Dig in(40K) ruins

Crap, NWG is in 19 days.  

I have four boxes of terrain to be shipped within the week.  One of the expats is driving home, all 1400km, bless him. Plus I finally got started on some ruins. I was trying to do some Ikea style ruins. basically flat packs stuff you can stick together. fully painted and partially assembled, but lack of time hit that on the head.  Below is one of the early prototypes in construction

indigenious flora for NWG

Rocks for NWG (you cannot have too many rocks for an event)

wtf? alien plant using terragensis guides 1 and 2

Sitrep (40K): That is a wrap,the ESC and the ETC pt 2

The big show.  With a Waaagh in effect going as a shield meant this was going to be a rough ride

Frist up Finland. They beat use last year so it was interesting test to see how far we had come.  My opponent Jukka Halme playing chaos space marines, aka double lash, in kill points. Jukka won the roll off to pick side and picked the corner I wanted. Fortunately neither of us released the best piece in the entire ETC was now on  my side. There was a beautiful ruin with three solid walls within running distance of the Orks table edge. For most of the game Jukka tried to lash the Orks mobs into good positions for the obliterators. A lot of boyz were killed but no kill points were earned. Meanwhile the deff dread, Crushinator and a mob of killa kans infliterated the ruins.  With time running out Jukka concentrated on the ruin targeting it with two squads of obliterators, both the princes and all the available chaos marines.  The killa kans shuffled forward and put a couple of wounds on the nearest Prince before the Crushinator broke cover and killed him. Down on kill points and missing a prince the marines fired 12+ melta shots into Crushinator destroying him while the last prince charged the kans.  The game end with the prince locked in combat with the kans  for a even draw.

Round two was against Beglium this time space wolves lead by Louis Aerts.  The Orks won the roll off and picked the side with the most objectives and best cover.  The Wolves rolled on and opened fire with little effect. The wolves were reluctant to advance while the orks controlled most of the objectives and did not feel in a hurry to be anywhere.  Realizing the orks were not going to charge forward, the wolves charged in but it was too little too late. To add insult to injury one of the Ork mobs won their combat and consolidate towards the wolves only objective to contest it and the end of the game with a suprise win. This was the high water mark for the team making it into sixth place in the rankings.

Round three was agnaist Sweden (playing with the big boys now). The enemy was battlewagons Orks (my favourite kind of Orks) led by Oakim Engström. Looking at the lists Oakim commented that I should have some deff koptas in my list. Considering I picked up a 20 point penal for having an extra 100 points worth of deff koptas I had to smile.  The game was very cagey the first casualty (one of mine) was not until turn three.  Then it degenerated into a blood bath as battle wagons and mobs started to commit.  The wagons rolled over the kans destroying them, then pinning the foot boyz in combat. The game end in a win to the battle wagon boyz who contested the foot boyz objectives while keeping their own objectives clear.

Round Four Was against Danemark I was paired against Andy "Panda" Horvath playing another double lash the primary mission was kill points secondary was objectives.  The CSM again won the roll off for sides and picked the good one with nice terrain.  Deployment was dawn of war with the CSM opting to all roll on except for deep striking terminators,  In response two mobs and big mek deployed up front.  The CSMs played the lash game grouping mobs then plasma/ing them to bits. In exchange the mobz fired rockets at the princes badly wounding one.  It was turn four before anybody claimed a kill point with a prince failing a perils test and passing on to the other realm. Andy responded by lashing a big meks mob and flaming it to bits. The Orcs when Waaagh and fluffed it. Three killa kand failed to hit  land raider in combat. The other mob and some rockets immbolised and weapon destroyed a rhino.  The last big mek and his mob got into a nasty rumble with a mob of obliterators.  The big mek passed 3 5++ to stay in the game with the Nob took out all three obliterators.

The game ended a winning draw to a very shocked Andy.

Round five vs Switzerland and Markus 'Jokaero' Liechti playing genestealer bomb. The mission was capture the flag with with the secondary being kill points. The Orks nested around their objectives with the bugs doing the same, genestealers infested evenly across the board.  The game did not go anywhere fast with neither side pushing hard. Eventually tried of waiting the boyz went on a waaagh. Unfortunatly they rolled a 1 and could only get a couple of boyz into a mob of stealers. To make it worse their support, Crushinator, also rolled a 1 for its run move. leaving it strand against the hive guard.  The Genestealers took their time with the mob before destroying it while the hive guard quickly destroyed the Crushinator.  The remaining orks bunker-ed up waiting for the imminent genestealer bomb which never arrive. the game end on turn five with a loosing draw.

?

Round Six vs Austria. It seemed fair I had played against some of them in the Salzburg and mentioned to TNI what the Austrians thought of their playing skills.  Fair play says the Austrians get to take a shot at the 'free ' Irish ;) Unfortunatly two of the Austrians fled in terror rather than face the Irish, muttering something about flights home.  Meaning the boyz had to sit this one out.

Sitrep (40K): That is a wrap,the ESC and the ETC pt 1

Big Mek Gutbag with kustom cuver maka

The hall

The ESC;

This was my first time attending the ESC, it was also the last dance with the sisters for the forseeable future. Organisation wise it was probably one of the worse organised event I have been to in a long while but the player standard is high so it made for some good games.

Nikoly's grey knights line up. I never figured out what exactly a dread knight did he strayed too close to the sisters table edge and got destroyed by some celestians.

Frist up to bat was Nikolay "Azathot" Golov of team Russia fielding grey knights. The primary mission was kill points with the secondary being capture and control.  The grey Knights shooting was greatly reduced by the terrain, ETC terrain tends to be denser and more LOS blocking.  The grey knight were funneled into killyones before being flamered and boltered back to the emperor. The game end a winning draw (13-7) with Nikolay destroying most of the Sisters LAVs and me forgetting to roll my 35 D6x10 vps for using excruicators on the inquisitor

Round two was against Eugene "Aaz13" Rigo of team Russia using Orcs. Possibly the game of the tournament with the sisters assaulting a battle wagon waaagh backed up by hordes of boyz, kans and lootas. Celestian squad Rose pretty much got a draw on its own. First it tagged time a 30 boy mob, destroying it and break through the enemy lines. It then went on to kill a battle wagon and mob of mega nobz, a big mek, 4 killa kans before being locked in combat with another mob of kans 1" away from the Orks home flag, not bad for a forlorn hope.

Eugene's boyz line up

Warboss's last stand

Round three was against Pekka of team Finland Tyranids and was the wrong kind of massacre with the sister getting wiped out in turn seven.

Last man standing

Round Four was against Jakob "Amasec" Salzmann of team Germany SOB with IG.  Jakob army had one Canoness, three exorcist and a lot of guard with a lot of anti LAV weapons. We fought in a city fight table reducing the effect of the exorcists. It was a tense game with both side jostling to get good LOS sites. Amasec came of the better helped by winning the roll off for sides. He won the primary with a draw on the sceondary but not before Laby Tabita cut of the head of the renegade canoness. Hi light of the game was lady Tabita failing her act of faith only for the renegade canononess to roll triple one to wound with her eviscerater before being behead in the next turn.

Fighting Orks in a city is never pleasant, unless you are the Orks.

Round five saw the Sisters fighting again on the same city fight table against an horde of orks with a primary mission of kill points in dawn of war. The Orks won the roll off and deployed two 30 boyz mob and a warboss on the half way line. with limited line of sight and a lot of cover saves this was a bloody affair. Squad Rose again went for the throat and got a tag team assault on a mob of boyz with warboss destroying them and assaulting a mob of lootas before being destroyed (two sisters vs 13 lootas as a bridge too far).  Elsewhere the sisters played cat and mouse killing another warboss and mangle another big mob.  The refs called time half way through turn four. With the score the orks winning on kill points 7-6, (damn rhino chassis) with both sides tied on secondary objectives. Annoyingly everybody else played on for another half hour when the Cannoness had her eye nice on a nice mob of grots.

Lootas or Grots?

Sisters sacrificed vehicles to line up good assaults on orks boyz,

Round Six was against Jean "Carnassire" Zvorykin of team mercs playing Grey knights. This time on a fairly open table, not what you want against a shooting army. Turn one started of well with the exorcists and immolators destroying a razorback and killing its passengers.  Then the grey knight opened fire and that was pretty much the end of the game. Despise being in cover and concealed the sisters got shot to pieces in the first round. two exorcist were destroyed. one was made weaponless, one immolator destroyed, another made weaponless and the third immobilised. The sister chewed dirt for most of the game while the grey knights destroyed vehicles at will.  But the clock was ticking the game ended on round five with the sisters hang in for a draw.

Overall the ESC was a blast, my main grip was with the organisation four of the rounds were scored wrong and calling time in round four and not following up was as pain. But the opponents were great fun and hope to meet them again next year. 

Sitrep (40K): Road to the ETC

The ETC looms large. Hard to believe I will  be on the ground on Tuesday and rolling dice by Wednesday.  

A year ago I had planned to return with the sisters but the boys in green need green boyz so the Orks are marching to waaagh.  Hopes for a new army have been dashed by reality the only new guy to make the list so far is an unnamed Big Mek with "kustom cuver maka".  

Not known for patience the boyz are taking a spin up to the Berlin to put the boot in at the Berlin city 40K championship this weekend.  Then returning to join the sisters to march on Montreux.  The Sisters are making their swan song appearance for the ESC(if the new codex rumors are true). Sub par rules, not a lot of flavour and no new models doesn't sell the new list.  The only rule they seem to have got right is "righteous fury" which affects Sisters players whenever they read about the new codex ;)