The Dread Pageant

 Not an edition can go by me without finishing at least something for the Prince of Excess, Slaanesh, and this year it is the entry for my finale of the challenge.

After reaching the Altar of the Snowlord, I have been set with the task of completing a warband for Warhammer Underworlds, the newest edition warband The Dread Pageant.

Dedicated to the Chaos god of pleasure, the band comes with 4 members, and from what I read so far are actually quite a difficult band to master, so challenge excepted on that front once Covid permits us to attend smaller tournaments again.  And then I'll be taking these guys out for a tournament for sure one day.

As black latex is sooooooo last year in the fetish world, I went for white instead.  This also makes the whole band look more bright and less depressed as black would have been.  The clothing and weapons are done with vibrant pastels as well for more contrast.

For the metals, I took the good old Citadel Amethyst Purple and Enchanted Green metalic paints, giving a magical touch to the items as if some strong spell is cast over them.

So that is it, my final challenge room of the year completed, with a (ahum) hefty week to spare.  With 4 models, this means 20 points for the warband, and an additional 20 for the room, ticking the total with an extra 40 points.

2.11.0.0

Unboxing the Fomoroid Crusher

 Recently, I bought the Fomoroid Crusher from the WarCry range by Games Workshop, a big nasty beast roaming the Eightpoints.

Now, while this monster can be used in WarCry, or as part of a Chaos army in Age of Sigmar, the reason I actually bought it is for the Warhammer Underworlds solo game rules, where this monster is the antagonist.

Meaning the Mordor Troll can go in retirement now for the battle reports on those games...

The front of the box features, as is the case these days with GW, the model in all it's painted glory, while the backside has the contents and some general information, as well as the alternate builds for the model.

 

The model comes on two sprues, and a large round base is included for the model.  There is also the bag with all the various cards to be able to use it in WarCry of course.  The sprues have about 10 pieces each of them as well as the optional parts, so it isn`t the hardest of most complex of kits to put together.

 

The instructions are clear to follow, with some coloured markings where to add the glue and such for optimal construction of your big bashy bloke.

 

Finally, the cards are high quality, and contain a single card with the stats, and then the rules sheet for it's actions in 8 languages for the game.

 

A great set for sure, and WarCry kits aren`t THAT expensive at all, so it is worth picking them up if not for the game, then for other rulesystems (both GW or other, it makes an awesome giant for example) or even sheer painting fun.

Recommended little kit!

Chaos Hell Talons

Some much needed air support for my FWC Marine Corps aka Emperor's Children has arrived.

The models are 3D printed, and take the look of the Forge World full scale Hell Talon fighters for the Heretic Astartes.

Now, these where ordered at my go to guy long before I had my own printer, but the files are from Thingiverse and I think they are still on there after that website's "soft reboot" with it's update.

The models where then painted in the hefty pink and black colourscheme and ready to take the skies next time I go to the fields of battle in the Azmodov 7 campaign against Nemesis.

Just don`t know if that will be for this year...

AHPC10: Burch's Bluff: The annual pink entry

No Painting Challenge for me without entering something pink, and this year it's more reinforcements for my FWC Marine Corps / Epic 40k Chaos army.

And as such of course, they remain painted in glorious pink as the Emperor's Children keep terrorising the battlefields.

Now, in this year's challenge, there are various locations to go explore on the map, and this entry I linked to Burch's Bluff, where one needed to paint something that fits in the Warhammer 30k, better known as the Horus Heresy, setting.

A lot of these (aka, nearly all) models are 3D prints found on Thingiverse, and give a variety of vehicles and troops to the army.

Spearheading the force is the mighty Sicaran tank, a precursor to the Land Raider.  But the venerable Land Raider is of course present as well...

... as is it's mighty payload of Terminators to gorge into the enemy lines.

But I also painted up these three Knights (aka, a "Lance") of their ne Adeptus Titanicus game,  it's just a pity they upped the scale a bit, though they can now serve as more Titan scaled units in a game of Future War Commander as a result.

For scoring purposes as such, I have 9 models of infantry, and 6 basic vehicles, while for those that walk among them they are the size of a GW Fantasy figure, so I`d estimate 5 points each for those?  All that pink goodness for a nice tally of 31.5 points, adding the 30 of Burch's Bluff granting me the grande totale of 61.5 points.

For the Emperor!

The Shattering of a Legion

It is over.  The Emperor's Children have left my possession and moved to a new owner.

I have been thinkering a LONG time with the idea, for various reasons I touched upon on this blog a multitude of times in the past year.

Library sized moving for a game, constant revisions of the rules, those where just some of the reasons I got "burned out" playing Chaos Marines, combined with the fact I have been doing so for years already.  No, it was time for something else with less books and less FAQ hassle, so I decided to stick to my Battlesuits Tau force a while ago.

And now I found a new adoptive parent for the pink brigade, so three moving boxes later, they are off to a new life.  That I also didn`t need to pack them up a such for the house move or to take them to the BnB on Crisis is, well, a bonus.

And when I just couldn`t get round to painting even 5 figures in the past two months, I knew the drive for the force has ebbed away for good...


For the "history books", I fielded it in this current edition a total of 23 times (so that`s about a game a month since the edition appeared, not counting multi-players and such), of which 15 where victorious, a win ratio as such of 65% or about 2 out of every 3 battles I played, including an undefeated record in our club league.

The army gave me joy during 8th, but it had just ran it's course...

The Campaign for Azmodov 7: Break Out Phase

They had withstood, and even repelled, the initial attack.  But the brave soldiers of the Pax Arcadia knew they couldn't keep withstanding the massed ranks of Marines that kept breaking from orbit.  A true overwhelming mass was gathering on the outskirts of the cities, and soon they would begin their break out of the landing zones.  Officers at Central Command could see the legions of debauchery line up, the storm would come very soon...

The third game in our Future War Commander "Colonisation" campaign, as Nemesis and me faced off again for a battle at the club.  This time, I would command once again 3000 points, while he would have a measly 1500 points at his disposal, but the previous battle showed that is no way a sure defeat.

My forces where build around speed and transport capacity this time, as I would need to either occupy his third of the table, or even better get as many troops as possible from his table edge.  He needed to prevent this.

To that end, the Pax Arcadia force brought along a squadron of tanks, containing a mixture of crusader and medium tanks.  Foot support came in the form of conscripts and regulars, hauling around three smart missile launchers, while battery of heavy artillery loomed off table.

Turn 1

I deployed statically, and immediatly rushed as much as possible forward with my three battlegroups.  No shooting would take place for me in this turn, as his scouts where hidden deep down the field and so I pushed forward as much as I could.

Nemesis had split his force in two, as they would arrive with mobile deployment.  His tank section turned up immediatly, and blasted a Razorback and it's passengers to pieces, supported by an artillery barrage.  First blood to the Pax Arcadia!

Turn 2

However, going into the second turn, I managed to do some damage to his tank forces, but a failure to utter a single command by my HQ resulted in his centre being saved from my large guns....

His infantry section didn't show up yet, but his tanks kept my forces at arm's lenght for now, even though suppression was beginning to dim his firepower.

Turn 3

The Emperor's Children hit hard in his center this round, annihilating his tank force, and running over both his FAO, taking out his artillery as they can't return once to the game, and his HQ (but they would return in his next turn), clearing the way as units left and right started moving off the table, or positioning far out of his gunreach to do so in the following turns from their blocked los positions.
A double order didn't help him in this, and his centre as such collapsed completely, and victory was already in the grasp of the pink horde.

In his turn, Nemesis was struck as well by his commander failing to give orders, so apart from his barrage, the Pax guns remained silent...

Turn 4

As his last stragglers in the center where rounded out, the infantry section finally arrived.  While his smart missiles took out another Land Raider, a command blunder caused his troops to fall back... and the units running of the table caused his force to go over it's break point by one...

Nemesis new it was a foregone battle now, with support walkers, Land Raiders and a massive Coyote class walker bearing on him, and threw the towel.  The break out was succesfull, as the Pax Arcadia retreated, soundly beaten due to the fact his infantry showing up one turn to late to try and mount a decent defence...

The central command saw the red arrows on their screens breaking through the thin green lines all over the planet.  The invasion was in full swing, and the tide wasn't being stemmed by the meagre defences.  The overwhelming numbers just hit them to hard, slaughtering troops and civilians alike in their path... soon the cities would be reached, and Central Command must think of a way to bring the population to safety soon!

Altar of Slaanesh september update

It's been a while, but we appeared at the battlefield... and added trophies to the altar of Slaanesh!

Technically end of august for the first one, but the month ended the day after anyways though...

And that was against one of our League toprunners, Wim, and his Salamander successor chapter.  So "in memoriam" it is now contained near the pillar for eternity.

My lady has been pleased!

Emperor's Children vs Salamanders 1500 points Battle Report

It has been long enough that I have been sitting, brooding on my marble throne until some players gotten "to far out of reach" to catch up with in my TSA League.

Whining how I didn't like the game anymore and selling my army etc to make sure I didn't had to refuse challenges, this was the best way to avoid me from having any chance ending in the top spots of a league I created myself.

But now, with only 3.5 months of game time to go, in which I can get tops 5 battles in anyways, I'm somewhere in the midfield and it is time to unleash the hurricane of pinks and purples again on the contestants.

And the first in my path is a force of Salamanders, who also are fielded by one of the top league players, Wim and have some pretty ccurate shooting build with them.  Nevertheless, I'm going the way of high risk, high reward this time (yeah, a bit against my nature) and going with a heavy close combat orientated force.  Now, the list I`m taking was made to face Tau, but my opponent had to cancel last moment and Wim stepped in for a game.

Consisting of a tooled up Demon Prince, a sorcerer and Lucius for the character slots, the force also takes along some serious blocks of troops in the form of a 20 man cc squad, a squad of Noise Marines and a block of Cultists.  To add even more troops to the party are 2 units of daemonettes to be summoned to the field when and where needed, as their claws can get very nasty against battle suits.  A squad of Havocs with 2 lascannons and 2 chaincannons, and the support of a laser destroyer and a quad bolter, make me able to lay down a serious amount of covering fire as well while the force advances over the tablefield, ready to rip up some Loyalists...

Opposing me? Salamanders known for their abundance of lascannons and heavy bolters.  A Captain, an Apthecary and 2 Techmarines provided the logistics, backed by three 5 man tactical squads, three heavy bolter devastator squads, 2 dual lascannon equipped forge world dreadnoughts, a Predator with heavy bolters and autocannon, and a Xyston fighter...

The table rolled was set up nr 3, with the 9" circle in the middle, and Wim rolled the Cloak and Shaodws scenario.  I loved this, the -1 would help hopefully in my rush forward...

So the forces where deployed, and we where ready to go to war...

Turn 1

I had the first turn, and started a long run down the centre towards the enemy gunline.  I would have to pass through the central bottleneck to get there, so this might become a slaughter, or if I was lucky, would get me there swiftly.  To reinforce this rush and cause some distraction on the flanks, both units of daemonettes arrived as well.

The Salamander player chased hs airplane down his open flank, firing as it went.  He had by then lost already a small tactical squad that gained me First Blood, and his Predator had been severly damaged, but survived at 2 wounds to give his Techmarine some work on his hands.

However, his retaliation was brutal, decimating my close combat marines to only 4 models (and forcing me to use an Insane Bravery), but I rolled a 6 (for 3 points) on an Areal Denial amongst the other cards I could score, and giving me a strong 1-6 lead and outting him on the chase.

Turn 2

While my demon princess charged his airplane, a unit of daemonettes charged another of his Tactical squads.  Wim was comforted by Mike saying those daemonettes don't have much AP... so 4 rolls of 6 later...

The princess made short work of the airplane as well, boosted by Diabolical Strength (and giving me Rise to Glory).  His retaliation was not as severe in the previous turn, but the deamonettes did pay dearly.  This also meant my "oomph" was shot out of my army, but with a 1 - 8 lead, I decided to play the defence game from now on, withdraw on my own half and try to consolidate the lead.

Turn 3

That Predator had to die, not because it was so fantastically performing, but for the moral victory.  With my Havocs and Rapiers uickly decimated by the lascannons opposing me, it came down to the Noise Marines who finished the machine off.

In the centre, it where the Salamanders who where now forced to advance, and charged a unit of Cultists cowering behind a building... losing two of their number for 4 poor cultists.

With a 3 - 10 lead, I went into turn 4.  This would be do-able I guess, and Wim realised he needed good objective cards to turn this all around.

Turn 4 and 5

Continuing the waiting game, only Lucius charged forward, out to get to grips with a Techpriest after the Salamanders had destroyed the Noise Marines last turn.  Albeit at the expense of some wounds on his characters.  In close combat, the master duelist finished the wounded guy off swiftly as a result... and consolidated right towards his general (in front of stacks of lascannons...)

Wim threw the towel at this point, only playing his turn to nuke Lucius for some mental comfort "as his 5th turn"...

And the game ended at turn 4 / 5, with a 4 - 11 win for the Emperor's Children!

Victory to Slaanesh and another relic for my Altar.  In what was an odd going battle, looking at the table it was like I was constantly being hammered, and in a way that was as such.  But I had far more luck then Wim on the draw, and the gap I created in points in the first two turns meant I only needed to make sure to have at least one survivor at the end of the game....

Great game!