Comm-link Guard, More Sorting, and Finding More Work

 

I've finished assembling the comm-link troops I need for my Imperial Guard update. I'm not painting these immediately as I've got Too Much On right now, but they'll be an easy quick paint job in a free moment.

While searching my boxes for plasma gunners I found that I actually had one more than I thought I had. After I'd bought a metal Cadian plasma gunner from eBay as an inferior substitute, obviously. At least it was before I'd painted things.

As a first pass of getting these ready for undercoat, I dropped them into a sonic cleaner bath with hot water and washing up liquid. This didn't get much paint off, but did clear off the basing sand and broke down the basing glue enough to get them separated easily. Next step will be an acetone bath, but I need to find a good container for that so awful fumes and stuff don't make my tiny flat sad.

On the subject of making me sad, I found three more baskets of part finished projects that need sorting. Oh bother. I haven't even fully gone through this basket. There's a couple of Inquisitors in Terminator armour that need a little more assembly and can then go in a box, much like the Comm-link Guard I just finished.

There's a bunch of Deathwatch repairs in another tray. This should be one of the easier jobs on the "to do" list.

There's also a tray of "stuff that's difficult to fit in things" that need putting away. I should do that. I have put away two trays of minis already, but that heart warming feeling of tidying up isn't particularly photogenic for blogging purposes.

I got a little more base coating done on the Conquest Druid. It's not a finished thing, but it's progress.

In the coming week I have my Infinity campaign game and the finale of our 40K campaign as well. That might mean I don't get a huge amount of hobby done, but we'll see how it goes.

Astra Militarum 10th Edition Plans

 

With the new Astra Militarum Codex released for 10th edition, I needed to take stock of my Guard army and work out what I'm doing. While I had a short period of considering selling them off entirely, I've enjoyed playing them in the club campaign, so decided to get them up to spec for the new edition.

Setting myself the rule of "use what you already have wherever possible", I've come up with the following starting list:

Astra Militarum - Combined Arms

Strike Force (2000 Points)

CHARACTERS

Cadian Command Squad (80 Points)

     ◦ Enhancements: Reactive Command

Commissar (40 Points)

  • Enhancements: Death Mask of Ollanius

Gaunt’s Ghosts (110 Points)

Ministorum Priest (35 Points)

Primaris Psyker (60 Points)

Sly Marbo (55 Points)

BATTLELINE

Cadian Shock Troops (65 Points)

Cadian Shock Troops (65 Points)

DEDICATED TRANSPORTS

Chimera (85 Points)

OTHER DATASHEETS

2 x Armoured Sentinels (130 Points)

Armoured Sentinels (65 Points)

Basilisk (140 Points)

Cadian Heavy Weapons Squad (65 Points)

Cadian Heavy Weapons Squad (65 Points)

Hellhound (125 Points)

Hellhound (125 Points)

Hydra (95 Points)

Leman Russ Executioner (170 Points)

Manticore (165 Points)

5 x Ratlings (60 Points)

5 x Ratlings (60 Points)

10 x Tempestus Scions (140 Points)

There's a handful of things that need fixing here. The two "Cadian" (Tallarn) squads and command squad still have heavy weapons, so they're gaining three plasma guns and three comm-links. With a mix of bits from eBay and existing stash, I've started putting the latter together. The plasma guns will be a later update...

Beyond that, I had Sly Marbo and Gaunt's Ghosts in my stash needing assembly, so I've dug those out. One of the Hellhounds and five of the Ratlings are also currently without paint, so they're going in the queue.

Quite a lot of my older tanks don't have sponsons and so on, so by and large I'm taking that as an opportunity to sell them, and buying new tanks to paint up to my new skills / standard. I'm not buying anything new for the Guard outside of fixing the squad load outs until the test list is painted. I'm pretty sure it's lacking in armour and anti-tank, and a Rogal Dorn tank is pretty high on the purchase list once this lot is done, but I reckon given the move and other projects, this is plenty to be getting on with...

Warhammer 40K vs Chaos Daemons

"Captain, you don't have the instructions."

"Oh, I read them on the way here, it's fine."

"Are you sure, sir?"

"Oh, absolutely, I just need to pull this lever here..."

The stomachs of every member of the Tallarn XVI turned in the same moment. Primaris Washdraft screamed, then threw up. Looking around, the air shimmering, they looked on in horror as swarms of strange twisted creatures stepped out into space.

Perhaps accepting a "simple routine maintenance operation" for the Necrons on their pylon technology was a little higher risk than it first appeared . . . especially when your CO thinks that reading instructions is for chumps...

Pushing forward, a hail of fire from the Guard vehicles blew away most of a Bloodletter squad.

But worryingly, swarms of demons started materialising behind the Guard lines.

The Manticore and the Guard squad opened fire on a some Bloodletters, leaving only a handful of survivors.

The Hellhound incinerated a squad of Flesh Hounds, taking some pressure off.

The daemonic cavalry charges into the Leman Russ, carving into the armour.

The bigger, slower moving daemonic troops started bearing down on the Guard.

The Guard reserves, two squads of Militarum Tempestus, grav-chuted in and opened fire on the Pink Horrors holding one of the objectives.

One squad charged in while the other failed to make the charge...

The squad who failed their charge didn't have long to regret it, as a Skull cannon shot most of them down before charging in and wiping out the remainder.

The Soul Grinder charged into the Guard squad.

It. Um. Didn't go well for the Guard.

The daemonic cavalry charged into the remaining troops, cutting them down.

It wasn't long before the handful of remaining troops from the expedition were cut down, but as they fell, the daemonic incursion started to fade. The Guard had held them off long enough for the objective points to be tied, making the game a draw.

Warhammer 40,000 Crusade Battle Report: Astra Militarum vs Adeptus Mechanicus

 

The campaign continues...

The Tallarn "Seventeenth" picked a quiet looking planet to 'invade' to try and get some level of redemption for their absolutely terrible showing in the campaign so far. Unfortunately, their efforts to find an isolated spot to set up a base were interrupted by having picked a spot a lost force of Skitarii were searching to try and find some kind of radio to communicate with their higher ups.

We were playing a custom mission, with multiple locations to search for the "real" objective with a dice roll. You could score any objective before the real objective was found, but the moment the real objective was found, that was the only point to score.

Of course, the Skitarii immediately found their radio on the objective on the furthest left flank, that was hardest for my troops to reach...

In the centre, the Leman Russ Executioner sought to take out the Skitarii transport to stop it reinforcing the main objective.

While the Hellhound put the hurt on the Skitarii holding the objectives, the Armoured Sentinels tried to take some wounds off the the Onager Dunecrawler.

In the centre, my disgraced commander managed to prove himself to his troops by holding the centre for a brief moment before being absolutely wrecked by killer servitors.

The right flank was over-run by Rust Stalkers killing everyone in sight.

While the Hellhound was attacked by a Mechanicus walker, it wasn't able to cause much damage.

As the Onager's super death ray thing picked off one tank at a time, the walker fled fighting the Hellhound to charge into the Sentinels that were bullying the surviving Skitarii, and managed to swing the fight in favour of the Mechanicus.

With few Guard survivors, but honour restored to a couple of disgraced units, the Astra Militarum withdrew from the field, leaving the Skitarii delighted to have finally recovered a working radio...

Warhammer 40,000 Crusade Battle Report: Astra Militarum vs Dark Angels (Watchers of the Fall)

 

The Tallarn XVI, concerned their Necron 'landlords' might be a bit upset about them losing a whole bunch of Necron territory, decided to go on the offensive, while staying on the Necron home planet. Unfortunately for the Tallarn, they ended up running into a bunch of angry looking Dark Angels ?Successors? coming the other way...

This mission was all about seizing some objectives, and the Dark Angel bikes were quick and effective at doing so, with the Guard on the defensive.

They also had a Vindicator for close support, which ended up covering one of the objectives and heavily damaging the Tallarn Chimera.

The Hellhound swept up to counter attack, causing a chunk of damage but not really finishing anything off.

Near the Hellhound, the Deathwatch arrived to counter its advance.

While the Infantry squad piled out of the Chimera to take the objective.

The counter-attack from the assault squad was swift and merciless...

Bikes poured onto the Guard squad holding the central objective...

The Terminators neutralised the Hellhound...

And it wasn't long before the Guard positions were over-whelmed, with the Manticore getting charged and taken out by the bike squad. In the end, while I'd scored a few points holding objectives (my best result so far) it was a 100-30 loss, with every Guard unit lost. I took three Battle Scars, paying for one to be removed immediately to prevent it wrecking a unit, but leaving the others on for the next game...

40K Reclamation of Orberus Crusade - The Defence of Python IV

 

I've signed up for a Crusade campaign at my club, Hackney Area Tabletop Enthusiasts. We were slightly distracted by our usual venue, Bethnal Green Working Men's Club, being closed for some renovations. So, my opponent and I booked a table at The Arcanist's Tavern.

The Arcanist's Tavern is a new venue that has a few wargaming tables, a few D&D tables, and some tables for board games. They serve food and drink and I will definitely be going again.

I'm continuing the narrative of my old Astra Militarum, as the Tallarn XVI, fed up of constant victimisation by dubious Inquisitors, went to hide out on a Necron held planet. To avoid consequences, they've drawn an extra I onto the unit insignia to masquerade as the Tallarn XVII. Hiding among the mind shackled Guard, they found themselves under attack by another Guard regiment believing them working for the Necrons.

My force has quite a lot of tanks for its size, and my opponent was running a massive wave of infantry guard. The mission narrative was that we were fighting under horrible Necron pylons, so you had to try and hold territory and pass battleshock tests near the objectives.

The infantry advanced towards the Tallarn lines using the buildings and ruins as cover. Their lasguns started off outranged as artillery and tank shells took some pretty heavy chunks out of of their lines, but there were still a huge number closing in...

A large Cadian squad turned the corner to advance on the objective I was guarding with a Hellhound...

And a savvy Inferno Cannon gunner pulled off an overwatch shot to absolutely ruin the day of the squad in question...

That absolutely terrified the infantry guard and they poured all their fire into the Hellhound, desperately trying to take it out. It ended up holding together on a single wound due to a round of very lucky armour save.

Even a charge into the Hellhound didn't manage to take it out!

The Hellhound burned the attacking infantry to a crisp, but left a single officer alive. My nearby infantry squad charged in and cut him down. In turn, the Hellhound was finally taken out, while the infantry were badly shot up.

I needed to pass a Battleshock test to score . . . and completely failed to. I'd three different sources of rerolls, but could only use one, and just rolled absolute garbage. I could have auto-passed, but thought I'd be fine with the reroll and wanted to save my command point... The Commissar could end the Battleshock by shooting a surviving Guardsman, but that didn't count for the purposes of scoring . . . oh well.

Meanwhile, my Manticore and Leman Russ Executioner smushed a guard squad to a fine paste. The Enginseer survived and ducked behind a building to start looting Blackstone shards. With experience for kills, and narratively, wanting to please the local Necrons who were tolerating our existence, I lobbed a barrage of Storm Eagle rockets onto the poor Enginseer.

Meanwhile, a tide of Catachan crashed into my other infantry squad.

The Demolisher drove off to get blown up elsewhere, but the psyker stayed alive, cutting down Catachan left and right, but ending the fight in a bloody stalemate.

The Executioner got charged, but there just wasn't quite enough violence to take it out before the battle was over - but the loyal Guard had taken the field, winning the game overall 45-5...