Battle Report - 750 Point Challenge

In continuing with the 750 point challenge from Fritz40k I got in a couple of games this weekend with my Flame Guardians 750 point list.  Now I had a few recommendations against the Rifleman Dread configuration, but wanted to give it a go.  Luckily I had a ML arm and a CCW arm on stand by as I knew that I was going to get in at 2-3 games at this point level in the time I had allotted on Saturday at the LGS and then again with my son Monday afternoon after getting back from the doctor's office.

So to recap - here is the Flame Guardians list I "planned" on running:

750 Point Flame Guardians (Space Marines)

• HQ - SM Captain - Power Weapon, Storm Bolter - 118 Points
• Troops - Scout Squad x 2 - 5-Man, Sniper Rifles, Camo Cloaks - 180 Points
• Elites - Sternguard - 10-Man, PW, MM, Mg, SB, Bolter x 7, Drop Pod - 315 Points
• Elites - Dreadnought - Dual Twin-Linked Autocannon - 125 Points
• Total - 22 Models - 738 Points

Now this list allotted me the options of adjusting the Dread to either the TL Autocannon w/ML for an additional 10 points or swapping around the for the CCW for a 10 point subtraction at which point I'd have 22 points to spare from my 750...Can you say add an additional scout sniper with camo cloak boys and girls?  I know you can...

At any rate I planned on running my first game with the Rifleman Dread and see what happens.

Unfortunately I have absolutely NO pics for this battle report due to leaving my camera at home, and the ones from my phone were too fuzzy due to no macro setting.  That's what I get for trying to take pics to update the painting website for BJCMiniStudio and forgetting to pack it back in my bag.

BATTLE!!!

So my son and I get to the LGS to see what we could drum up in this point level and found a hand full of young-uns doing some 40k but none interested in playing at the smaller point level.  Not all that surprising as it seems the trend with armies is "A hula una" (spelling) or in English "Wider is better" or More Armor means I beat everything.  Now I'll try and not get on my soap box about Mechanized Armies, so I'll stop there.  However, as it turned out the LGSs owner's wife was in the store that day and she said she was interested in getting in on the action at that point level.  She's an SoB player, and as she's not an avid player only plays lists at 1000 points or less so Viola!  The game is on.

Her list:

750 Point "The Sisters of the Blessed Rose" (Sisters of Battle)

• HQ - Cannonness - PW, Inferno Pistol
• Troops - SoB x 10 - PW, Bolter x 8, melta x 1, Flamer x 1
• Troops - SoB x 10 - PW, Bolter x 8, melta x 1, Flamer x 1
• Troops - Karskin x 10 - PW, hellpistol, hellgun x 9
• Fast Atatck - Seraphim x 5 - PW/BP, Dual BP x 4
• Total - 36 Models - 731 Points

So right from the start she's got 14 models on me with 3 x 10 man troop choices.  If we draw an objective game I'm pretty much screwed.  No transports though, and she's not using the SoB Faith Points as she's still pretty new to the game.  Not feeling arrogant on my chances because she could easily outflank me with 3 troop choices, but then again my list is set up for a different type of encounter.  Wound allocation should be interesting...

We roll for an annihilation scenario, 5 rounds.  She deploys first (okay the dice are being very nice to me so far)...I start the round first - SCORE!

She deploys everything, not sure why, and her husband isn't helping her (used the store was busy a few times - get the feeling he's tried teaching her tactics before but gave up).  She set up her Seraphim in cover behind a hill along with her Cannoness and one of the SoB squads.  The other SoB squad and the Karsking got deployed along the other side of her deployment zone.  Not quite out in the open, but depending on what I did I could either get them in one turn or...Infiltrate in an area where I could get them.

Okay so now for my deployment.  Of course she was somewhat nervous when the only model I first put on the table was my dread.  He's positioned that as soon as the Seraphim come out form around behind the hill I can start pounding on them.  Being a Rifleman Dred and where I've got him positioned I can technically hit any unit she's got on the table as soon as I've got LoS.  Now where to "Infiltrate" the scouts.  All I really need is LoS on any of her units and my 36" Heavy 1 AP 6 Sniper Rifles can start playing.  With 2 units of 5, that's 6 shots for each team.  I've got the Captain and the Stern in the dp sitting in reserve.  :-)

Scout team 1 deploys in cover of a building but in LoS of  the Karskins but not the other SoB,  Scout team 2 deploys with LoS of the Cannoness and the SoB squad she attached to.

Round 1 -

Me (Don't have all the details as I just made quick notes for the BR)

Dread - does nothing but sit and wait
Scout Team 1 opens fire on the Karskins - lost 2 models
Scout Team 2 opens fire on the Cannonness' SoB - lost 3 models
DP does not land

Her
Cannonness and remaining 7 SoB move to outside of table behind the hill.
Seraphim move out of cover towards scout team 2
Karskin move towards scout team 1
Untouched SoB try to head up the middle not in cover any longer
Everything's still out of range for her

Round 2 -

Me - the dice were not nice for most of my marines
Scout Team 1 - opens up on karskins again - bad dice, bad dice! Nothing
Scout Team 2 - Opens up on Cannonness's SoB - bad dice!!!!!! Only 1 model
Dred opens up on Seraphim - 2 models lost
Drop Pod lands - 8" from the untouched SoB squad - Captain and Stern deploy and open up all heck on that unit - The dice were nice - 6 models lost and she failed leadership and fell back and additional 6"

Her
Cannonness and 6 SoB squad backtrack around cover to try and link up with the other SoB squad
Seraphim are out in the open and cut across the table to try and outflank Scout Team 2
Karskins move to within shooting range of Scout Team 1 (who's still in the building ruins)
SoB squad moves towards Cannonness and the other SoB squad

For her shooting phase her Karskin opened up on the building with the Scout Team 1, not sure why, but she did to no effect.
The 4-woman SoB squad that bit a retreat is still within bolter range and she's got 4 shots - only 1 wound which I conveniently assign to the captain. Nothing else is within firing range for her at this time.  No assualts

Round 3 -

Me - it gets messy here
My Dred is still within range of everything on the table and nothing is in cover except for the Cannonness and the 6-woman SoB.
Captain and Stern move to within 6" of the 4-woman SoB squad so will assault and ultimately wipe them out loosing 1 model on my side so still technically a 10-man squad.
Scout Team 1 continues to pound on the Karskin - taking another (down to 7 including SGT)
Scout Team 2 turns attention to Seraphim - bad dice!!!
Dred continues to fire on Seraphim - 1 down (2 left - Leadership passed)

Her
Seraphim move to within assault range of Scout Team 2 - Assault leaves 2 scouts dead
Karskin move to within assault range of Scout Team 1 - Assault leaves 1 scout dead and 2 Karskin dead (so 5 left including SGT)
Cannonness and SoB move into shooting range (rapid fire) of Captain and Stern (so 15 dice) - I loose my MM and SB and Captain takes an additional Wound (Down to 8 in the Captain's squad)

Round 4 -

Me
Captain and Stern move to within 6" of Cannonness and Sob - Rapid Fire baby - (28 dice) - Cannonness takes 2 wounds, squad looses 4 so 2 remain (3 total)
Dred finished off the Seraphim.
The assault phase saw the end of the Cannonness and her squad and the loss of 2 more scouts though they did not fail the Leadership.

Her
Well all she's got left at this point is 5 Karskin which she proceeded to have them run around the board trying to avoid me.

Round 5 -

Like I said the round was spent chasing her around as she frantically panicked and yelled for her husband to give her advice to which he said "LEARN SOME TACTICS WOMAN"

Funny

Wish I had some good shots but most of her stuff wasn't painted anyway.  Though whomever did her Cannonness did an awesome job.

Didn't do a BR for the game with my son, spent too much time with him on Tactics.  :-)

-BJC

Army Lists - 750 Point Challenge

So while bouncing around the various 40k blog sites I came across something on Fritz40k concerning building out 750 point Army Lists.  I found it not only intreguing, but also a nice change of pace and something I thought I'd continue on .

Now normally when I sit down with Excel and my Codecies I'm mostly focused on the 1750 and 1850 size armies.  Even when piecing my kids armies out for them I focus on this size as when we do hit the LGS that's the only size we seem to be able to get in game wise.  Of course our home games between the three of us vary in size and seldom do we actually play a "list" so to speak.  This got me thinking of how little I'm teaching them about the mechanics of the game if we're just throwing a bunch of models on the dining room table and start rolling dice.

So in keeping with Fritz's theme of designing up good playable lists around the 750 point level I thought I'd go through and design some based off the five different armies we have between the three of us. It should yield some interesting force lists and will open up some new avenues for family gaming night.  Come to think of it, we might actually be able to get more than one game in...better yet actually finish a game.  ;-)

So the armies I'll be focusing on this time around are my Flame Guardians Space Marines. This is actually the Show Army Project I'm working on under my Special Projects.  I've played varying forms of this army over the last couple of months and have yet to field the whole thing anyway.  The other armies I'll post up 750 point lists for will be for a SoB heavy Witchunters force and two additional DIY Space Marine chapters along with an Ork force.

For the most part when I build a list, at least for myself, I build what I want to field.  What I think I'm going to have fun with, have fun modeling, and painting.  I'm not much for building WINNING lists, though I have won games with most of my lists.  When I build lists for my kids, I build what I think they CAN play with, and WILL have fun with.  Again, not necessarily what they can WIN with.

750 Point Flame Guardians (Space Marines)

• HQ - SM Captain - Power Weapon, Storm Bolter - 118 Points
• Troops - Scout Squad x 2 - 5-Man, Sniper Rifles, Camo Cloaks - 180 Points
• Elites - Sternguard - 10-Man, PW, MM, Mg, SB, Bolter x 7, Drop Pod - 315 Points
• Elites - Dreadnought - Dual Twin-Linked Autocannon - 125 Points
• Total - 22 Models - 738 Points

The principle behind the Flame Guardians is the Heavy use of Sternguard and Vanguard Elites with Troops choices being Sniper Scouts who infiltrate and then start rending and pinning down the enemy with Heavy 1 AP 6 fire.  The above force is meant to deploy Dread as a rear fire support unit, Infiltrate with the scouts, then drop the Stern and the Captain in from the Drop Pod.  This list does work deploying first or second so long as your opponent DOESN'T have units that can Infiltrate as well.  I have used this list a couple of times.  Battle Report coming soon!


Looking forward to seeing what you all think and recommend.

Special Projects - Armor on the CHEAP!!!

Okay so this series on Special Projects is for all you cheap...I mean frugal gamers out  there.  You know who you are!

Seriously, I'm one of them.  Family, mortgage, etc... Lets face it, the hobby we have chosen to become well "invested" in isn't cheap.  Even those of us who seed the best deals on eBay or Bartertown understand that there comes a point when you are going to need a serious upgrade to your army and with 5th Edition, it seems to be all about the Armor!

I'm all about the Foot Slogger Army.  For me, for my time, for the space I have to store armies and models I've always refrained from having much if any mobile armor in my armies.  I simply don't like painting tanks.  Too many flat surfaces, blah, blah, blah.  However, with 5th Edition rules favoring armor and or Mechanized armies, its become absolutely necessary that I add some armor elements to my army and ASAP.

So what's a modeler/painter supposed to do?  Well it's been common practice to use proxy models in pickup games for what since inception of miniature wargaming?  And, though they may or may not be allowed in most tournemants, scratchbuilt models have become a sign that sets the true modeler/converted aside from the average joe gamer.  Soooooooooooo, here we go.  The decision is made, scratchbuilt it is.

Now I know what you're thinking, what/where/how?  Well for the time being I'm going to delve into the world of paper-scratchbuilt armor, then replace them with some more GW approved models later.  Say it isn't so!  You're going to proxy scratchbuilt PAPER models????? No not exactly.  C'mon, give me a break!  Would I do that?  HECK YEAH I WOULD!  ;-)

In all, there are some stunning templates out there at the bwc-archive yahoo group. Of course I have no intention of building them solely out of Card Stock either.  A little balsa wood, some plastic tubing, card stock, and GW bits should yield what I'm looking for.

So for my Flame Guardians I'm in need of some Drop Pods (2) and a Razorback.  Now unfortunately I can't find a good template for the full Razorback, but they've got some great Rhino templates and a few different Drop Pod variants that I'm going to play with (still waiting on approval to post the templates in the blog).

I'm planning on building a couple of different variants of these vehicles.  The first variant will be the straight up Card Stock/Balsa Wood variant.  No GW bits, no plasti-card.  Just build straight from the template.  I'll use some colored Card Stock (Red/Yellow) so I can see how they'll turn out with no painting.  Second variant will use the templates in combination with more advanced materials.  Still using the Card Stock/Balsa Wood, but also adding in plasti-card, plastic or brass tubing, and various GW and FW bits to make the models more tournament legal (or as best I can).

Thoughts?

Show Army Project - Vanguard Veteran Completed

Well the Flame Guardians project is moving pretty slowly.  Seems that every time I sit down to work on my own stuff something comes up.  Interesting how these things never come up when I an working on a client project...

Well I finished up the Champion (Sgt) for the Vanguard "Honored Ones".  Wish the pic came out better, I'll have to see about shooting some better pics and change the angle of my camera maybe.

 

 

Over all I'm enjoying the color scheme and the time per mini isn't too awful (averages about 5 hours over 2.5 days worth of painting per mini) though Kantor did take about 12 hours.  I love the Pre-Heresy Jump Packs I picked up from Chapterhouse Studios.  I used a Sgt Chronus head and BT EC arm for the rest of the "conversion" if you can call it that.  Bit of broken guitar string rounded out the conversion.  The base is one of the Ruins 25mm resin bases from Micro Art Studios (all the bases will be from this range).

More on this as I finish them out.

-BJC

40K and the Kids - The Gauntlet's Thrown!

Well folks it's "On like white on rice!"

The gauntlet has been thrown down by my daughter, or at least it was last night when we got back from church.  She was all excited declaring her Sisters of Battle could easily take on either of my Space Marine forces or the Orks.  Of course that led to my son chiming in that he wanted to play the Orks!

So that's it, Thursday night - the Collazo Family 40K Smackdown!

In this corner (the purple corner) - 783 points of "The Eternal Order of the Tulip" Sisters of Battle is forsaking their vows to destroy the foul Xenos by teaming up with 1070 points of "SnotFlinga Bombad's GOrilLa Orks" of the Blood Axe tribe (the green corner).

Their opponent 1850 points of the "Templars Omega" as they continue their crusade against the Greenskins!  Will the Sisters and the camouflaged, somewhat disciplined GOrilLa Orks be able to stand against the assault specialized Templars?  Will Brother Champion Ellion (counts as Shrike) valiantly lead his Crusader Assault Squad?  Well this should be an interesting evening.

Army Lists:


Order of the Tulip (Hannah-Celeste - 9)
HQ - Canoness "Emily" - Power Weapon, Inferno Pistol
Ellite - Celestian Squad - Rhino, Sister Superior (BP/PW), Heavy Flamer x 1, Bolter x 3
Ellite - Callidus Assassin - Phase Sword, Neural Shredder
Troops - Sister Squad 1 - Sister Superior (BP/PW), Bolter x 8, Flamer x 1, Imagifier
              Sister Squad 2 - Sister Superior (BP/PW), Bolter x 8, Flamer x 1
              Karskin Squad - Sgt (HP/PW), Hellguns x 9

GOrilLa Orks (Josiah - 4)

HQ - Warboss "SnotFlinga Bombad" - Power Klaw, shoota/skorcha
Ellite - Nobz - 10 x Choppa/Slugga
           Lootas - Deffgun x 4, Mek w/Mega Blaster
Troops - Boyz - Nob (Slugga/Choppa), Big Shoota x 1, slugga/choppa x 18
               Boyz - Nob (Slugga/Choppa), Big Shoota x 1, slugga/choppa x 18
               Boyz - Nob (Slugga/Choppa), Big Shoota x 1, slugga/choppa x 18
Fast Attack - Stormboyz - Slugga/Choppa/Rokkit Pack/Stickkbombz x 10
                     Deff Koptas - 4 x twin-linked rokkit launcha

Templars Omega - Fifth Company (BJC MiniStudio - 38)
HQ - Brother Champion Elion (Counts as Shrike) - JP, MC LC, BP, IH, Infiltrate - Attaches to Assault 1
         Brother Epistolary Simon - JP, BP, FW, The Avenger, Smite
Ellite - Brother Ancient "Bubba" Drednought - Drop Pod, MM, CCW, Heavy Plamer
           Blade Master Squad (Assault Termi) - TH/SS x 2, LC x 3, Drop Pod
Troops - Fire Squad Alpha - Bolter x 8, ML x 1, Melta x 1
              Fire Squad Bravo - Bolter x 8, ML x 1, Melta x 1
              Scout Sniper Squad - Telion, sniper x 8
Fast Attack - Assault 1 - PF/BP, CCW/BP x 7, Flamer x 2
                     Assault 2 - PF/BP, CCW/BP x 7, Flamer x 2
Heavy Supprt - Devesaters - Sgt (Bolter), ML x 4


Good thing I've got a 9 foot dining room table.  We've not tried a game this large before, so this should be interesting.  I'll report back later tonight on how it went.

Dad's feeling pretty lucky except for those dang Deffkoptas, Hope my Devestators can pop them quickly.

BJC MiniStuido: Special Projects

BJC MiniStuido: Special Projects: "Special Project 'Show Army' Here I will be chronicling a special Show Army that I got as an idea from a Bartertown admin who I did some pai..."

Finally up and running

Well sort of.


While I've got my main "studio" site up and running at BJC Mini Studio I've been intending to do a full blog site for some time.  Still working out all the fine details for content and layout, but this will be the main posting site eventually.

So the purpose of this site is to chronicle my favorite "gaming" past time.  Warhammer 40K, but not so much the gaming portion as the painting, converting, modeling portion of the hobby.  I'm a painter first, gamer second so that is my primary passion for Warhammer 40k.  Now don't get me wrong, I love to play, and my second passion for this hobby is teaching my kids to play.  This is the second focus for this site.

Well here we go...

I'll be transferring the blog data from my studio site to here over the next couple of days...