Summer of Slaanesh: Angels of Ecstasy build list

first 500 points:

HQ: Chaos Sorcerer w/ Terminator Armor, Mark of Slaanesh, Lash 140

Troops A: Chaos Space Marines x 10 w/ Mark of Slaanesh, Hvy Bolter, Flamer 185
-AspChamp w/ PW, Meltabombs 35
-Rhino 35

Troops B: Chaos Space Marines x 5 w/ Mark of Slaanesh, Meltagun 105

upgrade to 1000

HQ: Chaos Sorcerer w/ Terminator Armor, Mark of Slaanesh, Lash 140

Elites: Chaos Terminators x3, Mark of Slaanesh, HvyFlamer, Combi-flamer, Combi-melta 120

Troops A: Chaos Space Marines x 10 w/ Mark of Slaanesh, Hvy Bolter, Flamer 185
-AspChamp w/ Power Weapon, Meltabombs 35
-Rhino w/ Havoc Launcher 50

Troops B: Chaos Space Marines x 10 w/ Mark of Slaanesh, Meltagun, Plasmagun 195
-AspChamp w/ combi-melta, Power Fist 50
-Rhino w/ Havoc Launcher 50

Fast Attack: Chaos Raptors x5 w/ Mark of Slaanesh, Plasma Pistol, Meltagun 145
-AspChamp w/ Power Weapon 30

Back to the salt mines

Well, the blog and my minis gaming both took a huge nosedive last May. What's the best way to remedy that this spring/summer? Why, biting off way more than I can chew, of course. Here's the project list in rough priority order:

1) AK-47 Republic, in 6mm (minis by GHQ). Minis are here, waiting on bases. Slightly terrified of trying to paint stuff that small; the infantry is roughly grain-of-rice-sized. On the plus side I won't be painting web gear or belt buckles at this scale...

2) Battletech, using the highly superior Quick Strike rules. I'm still waiting on about half of my mechs, which I bought from an increasingly shady looking eBay dealer. Paint job will be simple as I'm rolling with the Fighting Urukhai this summer. My friend Britt is putting together a campaign setting and six of us will be recreating (precreating?) the 3039 War.

3) Flames of War. I have finally started assembling my filthy Nazi bastids, and am eyeballing a valiant workers' Soviet Lend-Lease army. Emchas! Woo!

4) WWI naval gaming. I've got some incredibly cheap (and incredibly tiny) 1/6000th scale minis on the way in from Strange Cargo games in Marathon, FL (one of the few places in South Florida I don't detest). I grabbed enough stuff to do the German East Asia squadron stuff (Coronel and Falklands) as well as the Goeben's run to Constantinople.

And the biggest, most indigestible thing I'm working on?

The Summer of Slaanesh! Lots of 40k and WFB stuff that has been languishing way too long. Most of what I'll be putting together now that the weather is turning is going to be Slaaneshi-themed, viz:

a) WFB Chaos Warriors, all Slaaneshi-aligned, for the Slow-Grow League at All Fun and Games in Cary. What better way to learn the rules than to play other people who already play? Minis inbound. I've been agonizing over the listbuilding stuff as I have no real idea of how this game actually looks on the tabletop.

b) 40k Dark Eldar for the same league, fluffed as being a renegade Cult of Slaanesh (in memoriam of the great old Cult of Slaanesh list from WFB about 2 or 3 editions ago). What's the one thing guaranteed to irk the jaded Dark Eldar establishment? Worship of She-Who-Thirsts! Bulk of the first 500 points are already here, although I forgot to order any transports.

c) 40k Chaos Space Marines, Angels of Ecstasy. I just want to play some Marines damnit!

d) Mordheim Cult of the Possessed: I think the Mordheim gaming at The Game Connection in Knightdale is on hiatus, but it's only like 6 minis and I'll be using the same color schemes as some or all of the Slaaneshi stuff above. Why not?

e) Blood Bowl Chaos team: I'm not certain of the mechanics of my local BB league this summer, as I haven't discussed it with my benevolent commissioner Da'vesh (or is his brother in charge this year?) lately. But whatever store it winds up at, and even if I only get to play a few exhibition games, what better time for a return of the Libertines than in the Summer of Slaanesh?

f) Battlefleet Gothic: Angels of Ecstasy warfleet. 'Nuff said.

Time to stock up on pink paint.

So anyway, since I have various materials shortages for some of these, the current worktable is slapping together 500pts of Angels of Ecstasy. One CSM unit in a Rhino, and a Terminator Sorcerer with a small retinue (yes, I know the retinue rules are gone. shut up). Pics tomorrow; I should have everything bar the Rhino built by then.

BONUS FALL PREDICTIONS:
A Very British Civil War (Fascist Yanks take the Isle of Wight!)
Martian Empires
Revolt on Antares gaming in 15mm
Heavy Gear
hell freezing over, etc

What's this?

Looks like someone left a blog lying around here unattended. Shame.

Blood Bowl 2010 season - Hashut's Hammers

rookie Chaos Dwarf team:
-6 Hobgoblins (240k)
-3 Chaos Dwarf Blockers (210k)
-2 Bull Centaurs (260k)

4x team re-rolls (280k)

Fan Factor: 1 (10k)

Total: 1,000,000 gold pieces, 11 players

EDIT TO ADD:
variant #1:
-6 Hobgoblins (240k)
-3 Chaos Dwarf Blockers (210k)
-2 Bull Centaurs (260k)
-1 Minotaur (150k)

2x team re-rolls (140k)

Fan Factor: 0 (-)

Total: 1,000,000 gold pieces, 12 players

variant #2:
-6 Hobgoblins (240k)
-2 Chaos Dwarf Blockers (140k)
-2 Bull Centaurs (260k)
-1 Minotaur (150k)

3x team re-rolls (210k)

Fan Factor: 0 (-)

Total: 1,000,000 gold pieces, 11 players

I can quit anytime I want: aka Alt-itis, the Hidden Killer

(EDIT: have fairly radically changed all 3 lists after a bit of browsing at Advanced Tau Tactica)

TAU v1: 400pts
Troops: 12x Fire Warrior Team
-upgrade one to Shas'ui w/ Bonding Knife, EMP Grenades
-Devilfish APC w/ Disruption Pod
223pts

Elites: Stealth Team x5
-upgrade one to Team Leader w/ Fusion Blaster, Bonding Knife, Hardwired: Targeting Lock, Drone Controller, 1x Gun Drone
177pts

TAU v2: 400pts
Troops: 12x Fire Warrior Team
-upgrade one to Shas'ui w/ Bonding Knife, EMP Grenades
-Devilfish APC w/ Disruption Pod
223pts

Troops: 10x Kroot Carnivores
70pts

Elites: Stealth Team x3
-upgrade one to Team Leader w/ Fusion Blaster, Bonding Knife, Hardwired: Targeting Lock
107pts

TAU v3: 400pts
Troops: 12x Fire Warrior Team
-upgrade one to Shas'ui w/ Bonding Knife, EMP Grenades
-Devilfish APC w/ Disruption Pod
223pts

Elites: 3x Crisis Suits
-2x suits w/ TL-Missile Pods/Flamer
-Shas'ui w/ Bonding Knife, Hardwired Multitracker, Hardwired Target Lock
--suit w/ TL-Flamers, Missile Pod
and EITHER:Hardwired Drone Controller, shield drone x1
OR Failsafe Detonator
177pts

The first demo night!

Lists here - in case I forget/lose them I can look them up on my phone tomorrow:

ORKS REDUX REDUX, 399pts
Troops: Slugga Boyz x 12
-upgrade one boy to Nob
--w/ Bosspole, Power Klaw
-mounted in Trukk
147 pts

Troops: Slugga Boyz x 12
-upgrade one boy to Nob
--w/ Bosspole, Power Klaw
-mounted in Trukk
147pts

Fast Attack: Deffkoptas x 2
-both w/ TL-rokkit launchas
-one with Bigbomm
105pts

vs

Scouting elements of the Recusant 113th, 395pts:

Veteran Squad #1 170pts
-Meltaguns x3, Vox-caster
-mounted in Chimera w/ Dozer Blade

Veteran Squad #2 185pts
-3x Plasma guns, Vox-caster
-mounted in Chimera w/ Dozer Blade

1x Scout Sentinel w/ Autocannon 40pts

War Without End League: the Recusant 113th gets it in the neck

For a few minutes there I was worried I was going to get tabled, but in the end my Traitor Guard did better than I thought they would have, and held on until the bitter end when Chris Genest's Deathwing list snatched the only objective out of 4 on the board by burning the remnants of one of my Veteran squads off of it with an extreme-range, non-scattering plasma cannon shot from his sleepy Venerable Dreadnought (who almost snoozed through the whole game, only arriving on turn 4).

But lets not put the cart before the horse. We rolled the Seize and Hold mission and the 'Dawn of War' deployment style, and Chris wisely chose to go second and keep his HQ and 2 Troops units (Belial and two squads of Deathwing Terminators) in reserve for a Deathwing Assault in turn 1. So deprived of anything to shoot at, my two Chimeras full of Veterans popped smoke and loitered near my edge of the board, while my command squad went to ground in the second floor of a ruin near my right-hand corner.

Chris then teleported his two squads of Terminators in close to my board edge, using the Assault Cannon-armed squad to hose down that ruined building, killing 3 members of my command squad and wounding my Commander.

I got fairly lucky on my reserve rolls for turn two, getting my Autocannon-armed chicken walkers, my explosive-lance armed Rough Riders, and a Penal Legion unit that I wound up criminally underusing by hiding behind a wall and only firing once in the game (NB: if you're going to have a cheap scoring unit, you need to either score with the damned thing or fling it into combat, not have it sit on its collective thumb all game). At this point I got a real taste for just how ludicrously survivable Terminators can be. Shoot 'em with whatever you want - either they get their 2+ armor save or their 5+ invulnerable save. Plus Chris was running a (wonderfully converted!) Terminator Apothecary, which means one that I could have killed with a lucky autocannon shot got to ignore that wound instead. Also, whatever I should be doing with my Rough Riders, slamming them into a CC-tooled Terminator unit probably isn't it. Maybe throwing them at the shooty squad would have been the better choice. As it was, they all got slashed to bits by Belial and the other Lightning Claw-armed members of termie unit #1. Grr...

Chris's only other unit in reserve, the Dread, failed to arrive this turn. So he made hay instead by pranging one of my Chimeras and killing like half the dudes inside in the resultant explosion (at some point his CC Termies did the same thing to my other Chimera, but I'm a bit uncertain as to whether it was this turn or the next one).

Turn 3, I brought my second HQ - a Primaris Psyker (reskinned as a Chaos Sorcerer in my Traitor Guard theme) and the lovely, lovely Leman Russ. Whatever else I've decided, I think the main thing I've learned is that my next 250 points are going for a 2nd Leman Russ and 55 points of who the hell cares, because the LR is gold. If I'd been smarter and deployed it further off to one side or another I could have really capitalized on it; even so I think it accounted for all but 2 of the 9 Termie kills I got in this game. It did much better than the sorcerer, who promptly rolled boxcars on his Psychic test and ate his own brain rather than dropping some lightning on the shooty Termie squad like I'd hoped. Still, between the lone survivor of my command Lascannon team and the rapidly backpedaling survivors of the plasmagunner Vetsquad, I think I got two Termie kills on the shooter group. Meanwhile, the CC Termies with Belial started soaking up Leman Russ fire. I'm a bit hazy on who died when, but I know that by their assault next phase this unit was down to 3 or 4 men instead of the 6 it started with.

So lets move on to that. In a really smart move, Chris launched this unit into contact with my Sentinels - which meant that since the Sentinels were walkers, he was locked in combat, and therefore untargetable by the thundering guns of my LR. Curse the craftiness of the Deathwing! Plus he was able to aim his charge so one of his Thunder Hammer termies was knocking on the sides of my LR. Fortunately he never got through the armor on the Leman Russ. One of the Sentinels went boom, but who cared. At this point I'd have been happier if he'd killed all 3 immediately, since I'd have had an extra turn to shoot him up.

We were starting to run out of actual real-world gaming time by this point, so I'm a bit hazier on what happened and when. Suffice it to say that my other two Sentinels got Luke Skywalkered to death, the LR pounded his CC Termies down to just one, and Chris ran his shooty Termies towards the midfield objective. His Dread showed up and cranked a shot at my LR that bounced off the armor; this was clearly just a ranging shot however, as the next (and final) turn he wasted 6 of my 7 Veterans off their objective, leaving one guy armed only with a lasgun and harsh language to try and fend off the Master of the Deathwing. That didn't happen, and while his other squad didn't make it to their objective due to a mediocre 'run' roll, Chris's destruction of my Veteran unit was enough to claim the one and only objective anyone held at the (slightly early) game's end.

Scattered highlights from the game for me include the moment when Chris saved against two meltagun hits from the dwindling remnants of my melta-Vet squad, but lost a terminator to their buddy and his lasgun (aka 'flashlight). I also can look back now and see a few things I should have done differently, as well as a few things I just plain old forgot about (ie using any of my Company Commander's 'Orders' to bolster my shooting). Still, it was a fun game all in all; Chris was a friendly and helpful opponent, who was able to put up with my slight unfamiliarity with the rules and helped me to remember stuff that slipped my mind. So a loss, but a good game; and that's what it's all about anyway, right?