

At the end of Stage 4 in my last post (Here) pretty much all of the base colours were on the model:

I always find the base painting bit the most boring as the model always looks rubbish at this stage. It needs the washes and the highlights to really make it all come together and so I always look forward to the next bit...

Stage 5

For this stage I got to work with a wash of Nuln Oil over all of the red, gold and metal parts. I meant to do the purple but forgot at the time! I also washed the scrolls with agrax earthshade. Now I get excited as I can see the details appear - particularly the muscles(?) coming out of the armour.

I thought at this stage however that the red was not deep enough and so I added another wash of Carroburg Crimson to all of the red areas. I love this wash as it properly deepens the red but doesn't shade in the recessed areas. At this stage I also washed the skull and the recesses on the gold armour with Ogryn Flesh (Reikland Fleshshade). This colours the bone and gold ever so slightly rather than being too dark. As you may notice I also bobbed a slight amount of Blood Red into the eye sockets to give them a slight red glow too! The last thing I did here was to highlight the red 'feathers' of the wings. I got my 2 favourite red paints out (mephiston red and red gore) and painted mephiston red first, then put another highlight of red gore on the edges to give it some depth. However it turns out that I got them the wrong way around - Mephiston red looked much darker on the wet palette although it ended up being lighter on the model!!! Still looks ok though so I think i'll leave it.

So there we have stage 5 and we are up to my most hated part of painting - the highlights. Fiddly and time-consuming however they look fantastic when done so onwards and upwards...

Let me know what you think so far,

James.

fourdadsoftheapocalypse.blogspot.co.uk – A blog about Warhammer 40k and the Horus Heresy by four Dads

Death Company Chaplain Progress Update 2

The second stage of my painting ended like this in my first update post here:

At this point the chaplain is red and black so next up is adding some of the other base colours.

Stage 3

All metallic at this stage. I used shining gold (Gehenna's Gold) as the base layer for the metallic gold parts of the model. I HATE painting gold so much. It never spreads properly and I just generally don't like the look hence there is none on any of my models! However I thought I'd give it a go seeing as he's a great model and a character and all. I thinned it right down and painted lots of coats to build it up which tok a while I have to say.
Secondly I used boltgun metal (Leadbelcher) for the metallic silver parts such as the Inferno pistol, jump pack etc.











Stage 4
For the last of the base colours for now I painted the scrolls and skull. For the scrolls I used bleached bone (Ushabti bone). Again I had to thin this right down and paint various layers to get the black undercoat covered properly. Then I looked at the pics of Games Workshop's model and the stamp is purple? I did wonder about this as I really didn't think that purple would go with red and black but I had some random alien purple from army painter and thought I'd give it a go. As you can see it came out rather bright but it will get washed down and highlighted. If it doesn't work I can always paint over it.
Then I painted the skull. Quite simple really just lots of thin layers of skull white (white scar) until I got an even colour. I know I haven't got a pic - sorry I forgot!!



So the model is coming together slowly but surely and it is looking better with each stage. Let me know what you think as I keep going.....

All the best

James


fourdadsoftheapocalypse.blogspot.co.uk – A blog about Warhammer 40k and the Horus Heresy by four Dads

Angels Blade - Blood Angels v Chaos Campaign Rules

As you should know I bought the Angels Blade supplement (Angels Blade review) to play a campaign against one of my friends and his chaos forces. As you also should know we were thoroughly disappointed that there was no sign of a campaign system in either Angels Blade or Traitors Hate!!!

As if I haven't got enough things to do I was still excited by the book and decided to write a campaign for the two of us, the dads and anyone else to play!!

I took inspiration, and stole content from, the campaign system in the Badab wars Imperial Armour books which are awesome.

I then wrote a brief background for each phase of the campaign from the Angels Blade book and ended up with four phases to the entire campaign. The winning side from each phase gets some sort of bonus to take into the future.

I also included different points values for different types of games depending on how relevant they are to the story being told in each phase. For instance in phase 1 for a normal game of 40k a win would be 1 point, for a kill team win you gain 2 points and for the special missions stated you gain 3 points. And yes to add some flavour and fun I stole a load of special missions from Angels Blade, The Badab Wars and Battle Missions.

The end result is far from perfect of course but is fun I think and should be good to play through.

At the current time I am dictating that the first phase will run for November and December to give us dads a bit of time to play some games!

So far 4 games have been played. Dad Steve has played 2 standard games of 40k with 1 victory each for Chaos and the Blood Angels while I have managed to sneak in 2 games of Kill Team again with 1 victory each for both Chaos and the Blood Angels.

Phase 1 scores so far:
Chaos 3 points
Blood Angels 3 points

If anyone wishes to play some games and let us know the results by all means post in the comments section to this post and i'll tot the phase 1 scores up. The forces don't necessarily have to be Chaos and Blood Angels either. One of my games included Astra Militarum on the side of the Chaos forces as a militia traitor guard force. You may decide that the Ultramarines have answered the call of help and come to join in, it really doesn't matter just let us know how you aregetting on!

For anyone who is interested the campaign PDF is attached below with a copy of the special missions.

All the best and have fun playing.

James

Campaign File
Special Missions File

fourdadsoftheapocalypse.blogspot.co.uk – A blog about Warhammer 40k and the Horus Heresy by four Dads

Twitter Primarch Deathmatch Q-Final Result - Sanguinius v Angron

"...and Angron is going to town! Those mighty fists are moving like pistons!"

" Wait! Hang on. Sanguinius is on the other side of the arena. It looks like he is just leaning against the wall smoking a very large and expensive cigar!! What is going on?"

" Well I saw it all and mid fight Sanguinius was seen whispering a few sweet nothings into the Big beasts ear. He then backed off and left Angry Angron to it."

"So?"

"Well we all know that the big man has a little temper. We all know that when he loses it he has no idea what he is doing. Sanguinius obviously just banked on the fact that he could get Angron so angry he would just beat himself up!"

"Oh and there it is! Angron takes himself down!! And the mighty angel stubs out his cigar and wanders off down the tunnel refreshed and ready for the semi-final!"

"Well that was certainly interesting - and sneaky! Fair played but we have no time to waste. As you Deathmatch fans know we have a double bill tonight and with Sanguinius winning that paves the way for the last Quarter-final which is..."

MORTARION

vs

ALPHARIUS/OMEGON

"Better get voting right now fight fans on @4dadsapocalypse on Twitter."





fourdadsoftheapocalypse.blogspot.com – A blog about Warhammer 40k and the Horus Heresy by four Dads

Angels Blade 13th Black Crusade Campaign Supplement Review

I play Flesh Tearers and Astra Militarum and so after a conversation with a Chaos friend when the Angel's Blade/Traitors Hate supplements were released we both purchased the respective supplements. With the excitement of new rules and a plan to both expand our forces by playing out a narrative campaign we got to work and I thought i'd write a review of the Angel's Blade book...

This is what the Games Workshop website says:

"A campaign supplement for Warhammer 40,000, containing a story from the beginning of the 13th Black Crusade from the perspective of the Blood Angels, featuring new rules content for that Chapter.
The Story
The shadow of a huge fleet of Crimson Slaughter and Black Legion forces falls across the Diamor System, as Abaddon the Despoiler’s 13th Black Crusade is launched. This shadow is met by the righteous fury of the Blood Angels; leading a mighty coalition of Adeptus Mechanicus and Imperial Knights, the Sons of Sanguinius fight bitterly against the servants of Chaos.
Yet the fires of war that consume the worlds of the Diamor System are revealing dark secrets, harbingers of a terrible doom that even the Blood Angels will be hard-pressed to prevent coming to fruition…
The Rules
The 136-page hardback Black Crusade: Angel’s Blade features a host of new rules content for Warhammer 40,000, to be used alongside Codex: Blood Angels:
- Updated datasheets for Blood Angels, including Terminator Captains, Death Company Chaplains, Assault Squads and Devastator Squads;- Relics of the Lost; incredibly rare and powerful Death Company relics once borne by a Chapter member who succumbed to the Black Rage;- Revised and updated Wargear of Baal;- Death Company Tactical Objectives;- 9 new Blood Angels Formations, an Angel’s Blade Strike Force and a Lost Brotherhood Strike Force;- 3 new Altar of War missions: Death on the Wing, Honour of the Angels and No Matter the Odds."

Story

The story is interesting and consists of a historical account of the war in the Diamor system. It is told in two ways; one from an in battle perspective told through the characters in the story arc in a fiction novel format and; one from a more historical non-fiction format summing up exactly what happened throughout the war.

The combination of story telling and factual information is good and works well allowing the reader to understand the conflict and be immersed in the action at the same time. I also liked the way in which the different parts of the conflict were split into 4 different chapters which gave the feeling that there were 4 specific 'moments' that were important in the whole campaign.

The only disappointment (dad Steve actually brought this point up) was the way in which the Death Company were created in the story. It does seem that GW always seem to squeeze in a spectacular single event that happens to turn the Blood Angels to the black rage in a flash! It would be nice to see the story arc differ one time and go a little bit more in depth as to why and how a marine loses himself to the black rage.

Artwork

The artwork is great! As we have come to expect, the quality of the art, the layout of the pages and the use of graphics and text is excellent in Games Workshop products. Not quite as awesome as Forgeworld but a good second best!

There is a mixture of old and new art in the book which I think works well and all the art complements the story.

There is also a good amount of miniature pictures mixed in with the artwork which is nice to see. It always inspires me to see beautifully painted models set up in battle and all pictures are good to look at and have been photoshopped well.

There are a few maps to support the action which are appropriate and help the reader to understand the story but I would have liked to see more to really get my imagination in the right place. I would like to have some large overall maps and then some more detailed close ups of the action to fully understand the battles being fought.

Rules and formations

There are updated rules for some of the Blood Angel units such as a Terminator Captain, Chaplain, Assault Squads etc. These updates are not game changing and are generally just adding extra wargear options such as the assault squad being able to take an eviscerator etc. etc.

The formations are much better and link in with the story nicely. There are quite a few and add some nice special rules to flavour your army. I like them because they are not game breaking (some formations for other armies are ridiculously over-powered!) and they are not out of reach (You don't have to remortgage your house to buy all of the models you need).

Also included are more "Wargear of Baal" and 4 more psychic discliplines to choose from which are pretty cool and useful (or useless) depending on your army build. For example the "Technomancy" discipline would be useless in a game of 2 footslogging armies!

I like all of the new rules and formations as I think that they can really expand and theme your army without making the army massively over-powered.

Missions

There are 3 missions included in the book. Only 3? Really? Seriously GW! There are 4 chapters in the book, why only 3 missions? The missions do complement the story but they are not written specifically for it and they all use deployments that are in the main rulebook so nothing new there.

The only thing that makes them interesting is the inclusion of some special rules which gives them specific flavour and can theme a game. Other than this I feel that GW have been very lazy here. There could have been more missions written for the story with some more interesting deployments. Still there are no missions at all in the Traitors Hate book...

Campaign

Campaign? What campaign? I got this book because it was a "campaign supplement" and wanted to play a series of themed games between Chaos and Blood Angels. It was really disappointing to find that there was no campaign system or linked games in the book. Effectively what we get are some new rules and a story that is not to Black Library standards. I think that GW have missed a big trick here as I know quite a few players who would love to pit Chaos and Blood Angels against each other in a narrative set of games.

Cost

For both of the physical books the cost is £30 each. Buy Angel's Blade and Traitors Hate together (as suggested by my friend initially) and the price is... oh £60!! Really?! Come on at least give us a fiver off for buying both!!!!

The alternative is to go digital rather than get the physical books. The enhanced edition's are the same price or slightly cheaper on Android or Apple and you can also get the Blood Angels Red Thirst Codex which for slightly more will get you the Codex plus the extra rules in Angel's Blade. Although you don't get the "Campaign" story or missions.

I guess there is something to meet everyone's needs in each format but as for the price? Read on...

Overall
In conclusion I like the expansions that are being released, I like the idea of the 13th black crusade and the narrative ideas that are being released to fuel the imagination for playing and modelling. Do I like this expansion? It's decidedly average in my opinion.

The story is average, there is no campaign system, there are only 3 missions and the artwork and design is what you should expect from GW's high standards. The main saving part of this release for me is the addition of the new rules, formations and psychic powers. Without these there really would be no point in getting the book.

For £30 I think that it is overpriced and should be somewhere around the £15-20 mark with a discount for buying both supplements!!!

In conclusion i'm glad I have it but disappointed I bought it!!

Let me know what you think in the comments.

James

fourdadsoftheapocalypse.blogspot.co.uk – A blog about Warhammer 40k and the Horus Heresy by four Dads

Twitter Primarch Deathmatch Quarter final 3 and 4 Draw

"So there are already two Primarch's through to the semi finals. Who will join Magnus and Russ?"

"Well tonight we find out as the draw for the last two quarter finals is about to take place. Left in the pot we have Sanguinius, Mortarion, Alpharius/Omegon and Angron."

"So who will it be and who will be making the draw?"

"Well I can answer that for you, in fact here he is, it's DANTE!!!"

"And this could be some time. Come on grandad get that zimmer cracking!!"

3 hours later.....

"Finally he's reached the table. So who will it be? One old crooked claw reaches to the pot...."

1 hour later....

"And...yes he has the ball in his hand!  Its.....oh hang on he's getting his glasses on..."

Another hour.....

"SANGUINIUS!!!"

"But who will he face?"

2 hours later....

"ANGRON!!!!!"

"Wow what a match up this is going to be!! Beauty and the beast!!"

"This also means that the last quarter-final will be MORTARION v ALPHARIUS/OMEGON."

"So we start with Sanguinius v Angron. Get voting @4dadsapocalypse on Twitter to see who progresses to the semi finals."

Will it never end? Summer hobby challenge - James

Apparently no, it won't end!

For the 2nd hobby challenge in a row I have failed to finish - Gah!

Unfortunately for my hobby challenge because of the summer holidays (I am a teacher) we have been out and about all over the British Isles for the past 6 or so weeks. If we haven't been away then the Euro Champs, the Tour de France and the Olympics have been on 24/7 in our house as well as loads of time messing around with the kids. With all this going on I have had little hobby time to complete my challenge of 5 Death Company marines for my Flesh Tearers army.

Here is how they look so far:

Every spare moment has been spent on these guys but because of the colour scheme and the sheer amount of detail on these amazing mini's it has just taken ages!

I reckon I have about 8 more hours of painting to get these guys done. To finish I need to:

- Finish the white and details on the left hand marine and wash.

- Highlight all marines

- Finish Helmets and weapons on all marines

- Get and paint a power sword and bolt pistol for the right hand marine

- Finish the jump packs for all marines

Even though I have failed again I am pleased with the progress I have made. I have been putting this project off for ages because I knew it was difficult and the challenge has focused my attention and got me within touching distance of finishing them. Now the plan is to have them out and keep doing little bits during the next hobby challenge so I can get them finished.

All the best

James

Will It Never End? - Hobby Challenge - Steve

Blood Angel terminators

The final part of the hobby challenge we started recently was my terminators. I've had these guys for a fair while now and needed some motivation to get them done. This challenge was just such motivation. I've painted them in the same way I painted the tactical squad I  finished recently (See here).

Have a look through these photos and let me know your thouhjts/ suggestions.

Steve

Will It Never End?! Hobby Challenge - Steve Update 1

It's taken me a while but I have managed to complete my first element of the challenge - my Blood Angels Tactical Squad. They aren't the fanciest of models and my painting style is quite basic for them - black spray then Mephiston red over that. A top coat of Blood Red with an Agrax Earthshade wash into the cracks and crevices. Finally metal bits picked out with leadbelcher and washed with Nuln Oil.

Transfers...
As the other guys seem to be painting to such a high standard I felt that I couldn't just leave it at that though. I needed to try and push these models on a little. To do that, I decided to do something that I haven't done in a long (maybe 20yrs?) time. Transfers. I don't know why, but I have always steered clear of these. Maybe it's because I'm not too bothered about squad/company markings or maybe it's just because I can be lazy or maybe it has something to do with my eagerness to move on to the next model as I have so many to paint! What ever it is it's something that I thought I would try again.

I picked up some 'ard coat and some Lahmian medium from my local GW store and got cracking. Nothing too fancy, I just added the chapter badge to their right shoulder pad and the company badge (2nd company if you're interested) to their left shoulder pad.

My results were mixed. I think they look quite good but there are a few areas that could be a lot better. My main issues were with creases in the transfers and then them ripping as I was trying to fix it. I have actually ended up painting some bits where they have ripped off completely though thankfully, plenty of coats of gloss seem to have hidden most of the blemishes. If anyone has any advice on how to do this better or easier then please let me know in the comments below!


Next in line for me is my Terminators. So far they have been sprayed black and had a coat of Mephiston red and then Blood Red on top of that. Hopefully I can get them done fairly quick as there are only 5 and I can then crack on with something else. I am undecided yet as to whether I will be putting transfers on them or not.

As always, please feel free to post comments. Any criticisms are welcome as I'm always looking for ways to improve my models (as long as it isn't too difficult!).

Steve