Kill Teams Campaign Ending Mega BATTLE!!!!!!!!!!!!

My Kill Teams group decided to close out a successful five week campaign by having a six way free for all.  Ben's Tau Empire took the day by holding two of the five objectives at the end of round five.  I had a couple of Marines and my Librarian/Leader left.  Realistically, I wasn't mobile enough to get to most of the objectives.  I also didn't have enough models to effectively hold what I was able to get to.

The board that we played on was gorgeously set up.  Here are a bunch of glamour shots.

At the end of the game, the Tau held two objectives and the Grey Knights held one.  I think somebody else held one, but I missed the photo.

Heralds of Ruin - Weeks 4&5

I ended up playing both weeks 4 and 5 in my Kill Teams campaign over the weekend.  I had missed week 4 due to personal issues, so we just played a catch up game and then the current week's game.

As a refresher, my list is Iron Warriors and is made up of 2x Siege Terminators (1 is the leader), an Apothecary, a Plasma Gun Dude and 4x Bolter Dudes.

For the week 4 game, my opponent (Will) was playing Astra Militarum.  He had maybe three or four 5-man squads, each with a meltagun.  He also had several heavy weapon bases with either Lascannons or Missile Launchers.  Really, I had no chance from the start.  The heavy weapon bases were deployed to lock down all of the places I could potentially move up the board.  This made it very hard for me to attack.  When I was able to move forward and shoot, I'd kill 2-3 Lasgun Guardsmen, who were basically throw away models.  The heavy weapons and meltaguns destroyed my team.  I ended up losing a single Bolter Dude permanently.  It was a rough battle.

For the week 5 game, my opponent (Max) was playing Imperial Fists Space Marines.  I can't think of a more thematic battle.  He'd sprung for a Rhino and had a Heavy Bolter Centurion to go along with (I think) 6 or so Marines.  We were playing the mission where I was defender and he was attacker.  If I made it to the end of round 5 with at least half my models remaining, I win.  If he gets me to below half strength, he wins.  If he gets me to below half strength, but I also get him below half strength, it's a draw.  In practice, that means he only had to kill four of my models, while I had to kill five of his.

Given how small the sides were, it was mostly a game of exchanging fire and two assaults.  I ended up making a series of lucky saves, while my Terminators missiles and power fists denied him armor.  I ended up winning at the end of round 5 with four of my seven models alive and seven of his nine dead.  It was a fun game and he could easily have won had I failed one more armor save.

The tables we played on were gorgeous.

Heralds of Ruin - Week 4, Fight!

Ugh...  for a second week in a row, I wasn't able to make it.  I do have firm plans to play both Week 4 and Week 5 next Saturday.  Hopefully, nothing pops up to throw that off.

Heralds of Ruin - Week 4... Don't Fight?

Sigh.

So, the store that we normally play at on Saturdays hosted both Flames of War and Magic the Gathering tournaments at the same time.  Given that it seemed very likely.that we wouldn't be able to get a table, we decided to postpone for a week.  That just gives me a little more time to get some more things painted.

Again, sigh.

Heralds of Ruin - Week 3, FIGHT!

Week 3 came and went in our kill teams campaign.  I lost, leaving me with a 1:3 record.  It was a close fought battle, though.  Had my opponent failed an injury roll at the end of the game, I could have won.  I'll run down the results towards the bottom.

This week, we played a mission called "Take and Hold".  It's a custom mission from the Heralds of Ruin rules.  The way the mission works is that we take turns placing five pieces of terrain that will represent five objective buildings.  After that, we load up the board with terrain, as per normal for a kill teams game.  Deployment zones were in opposite corners.

My kill team consisted of my two Siege Tyrant Terminators, 5x Bolter Dudes and one Plasma Dude.  My opponent had 2x Crisis Suits, one of which had the 2+ Sv, 5 T upgrade.  Both had high strength, low AP weapons.  He also had a Stealth Suit with a Melta weapon, something like 7 Fire Warriors and 6 Kroot.  He got to deploy and go first.  We both deployed in the single building in our deployment zones.

Ok...  now onto the game.  My phone was DEAD, so I wasn't able to take any pictures, but I'll try to give a good run down as I remember things.

TURN 1
His Stealth Suit and a Kroot infiltrated behind my lines, lining up a clear shot on my leader.  Fortunately, he missed.  His other Kroot and Crisis Suits ran/jumped forward, towards three of the open buildings...  but didn't quite get there.  All told, not an effective first turn.

I took the Sprint upgrade for my Marines, effectively giving them a 15" (6" move + 9" run) move as well as Hip Shooter, which allows them to Snap Shot after or before running.  I was able to run forward, claiming two of the contested buildings with two Marines each AND was able to Snap Shot a Kroot to death, giving me First Blood.  My Siege Tyrants were also able to fire two Krak missiles into a pair of ambitious Fire Warrior Breachers, resulting in a couple of Tau sized craters.

TURNS 2-3

This is where things started to go south for me.  On turn 2, that Stealth Suit made his shot and killed my Leader.  Strength 8 weaponry is the bane of multi wound Toughness 4 Terminators.  For the rest of turns 2 and 3, we each kept our initial building and traded shots over the two I claimed.  He got some Kroot inside both buildings, meaning that they were contested.  The central building went unclaimed.  The score was tied at 1 to 1 for most of the game.

TURNS 4-5
Realistically, I should have fled the battlefield at the end of turn 3, but that's not how the Iron Warriors operate.  With only 8 starting models, there was no real way I was going to be able to take and hold multiple objective from a highly mobile Tau army with Jet Pack guys and Infiltrators.  I could do one thing though...  take out as many of those Xenos bastards as possible!

One of his Crisis Suits was left out in the open for one round.  It was the only shot I was ever able to line up, but a stray Krak missile doubled out his toughness and killed him.  I also killed something like 4 Fire Warriors and all of the Kroot he brought to the table.  I ended up loosing my Leader, my Plasma guy and four of my Marines.

As my last shot of turn 5 was being rolled, he held two buildings, I held one and the other two were contested.  My remaining Siege Tyrant scored two directs hits on the two Fire Warriors holding one of his buildings and wounded both.  Unfortunately, the injury table was against me and one was merely knocked down.  Had I rolled a 5 or 6, the Fire Warrior would have been removed as a casualty and the game would have ended in a tie.  As it was, it ended with his 2 buildings to my 1.

THE RESULTS
He won, but by a narrow margin.  He took 2 Renown Points which will let him build out his base and field 300 points in the next game.  I took 1 Renown Point, which means I'm stuck at 250 for now.  On the permanent injury table rolls, I lost 2x basic Marines.  He lost 2x Fire Warriors and 4x Kroot.  That's 24 points of my models permanently gone versus 30 points of his.  A decent trade, I guess.  From a Requisition Points standpoint, I got 15 and he got 21.  That's not a big spread. In essence, he lost 6 more points of models, but also gained 6 more Requisition Points that can be used to repair models.  From that standpoint, it was a pretty even game.

I used 12 of my 15 points to recruit a new Bolter Marine.  That leaves my force at exactly 250 points.  I had 262 going into this game, but only fielded 217.  My Apothecary had been forced to sit out due to a temporary injury.

Next week is the Iron Warriors vs. the Imperial Guard.  Stay tuned!

Iron Warriors - Plasma Gun Dude

We're two weeks into our Heralds of Ruin campaign, and I have Requisition Points to spend!  I read through the rules a little more closely and realized that models can be "upgraded" by putting the points used for a previous upgrade towards a new one.

As an example, a Legion Tactical Support Marine is 15 points.  He comes with a Flamer as his default weapon.  For +5 points, I can upgrade him to have a Volkite Caliver.  For +15 points, I can upgrade him to have a Meltagun, instead.  Now, let's say I gave him that Volkite Caliver in Week 1, but then decided to upgrade him to have a Meltagun in Week 2.  I'll get a 5 point credit for the Volkite weapon that I can apply to the cost of the Meltagun, meaning I only have to spend an extra 10 points.  Now, let's say that I want to drop him back down to a Volkite Caliver in Week 3.  I'll get a 15 point credit for the Meltagun, but I won't get anything back when I spend the 5 points on the Caliver.

What does this all mean?  Well, it means I realized that if I have a Meltagun (which one of my dudes has), I can swap it out for the same points cost Plasma Gun in between weeks based on the army I'm facing.  SO....  I needed to paint a Plasma Gun Dude.

Here he is.  I'm particularly happy with the freehand hazard stripes and the face.  I was debating trying to do some object sourced lighting based on the plasma coil, but I don't want to screw up the model.

The collection of painted Iron Warriors is coming along, slowly, but surely.  Here's a group shot...

Iron Warriors Squad Markings

I decided that my Iron Warriors needed a little something something.  I previously decided that I didn't want them to have a massive iron skull on their shoulder pad.  I really like the relatively clean lines of heresy era armour.  I don't want to bling them out with all the crap that makes 40k era armour so busy looking.

I decided that I'd add a small Roman numeral to designate squad and then a series of stacked horizontal lines to designate individual models.  The stacked lines are meant to look like miniature hazard stripes.  I like the idea of the Iron Warriors differentiating each other by who has the longest hazard stripes!

These first guys are all from Squad I.  I would designate them I-1, I-2, I-3, I-4 and I-5 on my Kill Teams Force List.

Here we have III-3, I-4 and II-3.  I added some extra detail work to the Apothecary at the same time.  I gave him blue lenses and painted in the yellow light on his backpack.  I'm debating doing a blueish heated metal effect on the meltagun.  I haven't decided yet.  It's a nice effect, but it's something I can do later when I paint the other three meltagun dudes.  I want the heated metal effect to be consistent between models in the same squad.

Last up is a quick glamour shot of the Siege Tyrants.  The guy with the bronze colored helmet is the Master.  The other dude is just a dude.

I'm thoroughly enjoying having a fully painted kill team.  It makes a huge difference when playing a game.

Heralds of Ruin Kill Team Fully Painted

I sat down for a couple of hours and knocked out the last couple of models for my 250 point kill team.  I think the Apothecary needs a little more detail work, but I can knock that out later.  I really just needed to get everything to the 90%+ stage for table play.

I definitely need to do squad markings on the shoulder pads.

Iron Warriors Painting

After having played the first week of our Heralds of Ruin campaign, I found some motivation and did a little painting.  I had already painted one of the Siege Tyrant Terminators, but needed two for my 250 point kill team.  I evidently didn't write down my paint scheme, which is unusual for me, so I had to sort of guess on the leather strips.  I think it's a pretty good match.  I painted the one guy's head bronze just to be able to differentiate which is the Team Leader.  The only real difference between them from a game standpoint is that the one guy has an extra wound and an extra point of leadership.

I also knocked out the Heavy Bolter upgrade that I get to use in each game due to my base upgrade.

I still need to paint a Meltagun Dude as well as an Apothecary, and then my 250 point Kill Team will be fully painted.  The Meltagun Dude will be painted exactly the same as all the Bolter Dudes.  The Apothecary will probably just get a white helmet and maybe some white elements on the back pack and Narthecium.

More to come!

Heralds of Ruin - Week 1

Six of us started up a Heralds of Ruin Kill Teams campaign over the weekend.  Here's the link if you aren't familiar with Heralds of Ruin...

http://heralds-of-ruin.blogspot.com/p/kill-team-rules.html

I decided to play using a Legiones Astartes list focused on pre-heresy Iron Warriors.  The full list is as follows...

• Pre-Heresy Iron Warriors
• Dark Eldar 
• Imperial Fists
• Tau Empire
• Imperial Guard
• ??? - I didn't see the last game and can't remember what was played.

My first week's game was against the Dark Eldar Kill Team.  For the first game, we're only allowed to bring 200 points.  I'm terrible with their unit names, but the army consisted of a Succubus as Team Leader, 5x Wyches and 4x of the winged dudes.  Two of the winged dudes had some sort of high powered, 18" range melta/lance gun.  As you can see, there was plenty of line of sight blocking terrain.  This helped me out.

I decided to start the game out by hiding in little out of sight pockets in the gutted out buildings.  This hiding served me well.

If the Wyches wanted to engage, they would have to run at me, out in the open.  I took a few pot shots, but the Iron Warriors are better at tearing down walls, not shooting devious, fast moving Eldar.  They made a mistake and got too close...

...which let my Tyrant Siege Master assault.  The three Wyches were part of the combat, but ran away when they lost...  right into the open where Bolter fire finished them off.  Feels no Pain doesn't do much when your head is being crushed by a Power Fist.  Also, fancy 2+ cover saves don't help when your foe can literally reach out and punch you.

The only real snag I ran into is that one lone Marine outflanked onto the "wrong" side of the table.  He walked on and thought to himself...  "does that guy have bat wings?  shit."  Did not end well.

Overall, it was a great game.  I think we both had fun despite my more or less overwhelming victory.  My opponent chose to willingly rout after losing the Succubus.  The only model I lost was my Apothecary, who ended up making a full recovery.  Two of my opponent's models suffered permanent injuries that will carry onto the rest of the campaign, but they weren't relevant.  One was -1S to a model with a 2+ Poisoned weapon.  I don't remember the other.

I got 2 Renown Points for winning.  I also got a ton of Requisition Points.  Requisition Points are what allow you to improve your secret base and to requisition new gear and troops.

I got...

• "Took Part" - 10 points for playing
• "Winner" - 5 points for winning
• "Assassin" - 3 points for taking out the opposing Team Leader
• "First Blood" - 2 points for taking out the first model
• "Considerate Commander" - 2 points for having 3/4 of my force still alive
• "Mission Bonuses" - an extra 2 points for taking out the opposing Team Leader AND an extra 1 point for taking out one of the specials

That's a total of 25 Requisition Points.  I decided to spend points on the following...

• 5 points to upgrade my base from a Base Camp to a Forward Base.  This allows me to bring 250 points to games from now on.
• 5 points to upgrade my base to include a Defensive Turret.  This allows me to place a Gun Emplacement with a Twin-Linked Heavy Bolter that auto-fires at BS2 in my deployment zone at the start of every future game.  Seemed like a good deal for 5 points.
• 10 points to grant my 4x Legion Tactical Marine group the +1 Ballistic Skill Battle Honour.  That's a lot of points, but BS5 Bolters are actually pretty good in this gaming format.

More to come!  I have some painting to do.  I want to have my Kill Team fully painted by the time Saturday rolls around.

Heralds of Ruin Inquisition Kill Team w/Pig Iron Productions

I've been playing Warhammer 40k Kill Teams lately using the Heralds of Ruin rules.  It's been a lot of fun.  I've mainly just been using the models I have available and painted.  My experience thus far is that this doesn't make for very effective teams.

I'm seriously considering putting together an Inquisition Kill Team.  The Heralds of Ruin people put out specific lists, so the options vary a bit from the Codex choices.  My thought is to go with the following list...

The idea is to have a relatively basic Inquisitor with 20 Warrior Acolytes broken into four 5-man units.  The Warrior Acolytes will be supported by two Medics and three Death Cult Assassins.  My idea was to go Ordo Hereticus and have the Inquisitor "under cover" posing as a group of cultists to infiltrate an existing cult in the underbelly of a hive world.  In that sense, no Inquisitional logos or polished armor is allowed.  Everything needs to be filthy and covered in rags and rebreathers.

I'm thinking about using these models from the Pig Iron Productions Kolony Ferals line...

The guy with the staff thing would be the Inquisitor.  He's obviously the cult leader.  He's amazing.  I've seen this sculpt before and totally love it.  Two of the other guys will get light conversion work...  probably a backpack...  to become Medics.

These guys will be the basic troopers.  I know this picture isn't as great, but they totally fit with the command guys.  I'd need four blocks of these.

Last up are the melee guys.  Three of these would end up as Death Cult Assassins.  Some of the heads look a little rough, but for an extra couple of bucks, I can get ten extra of the head sprue that has the hooded, masked guys.  I prefer those anyways.

All told, it would cost 60 GBP plus shipping to order directly from Pig Iron.  TheWarStore used to stock them and still have an area in their web store, but it's empty.  I'm trying to find a US distributor.  It would almost certainly be cheaper.  60 GBP is a little rich for my blood right before Christmas.  They do accept PayPal.  Maybe if I sell some crap I don't need, I can just PayPal this stuff and get it for "free".

Heralds of Ruin Kill Teams Review...

I met up with a few new friends over the past weekend and  we all played a few games of the Heralds of Ruin Kill Teams rules for Warhammer 40k.

Here's the link...  http://heralds-of-ruin.blogspot.com/p/kill-team-rules.html

It wasn't without it's flaws, but I chalk that up mainly to not having fully read the rules and having built a sub-par kill team.  I did what I normally do in these situations and just grabbed a bunch of models that were fully painted, with no thought to how they'd perform.

I had a Necron Noble (sort of like a lesser Lord), 5 Immortals, 5 Warriors and 2 Canoptek Scarabs.  My opponent had a very well painted Imperial Fists list featuring (I believe) about 10 Marines with a mix of Sternguard, Vanguard and regular Bolter Dudes.  One guy had a Heavy Bolter.

We played at Showcase Comics in Swarthmore, PA.  I can't speak highly enough about this store.  We were able to fill two full 4' x 4' tables with matching terrain.  Here are a few action shots...

I ended up losing in a fairly overwhelming slaughter.  This is the first time in a long time I can remember Space Marines feeling like this unstoppable force.  It was difficult to put a wound on them and when I did, my opponent kept rolling 1-4 on the Injury chart.  Only a 5-6 kills a guy.  I, on the other hand, took more wounds overall and rolled far more high numbers for Injury.  Even with my Reanimation Protocols, I lost more than half my force and had to take Rout checks.  Necron Ld values are 10's across the board, so I stuck around and lost when we hit the end of turn 6.

Overall, it's a very fun version of the game.  My main take away is that I need to completely rebuild my list to add a variety of options.  I think that AP 3 is the magic you're looking for.  AP 5 might as well be AP -.