Finished some Assault Marines

I recently finished up and my assault marines, I sprayed them with cheap clear coat from Wal-Mart, which is a little shinier then I’d like.  They have a rough texture from the spray primer I used, Armory brand.  These were some of the first I sprayed with the Armory primer and I’ve found that unless you spray super thin coats and let it totally dry between coats yout get a real rough texture.  I’ve since gone back to Krylon.  That’s what I get for spending money.

More Marines, new purchases

The new forces

I got on ebay and bought some more space marines a couple of weeks ago.  I purchased

6 scouts with Shotguns
3 bikes
2 full Tactical Squads
5 terminators
1 dreadnaught
1 Drop Pod
1 Captain
1 Libarian

I spent 70 dollars with shipping on all of this.  I estimate that if I’d bought everything new at the game store I’d have around 260 dollars in all this.   The terminators, Tactical Squads, and Captain are from the Assault on Black Reach set, which doesn’t bother me at all, but means that they don’t have quite the same value as regular guys, and I don’t have any extra bits. 

I've started painting the scouts and bikes

I now should have plenty of figs to build a 1750 point army which seems to be what the game store tournaments always are, but do I even want to do that.  Even better I should easily be able to accomodate4  players with around 500 points each of either space marines or Orks for multiplayer games. 

This new purchase brings my total up to 386 dollars.  I’ve spent this over the course of about  2 months.  Not to bad, I think that if I started selling stuff today I’d get close to what i put into it back out, I’ve had a few fun games and I think I’ve found a few people who are willing to give it a go.  I need to start focusing now on making an interesting playing surface, I don’t really need any more troops.  Maybe just a few more Orks so that I can have a nearly even level of each.

Rematch, Blue Box again

I realized that I got several things wrong in my last game, not only my tactical decisions, but also basic rules. 

In an attempt to get things straight I played the game again, basically the same setup, same deployment, I did everything my cousin did, and tried to make the best decisions for the orks when I changed my movements.

Turn 1

• Assault Marines jump across the board to the left, Dread moves up
• Terminators shoot at Grotz and kill 8 of them, they run.
• Dread destroys truk weapon
• Tac 2, the 5 man squad destroys the big gun in shooting
• Kan shoots and catches on assault marine in a skorcha buring him alive

Turn 2

• All 3 marine squads move about 3 inches back
• Terminators and Tac2 kill 5 boyz
• Tac1 immobolizes buggy
• dread immobolizes kan
• Nobz drive up and assault Tac 1 and kill six marines but they hold their ground

Turn 3

• Assault Squad and dread assault and destroy the Nobz
• Terminators assault big mob and dish out 4 wounds, but take 4 wounds from powerclaws
• 2 remaining grotz regroup and head for objective, this was wrong they should have kept running
• Big Mob kills off last terminator
• Deffkoptas outflank from the side of the board and kill one Tac1 marine

Turn 4

• Assault Squad, Tac2, and Dread kill 5 boyz, they fail and fall back
• Close Combat with Koptas is pointless
• BigMek and Warboss turn around and slaughter the assault squad

Turn 5

• Dread kills off warboss
• Tac1 kills another kopta, koptas aren’t to good in close combat, they should have used hit and run to break off and fire missles
• Big Mek assaults the Dread and dies
• Turn 6
• Dread kills off 2 grotz, but herder makes leadership, he shouldn’t even be there.
• Tac1 kills another kopta leaving 1

Turn 7

• roll a 1, no turn 7, Marines should win even though its a tie since there are enemies within 3 inches of the objective

What did I learn?

Target priority, keep units out of assault range, don’t assault the warboss, shoot him to death, read the rules.

Looking forward to game against another person.

40K beginer paint set and Tamiya Big Gun

40K paint set.

I went to the Game store last weekend with intent to purchase 40K stuff, I planned to spend some big money and try to get my Space Marine army up in the 1500 point range.  When I got there I couldn’t bring myself to do it.  I wanted to buy some kind of tank, but the cheapest one was over 50 bucks, I wanted to buy a Tactical Squad, but I couldn’t bring myself to pay 38 dollars for ten small plastic models.  Before I spent that much I think I’d order another Assault on Black Reach box set.  In fact the box set it so cheap compared to the units in the game store that I could buy a set and throw the orks away and still be money ahead. 

I didn’t go home totally empty handed and bought a 40K paint set, this was the set I was looking for back when I first decided to get into 40K, either the game store didn’t have on then, or I just missed it.  You get 5 generic marines and 6 bottles of paint.  The game store sells the paint for 4 dollars a pot, so if you look at it that way you’re getting the 5 marines for free.  I regret this purchase now though since I really only needed a few of the colors and I just bought a nice Space Marine army on Ebay. 

I also bought a Tamiya scale model of a German 75mm anti tank gun.  I’m using this as an Ork, Big Gunz model.  The

Some Grot unearths an ancient Nazi anti-tank gun and realizes it's better then what they were using.

Tamiya model was 8 bucks at Hobby Lobby, and took me a couple of hours to assemble.  It is exceptionally detailed and a much better model then Games Workshop.  Of course it’s a scale model and not meant to be gamed with.  I’m not sure how much of the detail will hold up over extended gaming, but it looks awesome on the table manned by a mess of stinkin Grotz.  I may wrap some wire around the barrel and use it as a zap gun. 

283+33 menas my new grand total is 316 dollars.

Battle for the Blue Box

800 points Orks vs. Space marines

My Cousin came over for another 40K game last night,  I’ve boosted both armies from the Assault on Black Reach box set now to around 800 points by adding a 5 man assault squad and a 5 man tactical squad to the Space Marines, and a unit of Grots, a warbuggy, and a Big GUN for the Orks.

The forces looked like this

Space Marines

10 man Tac Squad with Captain, I called this my Command Squad
5 man Tac Squad
5 man Assault Squad
5 Man terminator Squad
Dreadnaught

Orks

20 Boyz with Warboss and BigMek, I called this the Big Mob
5 Nobz in a Trukk
10 Grots
Big Gun with 4 grots
3 Deff Kopptas with Rokkits
1 Killa Kan with Skorcha
1 warbuggy

We played a game with a single objective, which was a mysterious blue box that appeared in the middle of a field on the Planet Shuffletard 7.  Both orks and the empire want to claim the box and have sent a task force to aquire it.  The forces have arrived at the same time and face off for a Pitched battle

I wanted to play Marines and he agreed to take orks saying he couldn’t believe it would be fair with 4 times as many soldiers as me.  We rolled to set up terrain,  Coz went first and grabbed the largest piece to protect his Big Mob and we set up the rest of the terrain from there.

Turn 1

Since he got the first piece of terrain I went first, but there wasn’t much I could do, he had the 20 boy mob hiding, he had the trukk of nobz out of sight, the kan was hiding behind a wall and the only thing I had to shoot at was the grots, which I killed 4 of.  I moved the dreadnaught up and took a shot at his big gun which missed.  I had moved my jump packed assault squad 12 inches up to take the objective but right after I had I realized I wanted them elsewhere.  The terminators moved forward a bit and killed off his Big Gun crew.

His Turn 1

He rolled a 5 to run his 20 man mob and they came around the hill pretty close to my assault squad, but he didn’t use his WAAGH and couldn’t assault them.

The Trukk moved a bit closer and hid behind another piece of terrain.  The Grots moved forward heading towards the objective.  The Kan came out in the open and headed for my dread.  The Buggy came over and got in the way of my big squad.  His shooting was unproductive, the big gun scattered from my tac squad into the terminators but couldn’t hurt them.

Big Mob is surrounded but doesn't seem to care.

Turn 2

My failure begins, I fly my assault squad to the right of his big mob.  My dread moves forward, the big tactical squad stays put.  I shoot and kill 4 orks with my assault squad, but my tactical squads only kill a couple despite rolling like 15 dice.  The BigMek Force Field pays off here. My dred shoots at his Kan and doesn’t hurt it. My Terminators shot at his big mob and kill a couple more.  I’m not happy about my rolling seems like he should have a much larger dead pile.

Outflanked by the DeffKoptas

His turn 2.

His DeffKoptas move in from reserves from  the right, now my left flank is completely exposed to rokkit fire.

He does something I didn’t expect.  I expected him to continue his big mob forward and run into my terminators, but he instead redirects them sideways towards the assault squad.  The trukk drives forward and dumps off the Nobz right in front of my command squad.  The Kan moves forward towards the dread.  The Deffkoptas move towards my left flank.

The Nobz about to wreck havoc on my Commander's Dquad

He shoots two handfuls of dice at my assault squad and kills 3, they pass their morale.  His deffkoptas kill two of my command squad.   His nobz shoot up  and kill off two more of my command squad.   I’m now realizing that I’m going to lose this game.

Assault Squad gets assaulted to death.

He assaults the remaining two assault squadies and miracolously one survives, I purposely fail the moral check and make a fall back move.

The Nobz assault my command squad, they take 4 wounds and only manage to kill one more marine.

The Kopptas assault my Dread but don’t hurt it.

The Kan assaults my Dread and rings it over the head for a stunning blow.

Turn 3

The Command Squad rolls some good saves, I think they could have took the Nobz if it wasn't for everything else.

I move the terminators just a bit, and I move the remaining assault sargent closer to the big mob.  I shoot up the Big mob with my terminators and 5 man tactical squad assault squad and kill off like 7 boyz, which was starting to make me feel better.

In assault I send the lone sargent back at the mob.  He gets a couple more kills, but dies a heroic death and is grinded under the feet of the warboss.  The terminators are afraid of the powerclaw in the big mob and they assault the side of Nobz.  I can’t remember if you can shot and assault different units but at this point I don’t care.  My dread is imbolized. My Command squad does well in CC against the Nobz, they have like 1 wound each and 3 of them have 2  wounds.

His turn 3.

Whats left of the Big mob kills off my 5 man tac squad in shooting.  The Kan destroys my Dread and it exploded giving one wound each to the Koptas.  The Nobz kill off a few more of my Marines, and  I get a few more wounds now each Nob has two wounds.

Turn 4

This is what I had to deal with on my last turn, out numbers, out gunned, and surrounded.

At this point I give in, its getting late and I’m tired, all my units are locked in combat, and while he hasn’t killed a terminator yet, and I still have like 2 marines and my Captain I’m pretty sure they won’t stand up against the warboss, Killa Kan, and BigMek’s Power Claws, not to mention the Rokkits

I’m thinking my two biggest problems were letting him get close enough to assault and moving my dread up to close to the Kan.  That and my first turn was completely useless.  The Dread should have been in front of my Command Squad blocking the assault, and the assault squad should have been out of assault range.  Got to pay more attention next time, as I am underestimating how far 12 inches is.  I think I need to try and focus my fire power more.  I have avoided repositioning my Tac Squad so I can fire the stinking missile launcher and I’ve yet to actually kill anything with it.

The Grots climb the mysteriouys blue box and claim victory! and one is riding a kitten?

This game went a little better then our last but I still had to look occasional things up from the rule book.  Coz still thought it was too many dice, but since I  bought like 30 dice it’s not so bad.

New Stuff: AssSquad, BigMek, Brushes

My Ass Squad

Well I recently opened up the coffers and purchased a bit more stuff to silence the voice in my head telling me to spend more money on 40K.  First, I felt that playing the Space Marines included with Black Reach was kind of boring, so I bought a 5 man Assault Squad to liven things up.  I figured having a fast attack option for the Army would make play alot more interesting as opposed to standing around and shooting at the orks as they approach.

The week before that I bought a BigMek for the orcs so they could get his Kustom force field save, plus I thought he looked kind of cool.  Both of these things came from Castle Perilous where I’m finding myself drawn every weekend to look at 40K stuff.  The two purchases were 40 bucks.  I know I’m doing this stupidly, I could probably find a decent sized space marine or Ork army on ebay for around a 100, and I need to actually decide what side I want to play and start actually building an army instead of just buying odds and ends. 

My new BigMek

I also bought a few things from an excellent store called Jerry’s Artarama.  I got 2 Windsor and Newton Series 7 miniatures, and 2 artists watercolor sables.  I also bought some brushcleaner solution.  It was about 40 dollars all together.  The story is that my set of cheap brushes aren’t holding up so well, one hooked so badly I had to cut the tip off making it useless for detail.  I recently bought a new brush from Hobby Lobby on sale for like 2 dollars, even though its a more expensive brush, it only worked for a few days before its tip became like my hair in the morning.  So far both Windsor and Newton brushes have been fantastic and hold a point like nothing else.  These Series 7 brushes are supposed to be the best ever.  I’ve painted watercolor paintings in the past and I probably will again so this brush will be used forever. 

New sable watercolor brushes and Some flow improver.

Finally I bought some Windsor and Newton Flo Improver, you add this stuff to acylic paint to, umm, improve its flow.  So far in the small amount of testing I’ve done, it seems to make cheaper craft paint behave like more expensive model paint.  Basically it waters it down without losing its strength.  If this stuff works it could save me a ton of money on paint.

The new Grand Total

$283

Assault On Black Reach Battle Report 2

I've got most of the orks painted

I got in a second game of 40K recently, this time I actually followed the rules, we rolled for mission and came up with Capture and Control, our deployment was Dawn of War.  I played the Orks again and this time I set up a little differently.  I put my 20 Boyz together with my Warboss as one unit, I put the 5 Nobz in the truck along with a Bigmek that I’ve recently aquiared.  I had my 3 DeffKoptas and one Killa Kan.  My opponent was still using just the space marines that come with AoBR, one tac squad, one terminator squad, and one dreadnaught. 

We treated Dawn of War a little differenly since my table isn’t really big enough, we set up our troops and headquarters units then had all our other units appear on our table edge at the end of our turn.  I let him set up his Terminators on some Terrain instead of bringing them in from the edge of the board.  We used two Duracell D batteries as our Objectives and set them up on opposing corners. 

The Orks prepare to WAAAGH the marines, notice the creative use of bird house as terrain.

This game only went 3 turns.  I went first and ran my 20 boy mob up about 9 inches and everything else appeared at the end of the board. 

The Tac squad was strictly on the defensive and stayed parked in front of the objective, they boltgunned  and got 4 wounds but were shooting through a wooded hill and I made 2 cover saves.  The Frag missle flew way off.

The Dreadnaught and Terminators were on the offensive and started moving towards the Ork objective.  The Terminators moved and fired wounding my 3 Koptas once each.  The Dreadnaught ran and didn’t shoot.

The Orks are greasing up their gears and getting ready to ride into battle

Ork turn 2:  The boyz run again and cluster up behind the wooded hill.  The Nobs drive 18 inches and park but don’t disembark.  The Deffkoptas fly up and shot at the Terminators with zero effect.

Marine turn 2:  The violet bastards chapter fire off another salvo of shots, they are just outside 12 inches so they still get one bolter shot, and kill 2 more orks.  The cover save is really saving my ass.  The frag missile scatters off again, its not helping that I rolled an 11.
The terminators try to take out the Koptas but this time luck isn’t on their side and they go no wounds.  The dreadnaught moves forward and hides behind a building.

Terminators survey the battlefield below.

Ork turn 3:  I unleash my WAAAGH and the Boyz roll a 5 on their run, they easily make it within assault distance.  The Nobz disembark and have no problem making it to the terminators.  The boyz roll 55 attack dice and kill 4 of the tac squad, but not before loosing 4 more boyz.  I’ve got 12 boyz left and the warboss which wasn’t close enough to fight,  and they have six marines and the captain.

The Nobs assault the terminators and I get like 30 attack dice and and handfull of wounds, the terminators roll 2  1s and I rejoice.  I have 3 more woulds to spread out on the Nobz.  The kan attacks and kills another Terminator.

The Orks and Tactical Squad mix it up.

Marine turn 3, now that 2 of his 3 units are locked in combat he moves the dreadnaught forward and shoots at the kopptas, uneffectively and starts to get frustrated.  He kills off a few more orks but looses 3 more marines in the process. 

Ther terminators get some more wounds on the Nobz but he looses another terminator.  At this point he concedes the game, even though I assure him its far from over.  

It seemed like the marines had a good strategy to just wait for the boyz to come to the objective but on reflection he should have let the boyz have the objective and moved to where he could have rained bolter fire on them without a cover save.  The Dreadnaught should have been more direct.

The Nobs take on the Terminators

The Orks pretty much did what the Orks do best, run up to something and club it over the head til’ its dead.  I’m starting to wonder if it’ll get bored playing them, I see more strategic play available withe the marines.

It was a much better game then my first one, I followed the rules better and the play was smoother, but it still took to long and lots of things had to be looked up.

New Ork stuff and battle report

Ork Warbuggy and Killa-Kan

I made a few purchases for my Orks to try and even the score, a trukk, a warbuggy, and a Killa-Kan.  I purchsed the Trukk from Ebay and the others from my nearest game store.  I paid like 12 dollars for the Trukk and about 40 for the others at the game store.  I mainly made the game store purchases to support the store and talk to the owner about the 40K play night which is Wednesday.  I live almost an hour away so its going to be hard to get over to play much. 

My new grand spending total is $163, my wife is starting to get worried.

My cousin plays some miniature games and agreed to play me in what would be both of our maiden Warhammer games.  I had played a bit in the past, but it was 2nd edition rules and limited two squad skrimishes so I consider this my first real game. 

My cousin plays heroclicks and heroscape so he has a basic understanding of miniature gaming, and I had praciticed the rules a bit, but it was pretty clear neither of us knew what we were doing.  He just decided to forgo a mission and simply try to kill each other.  I wish I had taken a few pictures but was busy trying to find rules in the rule book.

I took the Orks and divided the 20 boyz into a 8 and 12 man unit placing the Trukk in the 12 man unit and embarking them.  The Warbuggy and Kan aren’t built yet so I got no help from them.  We set up some terrain blocking LOS across the table and we began the battle. 

My trukk raced across the table and hid behind a building while everyone else ran forward.  The Space Marines positioned the Dread to intercept my Trukk and was able to see it and shot it at, but luckily missed, he moved his Terminators and Captain up, he found a gap he could shoot his missle launcher through which scattered far away. 

My Trukk ran away and thanks to its long move was able to get away.  The 8 man squad moved into shooting range of the Terminators and did nothing, and the DeffKoptas fired some inefective missles at the Dred. 

His turn, the Terminators and Captain killed 4 of the 8 man boyz unit.  The Dred shot down a Deffkopta, and the Tac squad moved up. 

My Turn The Nobz run forward again but are still out of range, the 4 remainaing boyz kill a terminator in shooting, then assault and kill one more but are wiped out, My Trukk drives across the board and finds a spot close to the Terminators to hide.  The DeffKoptas can’t hurt the Dred again, poor rolls.

His turn, the termintors move forward and manage to get a shot at the trukk which makes a cover save,  The Tac squad unloads on the warboss who is out in the open in front of the Nobz, he dies.  The Dread finishes off the remaining deffcoptas. 

My Turn, the 12 boyz disembark from the truck, fire off a handfull of dice in useless shooting against the terminators, then charge into the breech.  My Cousin is blown away by the sheer number of dice I’m rolling in attacks.  I manage to kill 2 more terminators, but lost 4 orks.  The Nobz are barelyout of assault range on the Tac squad and can’t hit a barn in shooting.  THe Koptas are all burning wrecks. 

His turn, The Tac Squad gets 4 wounds in shooting against the Nobs then assault and get a few more.  The Dread is wanding around trying to find something to shoot at, The 2 remaining termys and captain kill 3 more orks, I can’t hurt them.  I concede the game. 

My cousin’s impression is that 40K is “complicated” and “uses way to many dice” though he thinks the models look cool.  He says next time we play he would rather play heroscape which he assures me is “way more fun”

My impression is that 40K is complicated and uses way to many dice too, but by the end of the game it was going smoother.   

Tactically I’m a real idiot for putting a 8 man boyz squad up against his best unit while my Trukk drove straight towards the side of the board with the Dred then spent two turns running around the board running from the Dred.  I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t have bene able to hurt it.  I also grew to hate the Space Marine’s armor saves even more.  

I had fun though and look forward to another game.