Sitrep (40K) Caledonian Uprising Part 2

Day two started a bit hazy. Maelstorm had recently opened their bar and the UK master the weekend before had stayed to the wee hours. Tim had asked for volunteers to stay longer than the master crowd and it would have been rude to decline.  So we did a few rounds to beat the Masters time then had one for the road, one for luck and left because the bar staff were looking like they needed to go home;)

Round 4;
Mission; Capture the flag
Deployment; Dawn of War
Opponent; Gary Marsh aka UK witch hunter general
His army;
2 canoness
2 squads of sisters
1 squad of celestians
3 exorcist
1 squad of seraphim
1 imperial guard platoon (HQ and 3 squads)

Game;

This should be interesting I'm not a fan of the seraphim but most sisters players swear by them. The loyalists won the initiative and opted to go second. Gary opted to deploy his IG on his objective and an rhino on the half way mark.  In response all the Loyal sisters units opted to roll on.  First turn was uneventful with no target presenting themselves in the night. Both armies taking the time to close on each other. Turn two saw day break and the heretics opened fire with exorcists and autocannons from the guard destroying Ardent and immobilising Sanctity.

 

Sisters take fire from heretics

Counter fire destroyed a heretics rhino and immobilised another all the while the heretic seraphim were working their way through cover towards the loyalist objectives.  Turn three saw the destruction of all the loyalist transports except Inviolable with the all the heretics transporters being destroyed in return.

 

Ramaging heretics

With the loyalist assault on the heretics flag stalled the heretics closed in on the loyalist flag with two canoness, two squads of sisters and a squad of celestian.  Flame and bolter saw the loyalist hold their objective at the cost of lady Tabitha and squads Rose, Thorn, Iona.

 

Sisters hold the line

Result; Sisters drawn

Round 5; table 7
Mission; multiple objectives
Deployment; spearhead
Opponent; Ian Ward
His army; The glorious 261st regiment of Kreig
1 Command squad
1 Platoon with HQ, 3 infantry, 2 special weapons (SWS) and 2 heavy weapons squad (HWS)
1 Platoon the HQ with 3 infantry, 2 special weapons
1 Squadron of 2 griffins
1 Hell hound
1 Devil dog
1 Leman Russ tank
1 Demolisher

Game;

An unusual guard army that actually had imperial guard in it.  The Sisters won the initiative and deployed in shield wall.  The Guard response by deploying a tank on either flank with artillery to the rear and infantry in the centre, with a platoon is reserve.  The Hell Hound and Devil Dog deployed on one flank. The guard made a deployment error with each tank facing different section of the sisters force allowing the  the Sisters force to get cross fire shots in at the side army.  

 

Sisters in shieldwall

Round one shooting was very strong with a Leman Russ and a Devil Dog destroyed, casualties from the explosion causing a nearby SWS squad to flee. All the while all the Sister units went on a general advance. Return fire from the guard was ineffective destroying Sanctity and stunning a couple of vehicles.

 

Traitor Guard

Turn two saw the sister maintain the pressure trying to keep the guard hemmed in to their corner destroying the hell hound and damaging the heavy weapons squads. Squad Iona assaulted an infantry squad only to be fought to a draw. Squad Rose and thorn targeted the demolisher, blowing it up, and an assaulted a nearby guard squad again being fought to a draw.  No guard reinforcement arrived and to make matters worse the shooting was again ineffective damaging a few vehicles and doing minor wounds on various squads.

Turn three saw the destruction of the HW squads with the exorcist starting to do damage to the command teams. Squad Iona final finished off their opponents while Rose and Thorn remained in combat.  The Guard reinforcement finally arrived, the infantry squads combined and quickly destroyed Iona while the SW squads destroyed Revenge's exorcist launcher.

Weapon less Revenge went on the offensive tank shocking the two SW squad of the table. Squad Miriya and the Canoness engaged and destroyed the combined squad with flamers and close combat weapons.  With little left the guard continue to fight on again inflict light damage on the sisters.

The game end when the Canoness cut down the company commander and the last of the guard were shot of the table for a wipe-out

 

Traitor Guard being cleansed

Result; Sister Victorious

Round 6;
Mission; Annihilation
Deployment; pitch battle
Opponent; Neil Kerr
His army; Daemons
1 GUO
2 Herald of Tzeentch
1 Screamer pack
1 Blood Crushor pack
1 fiend packs
2 Soul Grinders
3 Plague Bearer packs

Game;

The sister won the initiative and opted to go second with all unit in reserve.  With no targets Neil’s preferred wave of GUO, blood crushers, fiends, grinders and heralds arrived. They spread out evenly to cover most of the Sister table edge. 

With still no targets the second wave daemons arrived and joined the line at the 18" mark.  Squads Iona and Thorn finally arrived and cruising speed and popped smoke.

With some targets at last the daemon army started to Congo towards the sisters. Shooting was better than expected with Ardent destroyed and Sanctity immobilised. 

 Fiends

The loss of transports in the first wave was a bad blow since the plan was to set up a crossfire with the second wave to cut through the daemon packs.  The second wave arrived consisting of lady Tabitha, squads Miriya and Sword and vehicles Revenge, Blessed and His Will.  The cross fire opened up Banishing the GUO, badly damaging a GUO and reducing a fiend pack to a couple of wound models. Unfortunately the canoness and Thorn squad failed to assault through cover leaving daemons free to roam.  The herald immobilised the Revenge and destroyed the storm bolter of Sanctity. The fiends destroyed squad Miriya, while a soul grinder destroyed His Will.

Squad Cassandra, Rose arrived with Inviolable, Divine Pronouncement, Retribution Inbound and targeted the fast approaching blood crushers again mauling but not destroying the unit. Thorn tracked down and killed the wounds herald while Iona targeted screamers and the canoness went after the unwound herald.

 

Plague Bearers

The surviving Blood Crushers and the undamaged fiend pack decimated squads Cassandra, Swords and several vehicles’ on the process in reply Lady Tabitha killed the herald and Thorn assaulted and destroyed the damaged fiend pack.

Turn five saw Heretic's Folly finally arrived and it banished the last of the blood crushers.  Lady Tabitha was pinned in combat by a soul grinder while the plague bearers overran squad Rose. Lady Tabitha was finally cut down by Plague Bearers while Heretic's Folly was destroyed by fiends.  The game with the surviving sisters breaking contact and trying to get out of assault range of the daemons

 Lady tabitha's last stand

 Result; Sisters defeated

Summary; Overall the Sisters came 11th out of 80 players and I had a blast. The maelstorm venue is pretty slick I would love to get a tour of their warehouse.  The event room has four tables in a row with ten rows in the main room and several more in the second room.

More photos can be seen here (be advised there is about 200 of them and for some reason the warhammer world photos show up half way through the tournament for some reason).

Sitrep (40K) Caledonian Uprising Part 1

So much for cutting back on the tournaments this year. I could not even wait until Warpcon to get my frist tournament of the new year in :)
Caledonian Uprising, aka the ETC team Scotland qualifier, got the green light because,
1) It was nearest event on at the time.
2) Dave offered to put me up for the weekend (He did not know this at the time)
3) It was being hosted at Maelstorm Games which was somewhere I wanted an excuse to visit.
4) The opposition is pretty much the entire ETC teams for Scotland, Wales, England and some of Northern Iron so a good scrap is in the offing.
5) with a planning we might be able to get a fancy warhammer world table for a game.

All of the above meant it was time for a crusade

The Caledonian Crusade
Canoness The lady Tabita Woe
Celesians mission with squads Rose, Thorn, Sword.
Sisters mission with squads Miriya, Iona, Cassandra
Exorcist squadron with exorcists  Revenge, Heretics Folly, Retribution Inbound
Immolator squadron with immolators Ardent, His Will, Divine Pronouncement
Rhino squadron  with rhinos Blessed, Sanctity, Inviolable


Round -1;
Mission; annihilation
Deployment; sort of pitch battle
Opponent; Dave and John Vs Alan and myself
The forces;

Arriving early on Friday and with a bit of planning we arranged a trip to warhammer world and managed to get a game in on one of their feature tables. After randomly determining pairs Dave and John paired up against Alan and myself.  So Blood Angels and Space Wolves Vs Tau and Sisters.

 

Who knows what terrors lie beyond those gates

Game;

 The sister and tau deployed first.  Because the features table was only 12'x6' we agreed to only use a section of it, with only Alan and his Tau rail guns wanting to use the whole table.  The wolf/angel alliance respond with the wolves deploying in the fortress and all the Angels opting to deep strike.  Not much happened for the first turn with the sisters and Tau taking potshot at the wolves chipping of a few wounds here and there, with little in return.

Charge of the wolves

Turn two got interesting with the arrival on fo the first wave of Blood Angels.  A 10 Assault marine squad, land raider with terminators,librarian and priest all deep struck danger close to the Sisters flank. With a blood lance and multiple meltas in close range it was looking grim. But fortunately when the dust had settle there were no casualties.

Long Fangs take aim

With the first marine deployed the sisters/Tau alliance got to work.  The Tau drip feed the wolves small units while all the time whittling them down until they were destroyed.  The Sisters found themselves in close range of marines and went on a flamer/meltagun rampage destroying the first wave and the reinforcements when they showed up.  Lady Tabita struck down over a dozen assault marines in close combat and walked away without a scratch.

 Surrounded but not undaunted

By the end of the game the Blood Angels were wiped out and the surviving wolves were hunkered down.  The Tau were damaged but largely intact while the sisters had lost two vehicles and a dozen sisters spread across all the squads.

 

That is what a 12"x6" themed table looks like

Result; Sister Victorious


Round 1; 
Table; 27
Mission; multiple objectives
Deployment; Dawn of War
Opponent; Peter
His army; Flesh Tearers
3 las/plas razorbacks
1 landraider
1 terminator thunderhammer/storm sheild squad
Libarian
2 Predators
1 Dreadnought

Game;

I had played Peter before the last time was  UK GT heat 2 table 1. He fought me to a draw and ended my claim on frist place so this was time for pay back.

The frist two turns were cagey, with Peter trying to use his multple lascannons to immoblise the sisters while they in turn tried to work through cover to get into close range.

 

Peter takes aim

 

 Veteran Sargent Corbula

Turn three was the tipping point when a long range shot from a melta gun dsestroyed the landraider.  With the Terminator down to walking the Sisters pressed the attack in the centre.  Lady Tabita squads, Rose, Thorn and Cassandra broke through destroying two squads of Tearers in the process.  The Flesh tearers tried to close the gap  but the Celestians and the Cannoness peeled of and blocked there path catching them in a cross fire with the exocrist. Lady Tabita again saw close combat this time destroying the terminators squad after it had softened up by the exocists.

 

 Sisters seeks shelter behind Sanctity

  

 Before going on the offensive

 

By the end of the game Peter had a single scoring holding an objective with a few vechicle dotting the feild while the Sister held three objective and were largley intact.

 

 Lady Tabita best the last of the Terminators in close combat.

Result; Sister Victorious

Round 2; Table 7
Mission; Capture the flag
Deployment; Pitch battle
Opponent; Sean Gill (Orks)
His army;
2 Big Meks with bubbles
9 kill kans
2 dreads
2 mobs of lootas
2 mobs of boyz
2 Koptas
His was army nominated for best painted and looked impressive

How about lunch? (Unknown Waaagh)

Game;

The flags were deployed in diagonal opposite corners meaning that Sean deployed his army in two large groups and the big meks with lootas deployed the in the centre to cover both groups.  In response the sisters deployed in the center to threaten both flags.  First to go were the lootas with combined exorcists fire making a mob flee of the table, while the second squad was cleansed by flamers from an assault sister squad.  Mean while one group of Orks moved quickly towards the Sisters flag while the other hunkered down around theirs.

 Kan wall

With the lootas gone the Sisters transports had free run while the exorcist started to target kill kans.  Squads Iona, Sword and Thorn when after the Ork objective while the other squads when after the advancing ork group. At this stage Lady Tabita met her first but not last martyrdom when she assaulted a mob of boyz. Squad Rose and herself fell trying to draw the scoring unit away from the objective.

The Ork koptas showed but were ineffective and quickly seen off by Sword squad.  The exorcist managed to strip the Garrison group of all their dread and kill kan support and squads Iona and Thorn cleansed and claimed the objective fire and melta.

First maytrdom of Lady Tabita

Elsewhere, Lady Tabita sacrifice was not in vain as squad Cassandra destroyed the last scoring ork mob. But the kill kans continued to fight on destroying squad Miriya that was trying to defend the Sisters objective.

The game end with the sisters holding the ork objective and while the last two Orc models a pari of kill kans contested the sisters objective.

 

Last stand of Squad Miriya

Result; Sister Victorious


Round 3; table 2
Mission; Annihilation
Deployment; Spearhead
Opponent; James playing daemons
His army;
2 Great Unclean One (GUO)
2 flesh hound packs
1 blood crusher pack
2 Fiend pack
1 Flamer pack
3 Plague bearer pack
1 Disc pack

 Sisters prepare for Daemons 

Game;

The Sisters went second and covered their deployment zone in troops and vehicles.  The wrong first wave of daemon showed up, just packs of Plague Beares, Flamers, Discs and some hounds. Most of them opting to deepstrike behind cover or run into cover. The Sisters counter fire was poor with only a few Disc succumbing to the emperor's wrath. The Daemon second wave all arrived bar one pack.  One of the GUO had a mishap and end up in the far corner of the battle Field. The flesh hounds pounced on squad Rose making short work of them.

 

Blood Crushers

The sisters replied by cleansing the Fiends by fire and bolter while another squad cleansed the flamers.  Lady Tabita met her second maytredom trying to stop a GUO from attacking the Exorcist squad. The Daemons retorted by destroying squad Iona and Ardent, His Will, Divine Pronouncement, Revenge,Blessed, Sanctity.

Flesh hounds on a rampage 

The Sisters struck back banishing the GUO, Blood Crushers ,screamers and both packs of flesh hounds. A quick head count put the Daemons ahead by one kill point at which point they broke contact and went to ground.  The game ended with the sisters desperately trying and failing to kill the last plague from the only pack they could see

Result; Sisters defeated

Two wins and a lose put me on 45 points out of 60 not a bad start.  As a plus the organisers published the next days pairings. With only two Sisters army in the entire event guess what was the pairing for table five.

 

Agents for the office of the UK Witch Hunter General

mission critical, (FOW) ; Break out at Spree forest

Break out at Spree forest  28th of April 1945

Overview;

The situation is hopeless. The Russian army has surrounded Berlin and in closing in for the kill.  To the south the 9th army has been encircled in the Spree fores.  Its only hope is to break the encirclement and flee to the west to surrounded to the western allies.

Design note; This mission was adapted to FOW from Andy Turlington's breakout at Baruth mission in his the WWII Eastern front skirmish scenarios book.

Terrain;

The battle field is set-up as per the map shown.

The woods are impassable to vehicles and count as difficult terrain for other teams. They are also on fire (see special rules).

Deployment;

The Russian force deploy first and can deploy anywhere west of Baruth. The IS2 start the game in tank pits.

The German roll on from the eastern road.

The forces

The Russain defenders – 2180 pts

1 Motostrelkovy Battalion HQ  -30pts

2 companies of Motostrelkovy (each with two platoons and one attached anti-tank rifle platoon) – 490 pts

2 Tank platoons (IS2 tanks, each with 5 tanks). - 1660pts

The German attackers -2145 pts

1 Gepanzerte panzergrenadier Company HQ (with attached anti-tank section) - 115pts

2  Gepanzerte panzergrenadier platoons (each with panzerfaust/SMG command and two squads) - 420pts

1 Heavy tank platoon (with four king tigers) - 1360

1 Gepanzerte panzergrenadier pioner platoon ( with panzerfaust/SMG command and two squads) -250 pts

Special rules

Woods on fire;

After three days of bitter fighting the Spree forest has been set on fire.  This has the following effects.

-There is heavy smoke, Night fighting rules apply.

-In addition any teams in the forest must take a skill test if they fail they take an automatic hit which can be saved as normal.

Victory conditions;

The game last until one side concedes, or the game reaches turn 12 and there is no German platoon above half strength west of Baruth.

The Germans win if they get one platoon or more above half strength to exit the western table edge and other result is a Russian win.

 IS2 on the prowl

 

Russian SMG company move through a deserted village 

Company of T34s on the way to the front

 

 Panthers on the prowl

 German garrison prepares to stand its ground

Russian assualt company makes ready

Dig In (FOW); gun emplacements

Been a while since I did a modelling piece. the following is how I made some of the gun emplacement bases for my FOW artillery and guns.

Materials;

• 1-2mm thick Plastic card
• FOW artillery base
• FOW gun
• Scissors
• pencils
• Balsa wood
• insulating foam
• polyfilla
• Catty litter
• PVA glue

Method;

• A FOW artillery base and the pencil were used to trace out the artillery base shapes on the plastic card
• A scissors was used to cut out the bases.
• Insulating foam was cut into small sections 1x1x3(cms)
• The gun was placed on the base and the insulating foam was arranged around it in a interesting shape.
• Once happy with the shape the foam was bevelled (sloped) on the side opposite the gun.
• PVA glue was used to secure the foam to the base.
• The gun was removed and Balsa wood strips were glued to the gun side on the embankment*.
• Once the foam and the woods was secure filla was coated on to the foam taking care not to cover the wood.
• To break up the filla effect small catty scatter was stuck into the filla as it dried.
• Once dried the model can be painted as normal.

* one option to do is before gluing the balsa woods section to the base to score them with a knife to create the effect of wooden planking for this method the  wood plank effect was to be done during the painting of the model with a fine brush.

 

Bases with foam and woods glued in place

 

front view of emplacement when completed

Rear view of emplacement when completed

 

Top rear view of emplacement when completed

 

Top front view of emplacement when completed

Top side view of emplacement when completed

Below are some painted examples from my Germans 

With the anti tankgun  the polyfilla was painted green then covered with leaf scatter to make it look like a bush.

PiP (Fow) russian guns and German grenadiers

Still chipping away at the Russian guns below are some of the latest recruits

The only new painting method tried was using Testors Dullcoate to varnish the models instead of army painter matt coat.  It was bit of disaster with the initial coat turning everything white. I tried multiple coats heating the can, cooling the can, shaking the can and below is the result. White varnish is still present on some of the models but it is not as bad as the frist coat.

 

Platoons 3 and 4 from the front

  

Platoons 3 and 4 from the rear

platoon 3 again

platoon 4

Not to be out done the Germans got some reinforcements in the from of a early/mid war grenadier platoon from forged in battle.

(I like their vehicles but the infantry are only average, nice but average)