Madelyn Corbeau and the Kodiak

I appear to be on a roll with the painting just now so I am making the most of it.

Firstly Madelyn Corbeau, since I got her she has become a firm favourite of mine for my assassination casters, can't complain about +3" threat. Took me a few goes to get her done every time I would take pictures I would spot something in them that needed tidying.

Next up is the Kodiak, I picked this up cheap second hand so decided to get it painted, not really used it much yet but will work it into a few lists and see how it does.

Terminators

Thought I would share a few pictures of the terminators I did. My army is painted dark angels so I used a sort of death wing scheme including Darnath Lysande who I used to run.


I will never use that sort of flock on models again, there are over a year old and the stuff still gets everywhere.

 

I just filed off the most blatant Imperial fists markings. There was a big one on the shield but I just took the worst of it off and covered it with a bunch of purity seals.

 

 

The Librarian was one of my first attempts to use green stuff, Sticking the silly book he normally wears on his back onto his shield, it's about as basic as it gets. Up close you can see the green stuff thankfully on the table top it doesn't show.

And finally here are some Dreadnought just because.

Finding something new with vanilla marines

Well waiting on the entire Dark elder range to come out I have decided to try an design new marine list and I need your help. I am suffering from a bit of tunnel vision since I have been playing with almost the same list for about a year and a half I am finding it a bit difficult to move my mind beyond it.

Firstly here is what I have been currently running at 1750.

Librarian – Terminator armour, Storm Shield
Terminators – 4 TH/SS, 2 LC
Landraider crusader – Multimelta

4x5 man tac squads in razorbacks with twin Heavy bolters
2 AC/HB Predators
3x2 Landspeeders with Multimelta/Heavy Flamer

The terminators give me a good counter charge unit or something I can shove down my opponents throat and force them to have to deal with it.

The speeders give me a second threat that can deal with heavy armour or hordes, tend to suck up quite a lot of fire power especially when turbo boosting and finally they are great for contesting objectives.

The preds just give me a couple of AV 13 that plink away at units and light vehicles.

The razorbacks/tac marines I deliberately didn’t upgrade for a number of reasons. Firstly with the land raider bearing down on you and all those speeders zooming about it’s hard to justify shooting at them. Secondly because they have only heavy bolters you don’t feel any major loss of fire power by moving them 12”. I have never seen a marine list quite like it at a tournament yet, if your not expecting it dealing with 6 speeders is a real problem. Normally if I can’t our fight my opponent I can out manoeuvre them.

Now there are a few down sides, first and foremost are space wolves, between the psychic powers and the masses of missile launcher my speeder tend to be neutered. Nids tend to be able to deal with terminators and all the hive guard hurt the speeders quite bad but at least I can out run them.

In general I find the list is still overly reliant on the terminators doing well they are the main killy unit and as good as the list is at opening up transports its still needs the terminators to actually kill what drops out. This also leads to low victory point scores as I win by out manoeuvring and killing key units not wiping my opponent off the table.

So that’s what have been running now onto what I am thinking about, picking a original vanilla marine list is proving a bit of a challenge made worse as a lot of the lists I have made you can generally do better in the marine +1 and +2 codex (BA and SW).

So the first list I have been play testing is a proper Razorback spam list

2 Librarians
5 tac squads (2 with combi meltas) in Twin Assault Cannon Razorbacks
3 squads of 3 attack bikes with Multi Meltas
3 AC/HB Predators

It’s a pretty straight forward list lots of dakka, I will try it out with las/plas as well but I like the sheer number of shots your putting out with those assault cannons. The second libby is because I had 100 odd points left.

I went with attack bikes over speeders as I find with the speeders you tend to only have one multi melta in the squad to shoot with and when you do have two you miss with both so I wanted to try out having three in the squads for over kill. The dakka preds because it’s rude not to for that points.

My main issue with the list is it’s rather boring and predictable, it works but it’s very cookie cutter.

The other thing I have always wanted to try is a drop pod list, I decided to break at least one rule I had and add Vulcan into the list.

Vulcan
4 x 10 man tac squads with melta gun, multi melta. Sergeant with combie melta and power fist in a drop pod
2 x Dreadnought with multi melta/heavy flamer, drop pod
Dreadnought with multi melta/Storm bolter, drop pod
2 x 1 land speeder with multi melta

Nothing shockingly new or original here drops down with lots of melta but again a bit boring, your alpha either works or it doesn’t there is no half measure.

Sternguard as something I have been trying to get working from the start so playing around last night I game up with the following.

Pedro Kantor
10 Sternguard, 4 Combie Melta, 2 heavy flamers, Power fist, Drop pod
10 Sternguard, 3 combie Melta, 2 Heavy flamers, Power fist , Drop pod
1 Dreadnought Multi melta, Heavy Flamer, Drop pod
2x10 Tactical marines, Melta gun, Multi melta, Drop pod
2x2 Land speeders Multi melta/Heavy flamer

The list currently has a few points spare but I think that’s the bones of it there, the sternguard and dred go in first and try to bust open some heads. The speeders DS and try and pop some tanks.

Any one got any suggestions how I could improve these or got any experiance with all drop pod lists?

The Great Bears Of Gallowswood

Since these guys are in every army I pick I figured I had better get them painted up.

Initially I wasn't too keen on them, I couldn't get them to work for me but I perceived and now they are proving to be worth their weight in gold. They work best in the second wave as a counter attack unit, you pick one thing you absolutely want dead and they make it happen.

They aren't quite as neat as my last lot as I am trying to get quicker at painting war machine infantry just for my own sanity never mind anything else.

Orin Midwinter and Harlan Versh

Thanks to RSI brought on by too much Call of Duty I have had time to get a bit more painting done. Decided to get a couple of the my mercs done.

Harlan Versh finds his way into a lot of my lists. Midwinter I haven't got around to using yet but I am going to get old witch as a new caster and I think he will fit in her list.

I am sticking with the same colour scheme for all my mercs, Charon grey and Hormagaunt purple it works quite nice I think and stands them out from the rest of the army.

Versh has an annoying mold line on his face, I tried to file it a bit but was worried about taking the rest of the detail off, doesn't matter much on the table top as you never see it. 

 

 

Autumn showdown - Battle Report

So I did Warmachine at the Autumn showdown in the North West Gaming Centre.


I decided to go this these lists:

List 1
Pvlad
Draco
Devastator
Spriggan

Max Winter Guard Rifle Corps
Great Bears
Lady Aiyana and Lord Holt
Min Iron Fang Pikemen + UA

Kovnik Joe
Madelyn Corbeau

Lots of heavy metal that’s I could shit across the table on the feat turn, rifle corps+joe to deal with light/med infantry. Corbeau for the extra movement for vlad (17.5” Threat range, yes please). Great Bears cause they are pure win. IFP to throw in the enemies face and finally Lady Aiyana to give me some magic attacks or for the +2 DMG.

Plan with this list was pretty straight forward go for the alpha with the Jacks and beat down as much of their army as possible before bring vlad out for the kill.

List 2
Eirusk

Devastator
Spriggan

Great Bears
Max Man o War shocktroopers
Max Winter Guard Rifle Corps
Winter Guard Mortar
Winter Guard Mortar
Lady Aiyana and Lord Holt

Kovnik Joe
Madelyn Corbeau

This list was a bit more risky, I hadn’t used the shock troopers before but was itching to give them a shot. It was a defensive attrition list sit back and bombard the enemy before counter charging.


Game 1: Kill box, Kieran with Cryx

Venethrax

Death Jack
Nightmare
Max Bane Thralls + UA
Min Bane Knights
Bane Lord Tartarus
Max Bloodgorgers

General Gerlak
Withershadow combine

Set up

Pretty straight forward set up, bloodgorgers out on the far left with the bane thralls the caster and nightmare in the middle with the bane knights, Tartar and death jack on the right.

My vlad list was outnumbered in a big way here so I decided to turtle up in the left hand corner, the 2 heavy jacks holding the left flank the IFP and great bears on the right with winter guard in the middle and Draco set to counter charge where needed.

Turn 1

Reasonably uneventful, the cryx ran forward enmass my left flank moved forward read to intercept

Turn 2

The cryx closed in, and I launched my alpha, I dropped 3 focus on the devastator and Draco and popped my feat.

The devastator went into the bloodgougers, between the rain of death and the fist attacks only 2 where left. The spriggan moved up and put it’s flare down to highlight the base thralls and the wither shadow combine, the winter guard then moved up and shot up quite a few of the bane thralls. On the right I sent a full loaded Draco into the death jack. His rolls weren’t exactly great so I had to send in the IFP as well who minifeated and promptly failed to kill DJ as well. As next turn will show sending them in was a mistake when dealing with DJ.

Turn 3

Since both DJ’s arms where out I thinking I was pretty safe, alas not to be Kieran head butted one of the IFP and that let DJ heal both his arms back up, needless to say Draco took a beating from him with the band lord and knights finishing off all the IFP and Draco.

Nightmare moves across to kill a few of the winter guard and the spriggan got mobbed by the wither shadow and bane thralls but managed to survived.

Venthrax move up to bring vlad into his control area, that caused any spells I wanted to cast cost double effectively neutering vlad from casting either of his good spells.

The remaining bloodgorgers attacked the devastator to little effect.

Things weren’t looking good it was time to bring vlad out to play, using the ability from Madelyn Corbeau that’s lets me move a warrior up to 3” if there is an enemy in her control range, I set vlad exactly 14.25” from venthrax *evil grin*

My army parted like the red sea, the great bears went and wrecked nightmare. The winter guard just shot up some bane thralls that where in the way and the devastator took out the remaining bloodgorgers.

Now for the big one, I unleashed vlad and he did smote the dirty cryx.

Just as was feeling quite chuffed for pulling that move with Kieran lamenting the 14” charge you can get with him I did the maths 6 + 3 for blood of kings + 3 for charging + 2 for boundless charge…boundless charge…bugger.
I realised I hadn’t cast boundless charge and the two focus for it was needed to kill venethrax. In hindsight I thought he had went down too easy, I remember now my original plan was to run over and take it in the face for a turn before beating him to death.

On realising my screw up I came clean and gave the win to Kieran, well it beats my usual mistake of walking my caster out the kill box.

Game 2: Rectangular capture area, Toby Menoth

Etestement
Avatar
Reckoner
Vanquisher

Max Daughters of the flame
Max Choir
Max Temple Flame guard + UA
Max Exemplar Bastions

Vassal
Vassal
3 Wracks

I decided to try the Eirusk list against this as I figured 2 mortars would be really useful against all this infantry.

Set Up

Toby Set up first in a pretty unsuitable brick with the avatar on his right flank and the Daughters of the flame out on the far left

I got to go first so I set up in a square shaped piece fo stone as well. I set the spriggan up to counter the avatar and the devastator to deal with the daughters of the flame since I knew what a pain they could be

Turn 1

Toby ran forward and cast a few things on his jacks.

I moved up but made and fired off a few mortar shots, the winter guard killed a bunch of the daughters of the flame. This didn’t work quite as intended as the spells he had cast allowed the avatar and the Reckoner extra moves (I assumed since the spell on the reckoner let I charge when something near it was kill it wouldn’t be able to since nothing was in charge range I didn’t realise you could just charge and fail by quite some distance)

Turn 2

The remaining daughters ran in to pin units on my left flank the Reckoner got a shot off at Irusk leaving him on 5 health *gulp* the avatar move up aggressively as well. The rest of his army just shuffled forward a bit into the box

On my go I loaded up the spriggan and the devastator with focus and move the spriggan up against the avatar thinking it would lock it in place, it go one charging hit off and them the spell the vassal put on last turn kicked in and gave the avatar a 5” move ignoring free strikes…the ignoring free strikes I did not know about so I ended up with him in B2B with Irusk

Baws, not only was 3 focus wasted on the spriggan my caster was in serious trouble and nothing else was in a position to help. Plus I needed to get something in the box to contest.

So with this in mind the spriggan charged the reckoner, the ROD killed a few sisters of the flame and it punched a few chunks out the jack for good measure.

Joe gave the winter guard boosted attack rolls and shot the daughter of the flame that was pinning the great bears in place. Lady Aiyana then cast Kiss of lyliss for +2 to dmg on the reckoner allowing the winter guard to them nickel and dime it to death.

Then came the important part, the great bears charged the Avatar and in fantastic style destroyed it in 4 hits, the third one never even got the chance to dent his axe, with that I moved Irusk to the back to hide but for some reason that escapes me I move advanced and didn’t run him right to the back.

Turn 3

It was over quickly, the Vanquisher moved up and shot Irusk, game over :(


Game 3: The mission with three flags, Duncan with Cryx

Litch Lord Terminus
Death jack
Cancker Worm
Slayer

Max Bane thralls
Max Bile Thralls
Min Mechanathralls
Revenant Cannon

Pistol Wraith
Machine Wraith
Necrotech and Scrap Thrall

Duncan is my usual opponent so this was a dance I knew well I broke out vlad, I knew I wouldn’t get near his caster till he popped his feat and was ready to try and assassinate.

Set up

Duncan’s deployed the bile thralls in a big line with the mechana thralls on the far left and the rest tucked in behind

My set up was pretty straight forward, with vlads feat I knew I would be able to get the charge off with my jacks.

Turn 1

We both moved forward, that is all.

Turn 2

At the start of this turn the left hand flag vanished.

Now the fun begins, Duncan moved forward with death jack casting a spell on the winter guard kill a few.

On my turn I popped my feat and ran the devastator in to lock down DJ, spriggan fired of a few shots killing a bile thrall but Duncan’s tough rolls held fast, the IFP then mini feated and moved up to engage the bile thralls and the cancker worm. My plan was to try and delay his army and go for the two capture points next turn.

On the left flank Lady Aiyana gave the winter guard magic attacks and they went to work killing the pistol wraith, Necrotech, Machine Wraith and 4 of the mechanathralls

Turn 3

Terminus popped his feat ready to reap the souls this turn.

An uber juiced up death jack wailed down on the devastator and miraculously failed to knock out a eany systems …that’s was with 8 focus!

The bane thralls then charged into engage with some sweeping past to contest the middle flag. They managed to take out one of the devastators arms.

The two remaining mechanic thralls ran in to engage some of the winter guard, finally some of the bile thralls on the right went boom taking out the all the IFP but also laying some serious hurt on the canker worm.

On my turn I had about 6 Bane thralls to kill and that would give me two capture points. I powered up Draco and the devastator, the devastator went boom taking out a couple and punched up death jack a bit, the winter guard then move up and opened fire on the bane thralls killing some more but a lot of them passed there tough rolls, The spriggan them moved up to capture the right hand objective and put a few more shots into the bane thralls, but again the tough came into play finally Draco then went in and despite hitting with all six attacks Duncan past all but 2 of the tough rolls letting him keep contesting the objective.

Turn 4

The remaining bane thralls picked off the devastator and the canker worm and slayer threw a few hits at the spriggan.

DJ trampled a few of the winter guard.

As you can see Terminus was now full juiced but so we be coming out to play. I had placed vlad just out the threat range ready to go get him as soon as he moved up.

Alas I had forgot he could charge and still cast spells, those extra 3” managed to get him in range of vlad for some spell spamming and on the last roll killed him :(

Final thoughts

Well thats a first for me, came last over all (out of six), on the upside it gave me free entery into the next showdown in January :)
I made a lot of silly mistakes, part of that is down to me playing across three systems regularly and I find WM you really have to play constantly or you forget the detail. I need to get a bit more practice and make a point of exactly understanding what each spell my opponent casts actually does.

Eirusk is going to take a lot more practice, I think he is more useful in 2 caster games and the men o War really do suffer for being slow, here is hoping for a UA that’s speeds them up soon.

As usual I lost vlad when I don’t cast blood of kings, I think as a rule from turn three onwards I am going to have it cast.

One thing that does bug me a bit with Khador. You don’t appear to have anything quite as ridiculous as the other factions can manage, sure we have some pretty hard stuff but it tends to be slow and have a low def.

Nothing has the ability to do anything as silly as this:

Yup that’s 21 souls and I have seen more than that on him before.

On the upside Madelyn Corbeau with Vlad is an auto include for me now. Also I feel I have got a handle on using the great bears now, they are proving very effective and breaking face. The other thing I am thinking of is another Devastator for vlad, they are very focus efficient thought maybe 2 of them, spriggan and Draco might be over kill :)