Sisters Of Battle Defend their Homeworld again.

Time for the last battle of the day. I am playing in a 40k Escalation league at Gaming Underground in High Point NC. To stay in the League you have to play three games every point cycle. With my schedule I wanted to get my three games in in case I was unable to return to play again this cycle. Most of the League players had left but Will P. was willing to play me again. We diced an I came up defending again. This meant if I lost to Will again he would hold two of my Planetary control points and half way to taking my planet. We choose to move over to the wooded table for our second game, mostly because it was the closest to the fans. I spread out the terrain so I would have some cover to advance through and get cover saves against the necron shooting. The Limited visibility disadvantage hurt me as much or more than the Necrons last game so I chose hostile Terrain again to slow the Necrons down and Unbearable environment which gave the Attacking Necrons a -1 leadership and me a +1 leadership. We rolled for objectives and received three 25mm objectives and Assassins.  We rolled for Deployment and it was Dawn of War again. Will chose his board edge to attack from and I deployed the Confessor and Battle Sister squad on the objective on my side of the table.

 Will placed his Necron Warrior squad with a cryptek on one objective on his board edge and walked the rest onto the board turn one. The Immortal squad runs to get onto the left objective, the Wraiths come up the middle and the lord and other cryptek move up behind the Wraiths.

 I walked in the Retributors and Repentia. The Wraiths moved up the middle and moved up close to the Battle sisters but are just out of charge range. My turn the Retributors and Battle sister squad shoot the Wraiths down. The Repentia charge out into the open after the Immortals. So much for my plan to use the cover for saves. The battle sister hunker down in the woods and trade fire with the warrior squad on the right.

 The Repentia take fire from the Immortals but keep on a beeline toward them.

 A good run puts the Repentia into assault range and I succeed their faith roll. The Immortals kill one sister but one still lives. He rolls and breaks, the Repentia catch him and kill the squad.

 The repentia consolidate near the wounded Necron Lord.

 The Lord moves and uses his glove to flame all the Repentia, They all take wounds and fail their saves,.

 but all three pass their feel no pain and keep going.

 The sisters charge the Necron lord and chop him apart.

 Now that I have the Assassin objective secured I run the sisters and Confessor out of range of the Necron warriors. In hind sight this also took my one troop off of the objective leaving Will's Necrons the only one on an objective.

 The Retributors range in on the warriors. The warriors get cover saves from the Heavy Bolters because the Retributors are firing through the woods but they still down three warriors. The Warriors bolo their morale test and fallback off of the objective.

 The warriors fall back but don't regroup, they shoot one Repentia but the survivors close in.

 The Repentia charge in and the Warriors make their morale test and stand. The Warrior fail to kill either Repentia but the Repentia drop three warriors who don't stand back up.

 The warriors break and the Repentia don't catch them but stay right behind them with their consolidation move. This was around turn five and my Confessor and Battle Sister squad were just out of range of the other objective. We rolled and played a fifth turn.

 The Necron fall back again and shoot down the Mistress.

 The last Repentia Charges in, the Necron make their leadership test to stay and they fight.

The last Repentia gets her wish and goes to meet the Emperor.

Off camera the Confessor and Battle Sister squad move onto the other objective giving me a Major Victory for having both game objectives. As a bonus I recaptured my planetary control point and run the Necrons off of my home world.

I played this game a little better and my Retributors being able to get their heavy bolters into action made a big difference. The Repentia did an outstanding job and got a little lucky with their feel no pain saves. I am going to keep them in the army and probably raise them to a full size squad in the next points bump.

Another side note is the League organizers okayed me using the White Dwarf  Zealot rules for the league. I hope to be able to make the next league day to try and get three more games in get my max six games for the points cycle.

ColKG

Sisters of Battle Defend against the Necrons

My second game of the day was defending against the Necrons. As Defender I picked the Limited visibility which made the Necron attacker subject to regular night fight rules while I was allowed to roll 2d6x4 for spotting. I also chose Hostile terrain so the Necrons would be in difficult terrain across the whole board. The Objectives were Assassins and Kill points. Assassins is where you have to kill the opponents HQ and keep yours alive. We rolled Dawn of War for the deployment so I started my Confessor and Battle sister squad on the corner away from the Necrons and walked the Retributor and Repentias on on first turn.

 The Sisters battle line as Will P.'s Necrons shamble down the road.

 I lined the Retributors up so they will get a shot down the road but I was unable to roll high enough to get line of sight to the Necron warriors.

 Will ran his Necron lord ahead of the Warriors and I was able to get the Confessor and the Battle Sister squad into charge range.

 The Confessor and Sister Superior charge into close combat with the Nercon Lord.

 The Confessor takes a wound but puts the Necron Lord down. Giving me the Primary Assassin objective, killing the Enemy HQ. The squad consolidates and prepares to weather the Necron gauss storm.

 The Necrons back up to get more space between them and the sisters.

 The Repentia had been working up one side of the board but are jumped by the Wraiths and put down. I am beginning to doubt including the Repentia in the army, for the second game they have been chopped down without a return wound to the enemy.

 the Necron Shooting killed several Sisters and put another wound on the Confessor but they draw their bolt pistols fire and charge into the Necrons.

 The Retributors try and spot the wraiths and fail.

 The combat goes badly and the Confessor falls. The Sister Superior goes down swinging. This makes up drawn on the Assassins objective and down two kill points.

 The Wraiths charge into the Retributors who lose a sister but kill one wraith.

 We wnt on to play a sixth turn and the Retributors wound the Wraith and finally kill it.

On turn seven the retributors finally manage to shoot someone but fial to put the Immortals down.

Another loss. Looking bad for the Sisters in the League. I also lost the first control point on my planet to Will P. In Hindsight If I would have run the Confessor the other way and he had lived I would have won the game Primary objective. If I am going to have a chance in the League i am going to have to start keeping the objectives in mind and not keep going for the long shot.

The Necrons are a mean army and I can tell why. At least two of the Necron players are planning to add scarab swarms when the points go up so I think I will be painting up at least a couple of heavy flamers to add to my army.

Come back for the last battle report of my first League day.

ColKG

Sisters of Battle League Games Begin

I made it out to Gaming Underground in High Point NC to get in some games for their Warhammer 40k Escalation league. It is the second week of the league but I couldn't make it out for the first week because of work. I barely managed to get the Sisters of the Argentiun Astrum to a basic three colors but found people were more interested in actually seeing the Sisters of Battle models on the table than their paint job.

The league has a campaign component. Each player has a home world. On league days the players at the shop are divided up into Attackers and Defenders. The Defender is defending his home world and sets the terrain up and is able to chose two benefits/detriments from a list. I was an attacker and my opponent Will L. set up the terrain and as his benefits chose hostile terrain, which made open terrain difficult, difficult terrain dangerous, and dangerous terrain impassable for the attacker with no effect on the defender and limited visibility where the attacker is subject to night fight and the defender has to roll 2d6x4 for line of sight. the Defender has a big advantage especially with such small point armies. Here the armies are deployed with the objective being three 25mm objectives and kill points,

 This was my first game using the new Sisters of Battle White Dwarf Codex and my army consisted of a Confessor with an Eviscerator and a Plasma gun, a Repentia squad a Battle Sister squad and a Retributor squad with four heavy bolters. The entire table was difficult terrain for me so I knew it was going to be a long slog to try for the other objectives. I placed the Confessor and the Repentias forward to make a run for the objective on the other side of the woods, the Repressor camping on my objective and the Sister of Battle squad to make the end run for the other objective.

Will's army was Chaos space marines consisting of a berserker squad with a rhino, a plague marine with a rhino(proxied with a vindicator) and a chaos lord with a plasma pistol. Here he is deployed.

 The first Sister falls a Martyr for the Emperor. Will dropped his plague marine squad on the objective but the Chaos lord is still riding in the rhino.

 The confessor stands his ground as the Berserkers Rhino runs for the objective. The Confessor fires his Plasma gun and only manages to stun the Rhino.

 I decided that he could have the objective with the Plague marines on it and instead tried to kill the rhino a Meltagun shot missed so I ended up assaulting the rhino and miss with melta bombs and krak grenades.

 The Repentia round the woods and run a measly two inches toward the Berserkers.

 The Confessor explodes the Berserkers rhino but takes a wound from berserker shooting. The Repentia run to their doom.

 The Sisters blow up the other Rhino. The explosion kills four sisters and leaves the Chaos lord on foot. The survivors charge into hand to hand.

 The lord kills one sister but the others stand.

 The Berserkers bypass the confessor and charge the Repentia.

 Just before all the repentia go to meet the Emperor.

 The Fight continue as the Sisters wound the Chaos Lord twice. Then the Sister Superior gets killed and then the next round the Lord puts down the last sister. This put us even on kill points two for two.

 The Confessor backs into the dangerous woods and kills two berserkers with plasma hits.

The berserker decided not to chase him into the woods and  use their bolt pistols to down the Confessor.

A major loss for me. The Limited visibility really hurt me because I was unable to shoot the Retributor Heavy Bolters the whole game. In hind sight I should have made them do the end run and just shoot up the plague marine squad but you always know what you should do. A short squad of the Repentia are not going to win verses a squad of Berserkers. The Confessor made his points back that is as good as you can ask. The Sister superior went toe to toe with a Chaos lord and almost won. It was a good game even though I kept forgetting my Faith points and when I did remember them I fail the rolls. I would go on to play two more games that day, I will post their reports later.


Last a picture from Will's next battle

Will L.was playing a another Chaos marine player who did one of favorite moves and dropped his lesser daemons danger close to the enemy, that is the way to do it.

Later

ColKG

League Sisters of Battle progressing

Between work and a trip to the medicae painting my Sisters of Battle 500 point league army to a basic three colors has taken more time than I planned.

I still think I can get them ready for tomorrows League Gaming Day at Gaming Underground in High Point, North Carolina. I made it by there to pay my league fee earlier in the week, so I just need to get two more colors on the Sisters to get them on the table. The league goes up 250 points each month so I have started working on my 750 point list. I primed up another batch of Sisters so I think I will have enough to field whichever 750 point list I finally choose. I still want to use the old Zealot rules for the league. I have a couple copies of the rules from the original White Dwarf chapter approved and plan to talk to the league organizers to see if they will allow it. I also found the old Deathwatch Kill team rules and might see if they want to allow them for the league for any one to use, we will see.

Since they are the Order of the Argentium Astrum, I went with a boltgun metal base coat and will come back later with shinning steel touch up and a silver highlight but for now they are going to war in Boltgun metal. I have base coated the tabbards, flesh, hair, leather and flames scorched brown. I am planning to go with red for their tabbards but I might go with a leather shade, sort of  Sisters in leather dusters. The repentia I have since gone over using the last of my Elf flesh. I think I have enough Elf flesh to finish the army but if I have to I will pick up a bottle of the new Kislev flesh and see if they are really a close enough match

Last, I have been planning a 2500 point list. The league has a campaign component where each player has a home world. If you lose four games to the same player that player has captured your home world. Losing your home world makes you play with less points while the new owner gets a points bonus. To take your world back you have to fight a 2500 point battle and win. You can ally with other players but have to split any campaign points with them after the battle. I have the 2500 points and then some of the Sisters, I just have to get them built and painted. If they let me use the Zealot rules I could field 2500 points of them and it will give me more incentive to get my last batch of Frateris Militia I won on EvilBay on the table.

I should be painting so Later.

ColKG

Sister of Battle League Army

After running through several versions, I finally settled on a 500 point starting list for the Gaming Underground 40k Escalation League.

My original plan was a confessor with a small battle conclave but couldn't work one in under the league points restriction for non troop choices. I still decided to take a Confessor and since special characters are also restricted I broke out my old Missionary with a Plasma Gun to add a little firepower.

I then went with a Battle Sister squad with a Flamer and Meltagun. They are the utility squad. My plan is for them to close with the opponent and try for objectives.

Next I decided on a Retributor squad with a Simulacrum Imperialis and four Heavy Bolters. I have little idea what armies I will face in the league but four possibly rending heavy bolters will make a dent in about anything.

Last I choose a Repentia squad. I haven't actually fielded them before and most people deride them on the forums but I plan to give them a chance. Another reason is in my quest for building an Apocalypse sized Sisters of Battle army I have collected up almost forty of them and I want to see them on the table. I think they will either get it done or die in a storm of bullets trying.

Where to go next,

I think I will have to get some games in before I really write up a hard list for the next points level. I do have a few things I will add later in the League. One is an Exorcist tank or two. I have my conversion I built years ago and one of the new Exorcist kits still in the box but it will be months before the points level gets up enough to use them both. The next one is Uriah Jacobus and a Battle Conclave. I am not sure if special characters a banned the whole league or just the first round. I find out once I get started.
Last, I am going to ask the organizers if  I can use the old Zealot rules in the league. Compared to most of the 40k codeci out there I don't think the Zealots will break the League. We will see what they say.

ColKG

Quantum Gothic Communication Dish Inbound!

Quantum Gothic Communication Dish

It seems that joining groups and following blogs has paid off again. Alec Peters over on Apocalypse 40k annouced the winner of a Quantun Gothic Communications Dish and it was yours truely. I found out from Chris over at Sippin' On Paint Water that I had won.

I have sent the message to Alec to claim the prize and wait for his response.

ColKG

Wargames Factory compared to Games Workshop, Or How I started an Ancient Persian army.

I recently acquired my first miniatures from Wargames Factory. I have seen the models online but never in hand. I saw a post about the Persian Infantry sprues being on sale and contemplated buying a bunch to use as Martians in my planned Victorian Science Fiction battle.I have been wanting to start building up a Martian army and until now the force mostly consisted of LOTR High Elves with bows and swords. I looked at some pictures of built Wargames factory Persian Infantry and thought they would fit the bill and at a much better price point.  

A close up of the Persian Infantry sprue. Two bodies, a pile of weapon options and several heads that look exotic enough to me to be Martians. I figured how many models I would need to get started and did the math. The final number came up to more than the Hobby budget could withstand at the moment. It would have to wait till another day.

A call from Chuckaroobob, a week later brightened up my day. He was at the Spring Fever convention in Raleigh, North Carolina and was at the Wargames Factory stand where they had the infantry sprues on sale for twenty cents a piece. That is right five sprues for a dollar. So I had Chuckaroobob pick me up Forty beans worth. Two hundred sprues that totaled four hundred models. This has opened up another option for me to build an Ancient Persian army along with some Martian conversions.I should have more than enough infantry models for a large Ancient Persian army and then turn around and use the same models as martians in my VSF games. The only thing I want that is missing, is a bunch of  Martians armed with rifles. I may have a solution to this once I get in my bits order from Evil Bay.

The the original object of the post comparing Wargames Factory to Games Workshop. The Basic cost of most GW core Box sets are $35 for usually either 16 or 20 models. So if you go with the twenty man box that comes to $1.75 a figure.

Wargames Factory on the other hand, I received four hundred models for forty dollars. To get an equal number of GW figures would cost me $700.  Of course, you might point out that I will need to buy bases but I have already picked up a little over two hundred 20mm square bases for $10.50. It comes up to around five cents a base, so for two hundred infantry it has cost me fifteen cents a model or thirty dollars. It ranks up there as the cheapest army I have ever purchased. I have figured out a Persian army for Warhammer Ancient Battles and now it seems I will need a box of Greek Hoplites, some Scythed Chariots, and a bunch of Persian Cavalry. The wish list grows again.

Time to get building

ColKG