more to come
Thursday, 18 June 2015
Exhibition halls part 1
Not going to spoil this with too many words, they are awesome and totally worth the money. We got extremely lucky with the main hall (exhibition hall 3) were we got to meet one of the guys behind the display and have a chat with him - that was amazingly insightful and humbling, I cannot overstate how amazing it is and I cannot believe they managed it in the time frame he laid out.
Warhammer world day three (Sunday)
So we began day 3 continuing the apocalypse battle with the good guys second shooting phase, they were firmly convinced if this turn went as planned they could position themselves to win the game and their shooting did not disappoint withn the Stompa being obliterated in a storm of fire power (although a unit of 6 fire dragons at short range did only manage to take one hull point off) and the resulting explosion took down the ork warboss, the big mek and three of the mega-nobz.
The stompa was not the only model to be taken out but it was certainly the most important. The scarabs and avatar charged in to the wraith/tech thrall battle and it a shower of gore all but three of the tech thralls were slaughtered but it was enough to avoid the archmagos breaking and kept all of those nice powerful models locked in combat.
Sevetar lost half his unit to assorted fire and began urgently arranging for a teleportation back to his command cruise in anticipation of additional fire to come but it would not be until he had a chance to exact some vengeance on the Eldar.
A random charge by the swooping hawks pheonix lord against the remaining mega-nobz was extremely short lived as he was smashed in to the ground by a power claw in total ignominity.
Evil turn two saw Curze spot his prey and leaping over a rhino he rushed towards Logan Grimnar, just before he could engage his prey the Thanatar dropped a plasma mortar shell on the bodyguard, killed a terminator and wounded the lord of the space wolves. The ensuing battle was a close run thing with both mighty warriors wounding each other twice, sadly for Logan Curze could take a lot more damage and his wounds immediately started healing.
The Mega-nobz continued their rampage and butchered the last in a unit of fire dragons, they also charged in on the dark reapers pheonix lord but one of the nobz was killed by the mighty eldar and the remaining nob and the pheonix lord remained locked in combat
Sevetar and his men shot the fire dragons to pieces, charged the sole remaining warrior and Sevetar claimed his head with a flick of his gruesome glaive.
Good turn 3 saw the wraiths charge in to the Curze/Logan duel in an attempt to swing the tide, the battle was furious and the whole of the assault squad supporting Curze was slaughtered but the lord of the night survived (he did take two more wounds) and he even managed to lay Logan low before activating his jump pack and hit and running 15" away from these major threats to his survival.
My two castellax were charged by the avatar and a barge lord and somehow they both managed to survive, not entirely sure how but they pulled it off and locked down those two brutal close combat units. The sole surviving mega-bob managed to smack down Maugan-Ra and proceded to consolidate towards the dark reapers.
The scarabs swarmed in on my tactical marines who had their rhino wrecked, sadly for the scarabs it did not go well as the marines butchered them without loss (the power fist in the unit really helped to instant death a couple of stands).
A 20 man blob of guardians had come on from reserve this turn and with their shuriken catapults they rended down Sevetar and his unit in short order - i failed every single iron halo save on Sevetar so he fell in total ignominity.
While it does not seem from this account that alot happened but the good guy shooting was again savage and we were rapidly running out of forces to utilise in the battle.
The final turn of the game saw Curze charge 5 rangers and slaughter them and finish in some woods to get a 2+ cover save, he also healed another wound but in all likelihood he was going to get gunned down by the shear amount of guns pointing in his direction. The mega-nob continued on his rampage and butchered the dark reapers.
Not a lot else happened since we had virtually nothing left to fight with, but the Castellax somehow both managed to stay alive in their combats, i am still not sure how given the quality of the warriors they were fighting.
So the battle ended in something of a pyrrhic victory for both sides, the evil guys were technically ahead on victory points not in the least due to Curze killing Logan and us killing Eldrad without losing Curze. But on the other side the mainly defensive good guys were well positioned to go fully in to mop up mode and could have potentially tabled us in short order. Shame we did not have enough time to complete the game, the first turn took a bit too long really but we definitely managed to speed up as the second day went on and I think we have some ideas of how to consistently improve the pace of the game overall and more than anything else it was great to get all of the nicely painted models on the battlefield at once.
The stompa was not the only model to be taken out but it was certainly the most important. The scarabs and avatar charged in to the wraith/tech thrall battle and it a shower of gore all but three of the tech thralls were slaughtered but it was enough to avoid the archmagos breaking and kept all of those nice powerful models locked in combat.
Sevetar lost half his unit to assorted fire and began urgently arranging for a teleportation back to his command cruise in anticipation of additional fire to come but it would not be until he had a chance to exact some vengeance on the Eldar.
A random charge by the swooping hawks pheonix lord against the remaining mega-nobz was extremely short lived as he was smashed in to the ground by a power claw in total ignominity.
Evil turn two saw Curze spot his prey and leaping over a rhino he rushed towards Logan Grimnar, just before he could engage his prey the Thanatar dropped a plasma mortar shell on the bodyguard, killed a terminator and wounded the lord of the space wolves. The ensuing battle was a close run thing with both mighty warriors wounding each other twice, sadly for Logan Curze could take a lot more damage and his wounds immediately started healing.
The Mega-nobz continued their rampage and butchered the last in a unit of fire dragons, they also charged in on the dark reapers pheonix lord but one of the nobz was killed by the mighty eldar and the remaining nob and the pheonix lord remained locked in combat
Sevetar and his men shot the fire dragons to pieces, charged the sole remaining warrior and Sevetar claimed his head with a flick of his gruesome glaive.
Good turn 3 saw the wraiths charge in to the Curze/Logan duel in an attempt to swing the tide, the battle was furious and the whole of the assault squad supporting Curze was slaughtered but the lord of the night survived (he did take two more wounds) and he even managed to lay Logan low before activating his jump pack and hit and running 15" away from these major threats to his survival.
My two castellax were charged by the avatar and a barge lord and somehow they both managed to survive, not entirely sure how but they pulled it off and locked down those two brutal close combat units. The sole surviving mega-bob managed to smack down Maugan-Ra and proceded to consolidate towards the dark reapers.
The scarabs swarmed in on my tactical marines who had their rhino wrecked, sadly for the scarabs it did not go well as the marines butchered them without loss (the power fist in the unit really helped to instant death a couple of stands).
A 20 man blob of guardians had come on from reserve this turn and with their shuriken catapults they rended down Sevetar and his unit in short order - i failed every single iron halo save on Sevetar so he fell in total ignominity.
While it does not seem from this account that alot happened but the good guy shooting was again savage and we were rapidly running out of forces to utilise in the battle.
The final turn of the game saw Curze charge 5 rangers and slaughter them and finish in some woods to get a 2+ cover save, he also healed another wound but in all likelihood he was going to get gunned down by the shear amount of guns pointing in his direction. The mega-nob continued on his rampage and butchered the dark reapers.
Not a lot else happened since we had virtually nothing left to fight with, but the Castellax somehow both managed to stay alive in their combats, i am still not sure how given the quality of the warriors they were fighting.
So the battle ended in something of a pyrrhic victory for both sides, the evil guys were technically ahead on victory points not in the least due to Curze killing Logan and us killing Eldrad without losing Curze. But on the other side the mainly defensive good guys were well positioned to go fully in to mop up mode and could have potentially tabled us in short order. Shame we did not have enough time to complete the game, the first turn took a bit too long really but we definitely managed to speed up as the second day went on and I think we have some ideas of how to consistently improve the pace of the game overall and more than anything else it was great to get all of the nicely painted models on the battlefield at once.
Monday, 15 June 2015
Warhammer world - day two (Saturday)
So we arrived nice and early for day two - or at least at the advertise opening time, met up with the fourth player who had not attended the battle on the Friday and got to our table. A period of extended repairs had to be undertaken by me, I really need to get a lot of these models pinned as I seem to suffer for a silly amount of reparing required each time I take my guys anywhere which is annoying.
Some breakfast was purchased and consumed prior to getting started and then we got to work, the alliance of Tau, Eldar, Sapce Wolves, Necrons, Imperial knight and Banehammer won the dice off for setting up first and first turn and they got to work.
Once they had completed my side got in to action with our alliance of Night Lords, Dark Mechanicum, Orks, Dark Eldar and Tzeentch daemons.
Special characters wise we saw the arrival of Konrad Curze, Sevetar, Logan Grimnar, Njal Stormcaller, Lilith Hesperax and Eldrad to this battle which was sure to make things interesting. Eldrad was named as the primary warlord for the enemy while Curze threatened to kill anyone fool enough to try and take that title off him on our side.
By the time we had completed the set up we were at lunch time so went to Bugman's to have something to eat and get our thoughts prepared for the coming battle, Curze had used his special rules to guarantee night fighting on turn one and we had failed to seize the initiative.
By the end of day one we had completed the first turn and the enemies movement phase in turn two before we got kicked out for the night - not the progress we had wanted to make even allowing for the number of miniatures and our lack of knowledge of half our units.
Despite that we did have a few moments on day one which stood out
1, Both of my contemptors were obliterated before I could do anything with them which was somewhat annoying.
2, Nine of the ten dark eldar venoms present were forced to jink due to the firepower being thrown at them, the remaining one was simply blown apart. Despite these evasive moves several venoms were shaken or stunned.
3, Two killer Kans were wrecked, the tankbustas were almost wiped out, the stormboyz got torn apart and basically the good guy shooting was pretty nasty and despite that we felt we got off lightly.
4, We spotted a large unit of guardians at the back of the enemy lines which were bunkering a farseer, warlock and Eldrad. This unit was targetting by Sevetar who came in by drop pod with 9 terror marines and the 18 volkite shots, caused 16 wound. The Eldar went to ground but shocking dice rolling on the cover saves and psyker invulnerables led to 13 unsaved wounds, deflagrate kicked in and at the end of the shooting the whole unit characters and all was gone.
5, The Thanatar took exception to the tau commanders drone death star squad and dropped a plasma helix mortar on their head obliterating 3 suits and a couple of drones.
6, having called Waaggghhhh we were able to get some turn one charges off including my archmagos and his tech thralls in to the wraiths and destroyer lord, some assault marines in to help them out, 10 wyches in to 10 necrons (the wyches were supported by a couple of night lord outriders and a ork biker nob) and most importantly Mister Stampy in to 10 eldar rangers as they were the only thing close enough for him to get in to. My assault marines were broken and only saved due to the tech thralls tying the wraiths up although my archmagos would prove to be utterly inept in close combat. Mister Stampy would kill 5 rangers forcing the other to flee but would regret not disembarking his unit of mega nobz and the ork warlord before charging in to the middle of the massed gunline. The necron warriors would prove to be insanely resilient due to the decurion formation bonus' and would hold up through 5 rounds of close combat before finally being killed off.
Some breakfast was purchased and consumed prior to getting started and then we got to work, the alliance of Tau, Eldar, Sapce Wolves, Necrons, Imperial knight and Banehammer won the dice off for setting up first and first turn and they got to work.
Once they had completed my side got in to action with our alliance of Night Lords, Dark Mechanicum, Orks, Dark Eldar and Tzeentch daemons.
Special characters wise we saw the arrival of Konrad Curze, Sevetar, Logan Grimnar, Njal Stormcaller, Lilith Hesperax and Eldrad to this battle which was sure to make things interesting. Eldrad was named as the primary warlord for the enemy while Curze threatened to kill anyone fool enough to try and take that title off him on our side.
By the time we had completed the set up we were at lunch time so went to Bugman's to have something to eat and get our thoughts prepared for the coming battle, Curze had used his special rules to guarantee night fighting on turn one and we had failed to seize the initiative.
By the end of day one we had completed the first turn and the enemies movement phase in turn two before we got kicked out for the night - not the progress we had wanted to make even allowing for the number of miniatures and our lack of knowledge of half our units.
Despite that we did have a few moments on day one which stood out
1, Both of my contemptors were obliterated before I could do anything with them which was somewhat annoying.
2, Nine of the ten dark eldar venoms present were forced to jink due to the firepower being thrown at them, the remaining one was simply blown apart. Despite these evasive moves several venoms were shaken or stunned.
3, Two killer Kans were wrecked, the tankbustas were almost wiped out, the stormboyz got torn apart and basically the good guy shooting was pretty nasty and despite that we felt we got off lightly.
4, We spotted a large unit of guardians at the back of the enemy lines which were bunkering a farseer, warlock and Eldrad. This unit was targetting by Sevetar who came in by drop pod with 9 terror marines and the 18 volkite shots, caused 16 wound. The Eldar went to ground but shocking dice rolling on the cover saves and psyker invulnerables led to 13 unsaved wounds, deflagrate kicked in and at the end of the shooting the whole unit characters and all was gone.
5, The Thanatar took exception to the tau commanders drone death star squad and dropped a plasma helix mortar on their head obliterating 3 suits and a couple of drones.
6, having called Waaggghhhh we were able to get some turn one charges off including my archmagos and his tech thralls in to the wraiths and destroyer lord, some assault marines in to help them out, 10 wyches in to 10 necrons (the wyches were supported by a couple of night lord outriders and a ork biker nob) and most importantly Mister Stampy in to 10 eldar rangers as they were the only thing close enough for him to get in to. My assault marines were broken and only saved due to the tech thralls tying the wraiths up although my archmagos would prove to be utterly inept in close combat. Mister Stampy would kill 5 rangers forcing the other to flee but would regret not disembarking his unit of mega nobz and the ork warlord before charging in to the middle of the massed gunline. The necron warriors would prove to be insanely resilient due to the decurion formation bonus' and would hold up through 5 rounds of close combat before finally being killed off.
Warhammer world - day one (Friday)
So my gaming circle and I headed up to Nottingham to stage an apocalypse battle at warhammer world, it is not the first time the majority of us had been there, two of my circle enjoy competative play and as such go up a couple of times a year for battle brothers and last year I accompanied them.
It was then I got the idea to book one of their massive tables for an apocalypse battle which would be brilliant for providing motivation for painting and a chance to get to use a load of models which would normally not see that much play plus for a couple of the guys in the group they do not play as much as I would like and I was hoping that being able to soak in the atmosphere of warhammer world would get their interest levels up and really stoke the creative juices and imagination and kick start a increase in the gaming levels and promote a lot more model collecting and painting.
First impressions of the revamped warhammer world - well the change to the front of the building is nice and creates a better external visual so you do not feel you are walking in to a warehouse as much. The shop changes have really cut down the gaming area, the loss of about a third of the tournament tables which is something of a shame and really suggests you are going to have to target weekends for apocalypse games carefully to avoid the place being so packed you cannot move let alone think / hear / play.
The forge world shop is lovely, they have some wonderful examples of their models on display, my only issue with it is that is possibly one of the most damgerous places for me and my wallet to be, the temptation for purchases is exceptionally high.
For this weekend I had booked up the Tau Research Station table which is a pretty nicely sized six by eight table with a bit of terrain but enough open spaces to allow larger models to move, it was not our first choice and due to us planning the main apocalypse battle to be 10k per side I was worried that it might actually be somewhat small but the combined collections of my gaming group are so significant that we had to run at least 10k to be able to ensure we were bringing some of the les used models and giving a decent representation to each of the four players in attendance.
For the Friday we were staging a 3k per side battle, on my side was the mechanicum I have been working on, some craftworld eldar, an imperial knight painted to an exceptional level (not by me i hasten to add) and we also brought my fire raptor simply because we had 210 points spare and were already including everything painted in our armies. Our opponent was bringing orks and khornate daemonkin with a stompa which was more than a little intimidating, especially with it being lovingly called "Mister Stampy" all the way up to Nottingham.
I won't go in to too much detail about the battle since there is a lot to cover from the weekend, as it was we completed turn two and the ork horde conceeded the battle, the 'good' guys had managed to remove a Gorkanaught, 6 killer kans, immobalise a maulerfiend, kill a bloodthirster, wipe out a large unit of looters, slaughter the stormboyz and so forth all within the second turn and there was simply not much left for the orks to utilise in an effort to stop us winning.
The myrmidion destructors for this battle had been equipped with irraditation engines and they were devestating, they butchered a unit of bloodletter with wall of death fire to the point that the sole survivor was out of charge range, the stormboy who managed to get in to combat with them found out that the two remaining guys power fist attacks are not to be ignored and they soaked a lot of shooting admittedly from a firepower light enemy but they were very effective. The knight was brutal to say the least hammering down the gorkanaught with it's thermal cannon and generally dishing out a ton of savage firepower - this worried me because for the main battle of the weekend I would be facing off against it.
We opted to fight these sides simply to get some experience with the armies, I had never had a chance to field the mechanicum in battle before, the eldar player had only had a chance to use them a couple of times, this was the first use of the knight and the orks were also getting their first outing and we figured this fight would be a great chance to get some experience and cut down on the mistakes and rules checking we would have to do in the following couple of days.
My learning points about the mechanicum mainly came down to the destructors being very potent, the Thanatar was effective and the thallax were useful but really with the shooting from a number of scatter bikes and the knight the mechanicum did not actually have to do that much for this battle.
More to follow in the upcoming posts, I will keep the battle details pretty light simply because I toook something like 250 photo's over the weekend and while some of them are rubbish I do want to get a lot of the decent ones up here. My friends also took some pictures and videos and I will see what I can do about getting them as well as their views on events.
It was then I got the idea to book one of their massive tables for an apocalypse battle which would be brilliant for providing motivation for painting and a chance to get to use a load of models which would normally not see that much play plus for a couple of the guys in the group they do not play as much as I would like and I was hoping that being able to soak in the atmosphere of warhammer world would get their interest levels up and really stoke the creative juices and imagination and kick start a increase in the gaming levels and promote a lot more model collecting and painting.
First impressions of the revamped warhammer world - well the change to the front of the building is nice and creates a better external visual so you do not feel you are walking in to a warehouse as much. The shop changes have really cut down the gaming area, the loss of about a third of the tournament tables which is something of a shame and really suggests you are going to have to target weekends for apocalypse games carefully to avoid the place being so packed you cannot move let alone think / hear / play.
The forge world shop is lovely, they have some wonderful examples of their models on display, my only issue with it is that is possibly one of the most damgerous places for me and my wallet to be, the temptation for purchases is exceptionally high.
For this weekend I had booked up the Tau Research Station table which is a pretty nicely sized six by eight table with a bit of terrain but enough open spaces to allow larger models to move, it was not our first choice and due to us planning the main apocalypse battle to be 10k per side I was worried that it might actually be somewhat small but the combined collections of my gaming group are so significant that we had to run at least 10k to be able to ensure we were bringing some of the les used models and giving a decent representation to each of the four players in attendance.
For the Friday we were staging a 3k per side battle, on my side was the mechanicum I have been working on, some craftworld eldar, an imperial knight painted to an exceptional level (not by me i hasten to add) and we also brought my fire raptor simply because we had 210 points spare and were already including everything painted in our armies. Our opponent was bringing orks and khornate daemonkin with a stompa which was more than a little intimidating, especially with it being lovingly called "Mister Stampy" all the way up to Nottingham.
The Thallax and some tech thralls ready to rock
The myrmidon destructors which are exceptional models but have a somewhat annoying set of weapons in the available kit
The second Castellax I painted, these guys still need some work with transfers and additional details like more interesting bases, but I think they look pretty solid
The Iron Duke, this model is amazing and the paint job that has been done is top notch in my opinion
My Thanatar staning next to the Duke convincing me I will have to add a knight to the mechanicum army simply because it fits with the Thanatar and Castellax profile so well.
I won't go in to too much detail about the battle since there is a lot to cover from the weekend, as it was we completed turn two and the ork horde conceeded the battle, the 'good' guys had managed to remove a Gorkanaught, 6 killer kans, immobalise a maulerfiend, kill a bloodthirster, wipe out a large unit of looters, slaughter the stormboyz and so forth all within the second turn and there was simply not much left for the orks to utilise in an effort to stop us winning.
The myrmidion destructors for this battle had been equipped with irraditation engines and they were devestating, they butchered a unit of bloodletter with wall of death fire to the point that the sole survivor was out of charge range, the stormboy who managed to get in to combat with them found out that the two remaining guys power fist attacks are not to be ignored and they soaked a lot of shooting admittedly from a firepower light enemy but they were very effective. The knight was brutal to say the least hammering down the gorkanaught with it's thermal cannon and generally dishing out a ton of savage firepower - this worried me because for the main battle of the weekend I would be facing off against it.
We opted to fight these sides simply to get some experience with the armies, I had never had a chance to field the mechanicum in battle before, the eldar player had only had a chance to use them a couple of times, this was the first use of the knight and the orks were also getting their first outing and we figured this fight would be a great chance to get some experience and cut down on the mistakes and rules checking we would have to do in the following couple of days.
Mister Stampy in all of his glory
My learning points about the mechanicum mainly came down to the destructors being very potent, the Thanatar was effective and the thallax were useful but really with the shooting from a number of scatter bikes and the knight the mechanicum did not actually have to do that much for this battle.
More to follow in the upcoming posts, I will keep the battle details pretty light simply because I toook something like 250 photo's over the weekend and while some of them are rubbish I do want to get a lot of the decent ones up here. My friends also took some pictures and videos and I will see what I can do about getting them as well as their views on events.
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