Apocalypse - the set up and first turn

So here is the start of the run down of the apocalypse battle. After settling down and getting all of the models unpacked, comparing the size of armies and checking out paint jobs we started with the pre-game stuff. The dark eldar warlord trait was hatred for the unit, the combat drugs gave +1 strength to large chunks of my opponents force.
On my side Konrad Curze rolled up furious charge as his warlord trait to make him even more intimidating, my psyker revealed that he had mastered the psychic shriek, terrify and dominate powers which was not too shabby.
My opponent rolled for choice of table edge and got a 6 which worried me until it became apparent that Curze's precognition powers were kicking in as I too rolled a 6 and then won the roll off. Objective placement put a couple of them in the midfield, a couple in my deployment zone and one in my opponents which was not bad for either of us. The all important dice roll for deployment and first turn saw Curze continue to try and influence the outcome and I rolled another 6.

So there are the photo's of the set up, as you can see my opponent's side of the battlefield was covered in models, the volume of fire from a normal dark eldar army is scary but that was going to be savage. Assuming I did not have the initiative stolen off me I was going to have to really dish out the damage to try and mitigate some of it.

After the scout move of the outriders they were in a pretty advanced position ready to spin out and try to dish out some damage with their plasma guns - if only the model came with flamers in the weapon options....

My opponent did fail to seize the initiative and with that the night lords swung in to action.

Night Lord turn 1
Dropping down from orbit came two drop pods, the first slammed home right in front of the main battle line, the second slightly further to my left. Sevatar emerged from the central pod along with some terror marines and an apothecary hoping to last long enough to serve as a teleport homer for some more support. The other drop pod disgorged my infantry praetor and another terror squad with apothecary.
Curze and his unit jumped forward as fast as possible intending to get in and do some damage as well as supporting my left hand drop pod. Everything else advanced with the intention of doing as much damage as possible to reduce the incoming fire as much as possible.
The psychic phase saw Sevatar attempt to manifest his precognition power and I got one successful warp charge, my opponent only had one dice and promptly denied the witch with it - that was not going to help my plans at all.
The sicaran venator (represented by a land raider) managed to punch through the armour of a venom but I rolled really bad on the damage table and despite the +3 modifier I only immobalised it. The rest of my fire put a wound on a talos, forced a number of vehicles to jink, caused a couple of glancing hits and killed a couple of jet bikers but I completely failed to do the damage I really had needed to - this was really going to hurt.

Dark Eldar turn 1
With his force completely intact my opponent moved aggressively to apply maximum firepower, his jetbikes moved to threaten my backline while everything else got in to position. The shooting phase was sick and saw a contemptor blown to pieces, Sevatar's unit crippled down to 4 guys and Sevatar taking two wounds and facing down three units of 5 wyches about to charge him.
The other drop pod unit took a lot of fire, the praetor lost two wounds and 5 terror marines fell, they failed their break check and fell back 3 inches.
My jetbike praetor was hammered as well and again I could not pass 2+ saves and he also took two wounds and another member of the command squad fell taking fire for him.
The Sicaran's armoured ceramite helped but it still took a penetrating hit which prevented it moving in the next turn as well as forcing snap firing.
Curze was not targetted mainly because the primaris medicae with him had possession of a void shield harness and it was not worth the hassle to try and take it down when there were so many other interesting targets out there.
The assault phase saw all of Sevatar's unit wiped out but he caused some useful damage which was sufficient to allow him to pass his break check - a failed fear check by some of the wyches helped. The outriders were butchered by Drazar and his incubi and that was about it, I was hurting and if the battle was not going to be a complete white wash I was going to have to have a hell of a turn 2 to get back in to the battle. 

Xenos from the shadows

So now to cover off the opposition for this battle, Dark Eldar which was always going to be a problem considering how elite my army is, they will be able to force enough saves to grind down my models even if I am rolling well on my saves but it was very intimidating to see them all laid out and ready for deployment.

There is some weaker units in the army with hellions and the like showing up but with 12 venoms I was certain to be facing a horendous amount of firepower and mobility and since it was due to be an objective based battle I was going to have a lot of an issues with being out maneuvered and my opponent was certain to have the option to objective grab late on with his mobility but hey winning was not my priority - the key for this battle was to try out all of the elements of the night lords and to have some fun and I can honestly was achieved as should be shown in the next couple of posts.

Current Force gathering for action

So today I met up with one of my main opponents for a battle in which we would each be fielding 5000 points. Massive scale but it would allow me to try everything I am aiming to get in my army and my friend has recently expanded his force and it would give him a chance to try out his new options.
So to start this series of entries we will start up with some pictures of my army as it currently stands, I accept there are some half finished models but I simply ran out of time to get them all sorted out before the battle but it did provide the motivation to get a lot of painting done so that was a massive plus.

So there we go, thats the current view of the night lord army, still a long way to go but it is coming together and starting to look pretty good I think. Curze while not perfect he is looking good, definitely coming together as the commander of the force.
Still to come the opposition and the battle, I did take a lot of photo's so given that this all will have to be broken in to several posts over the coming days - I hope you will all bear with me as I slowly work my way through all of this.

Konrad Curze - Work in progress part two

I have been making more progress in an effort to try and get things ready for a upcoming battle and here are the latest shots.

I did notice as I was painting the model that there is so much detail on the model which needs to be picked out, I originally intended to do the highlighting in silver to tie it in to the rest of the army but with the shear quantity I realised it would make him look far too bright so I instead opted for bronze, it is close enough to the legion normal colours to work, it ties in to the post heresy colour scheme and generally makes it all a bit darker than it would have been.

A few bits of work on the hands, lightning claws and head and then he will be tabletop ready. Still plenty of work to do on the display base but it is definitely starting to come together and I think he will look very effective at the head of the legion.

Konrad Curze - work in progress

I have been working for the past few days on the remaining models I currently own (although I have placed an order for some more) and the main one is Curze. Since I have been making some progress with the painting I thought it would be sensible to upload some in progress shots.

 So first up we have some work being done on the base for Curze, this has been simply given a base coat and then a ink wash, I am intending to add some layers to really create the contrast between the dark crevasses and the surface. The skeleton on the base will be done in a typical bone manner although I am considering a thick coat of gore on it. Once the stonework is the right tone I can add on the two solar suxilia corpses and then a liberal layer of gore which should stand out very nicely against the light stone and the whole thing should be a great contrast to the darkness of Curze's armor.

 This section hides the connection between the display base and the gaming base, it is my intention to magnetise this connection to make the transistion between display and gaming as simple as possible.

 Here is Curze's body with very baseline painting done, he has been primed, base coated, dry brushed and then a layer of clear blue applied. After that I have added some light grey on the bass reliefs on his legs which I am intending to ink wash in a similar fashion to the stonework and then drybrush to lighter colors in the same vein.

 The remaining armor pieces have been primed and base coated, I will be adding dry brush high lights and clear blue soon before getting to work on the detail.

So that's the current position with Curze, still a hell of a lot of work to be done and for the short term I am going to be focusing on the gaming base and Curze himself, the display base can take a bit longer - I have a large game scheduled for a couple of weeks time and my aim is to get everything I can including Curze ready to field for then.

We come for you

I have been working hard to get the aerial unit of assault marines completed and following purchasing some clump foilage I have been able to make some real progress and baring some minor touch up work they are done bringing me to 20 complete assault marines.

I think this works quite well and was surprising easy to achieve. There are defintely some adjustments to the technique which I would use next time round but even not using those tweaks I feel the end product was nice evocative. The only issue is going to be transporting them since they are somewhat larger than they would otherwise be.