The Fight Before Christmas

Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring apart from the twisted mutant spawn of Chaos intent on corrupting and entire planet if not stopped by the noble Astartes of the Astral Claws who would never have any truck with that Chaos nonsense, no sir!

So, Matt and I arranged to play a game of 5th edition 40k, giving him a chance to use the small Chaos force he has assembled from his Combat Patrol magazine subscription.

For my part I chose to give my Astral Claws a run out as it would allow me to field some units that I hadn't used yet.

The scenario we rolled up would be 'Capture & Control' which meant we'd be fighting over two objectives, one in each deployment zone.

The objectives in question were the building in the lower left and the ruins in the top right. Only troop choices would be able to hold objectives which presented me with an advantage as Matt's army was limited by the models he had available.

Having said that, we picked out armies before rolling up the scenario and Matt had to bend the rules a touch to include 3 HQ units due to a lack of alternatives.

Matt's Chaos Space Marines

Matt hasn't yet named his Chaos Legion, although he has specifically chosen to avoid being obviously linked to one of the well known Chapters or have colours particularly associated with a specific Chaos power.

HQ

Daemon Prince with Wings

Chaos Lord (Daemon Weapon & Jump Pack)

Chaos Sorcerer

Elite

Chaos Dreadnought (Multi-melta, Power Fist)

Troops

5 Chaos Legionnaires (Bolters)

5 Chaos Legionnaires (Bolters, Meltagun, Plasma Pistol)

Heavy

5 Havocs (Plasma Pistol, 2 Autocannon, 1 Lascannon, 1 Missile Launcher)

Matt positioned one squad of Legionnaires to hold his objective, whilst the Chaos Sorcerer led the others on the attack. The Havocs, Chaos Lord and Daemon Prince were positioned in the centre. The Dreadnought was out on the flank just in case it started attacking its allies.

My Astral Claws

I opted to go for my Astral Claws as even though I had more to choose from that Matt, the disparity was not so great as with my Blood Angels.

HQ

Captain in Terminator Armour (Lightning Claw, Combi-Flamer)

Elites

5 Terminators (Storm Bolter, Power Fist)

Troops

10 Tactical Marines (Bolters, Flamer, Heavy Bolter)

10 Tactical Marines (Bolters, Meltagun, Missile Launcher)

Rhino (Storm Bolter)

Fast Attack 

3 Space Marine Bikers (Power Sword, Meltagun)

Heavy

Predator (Autocannon, Lascannon sponsons)

I split one of my Tactical squads into combat squads to give me more flexibility in defending the objective. The Predator and Bikes were placed centrally as a firebase and mobile reserve.

On the other flank, the second Tactical squad was deployed in it's Rhino to launch an attack on the enemy objective, with the Captain and Terminators lumbering up in support.

Turn 1

After I inevitably failed to steal the initiative, Matt took the first turn and with a lack of viable targets to shoot at, much of the Chaos army surged forwards.

On my right flank, the Rhino and Terminators followed suit, whilst on the left one of the combat squads moved to be able to shoot when the Chaos troops got into range.

There was sporadic shooting from Havocs and the Predator, but in an ominous portent of what was to unfold, no damage was caused, implying that this battle would be fought up close.

Turn 2

In a move that actually surprised me, the Daemon Prince and Chaos Lord slammed into the Terminators, who, in a display of impressive saving throws, withstood the impact and won the combat. 

Meanwhile, the Havocs repositioned to be able to pour fire on the Tactical Squad which was bearing down in the temple in their Rhino, dismounting into cover.

On the other flank, the Chaos Dreadnought was slowed by stopping to fire in its own troops, but the Chaos Sorcerer push his squad forward into the teeth of the Astral Claws line, but somehow only took a single casualty from the hail of fire that rained down on them.

Turn 3

After weathering the storm, the Sorcerer's squad charged into the combat squad in front of them, cutting down all but one, who fell back.

However,the second combat squad and Bikers were lying in waiting and after pouring in Bolter an Melta fire, charged in to finish off the threat of Matt's army capturing my objectives.

Meanwhile, after the Havocs somehow failed to do anything other than destroy the Storm Bolter on the Rhino, the Tactical Squad continued to use it as cover for their advance on the temple, where the second squad of Chaos Marines lurked in hiding.

The fight between the Terminators and the Chaos heavy hitters had lasted for four rounds and seen the destruction of the Daemon Prince, Space Marine Captain and most of the Terminators.

Somehow, a single Terminator remained standing, his inevitable sacrifice enough to keep the Chaos Lord out of the main fight for another turn 

Turn 4

Late to the party, the Chaos Dreadnought lumbered into view of the objective. If it could get just a little closer, it could deny me the objective, even though it couldn't capture it.

Determined to do what they could to slow it down, the Biker drove forwards to firm a screen that would hopefully serve as a speed bump.

However, a speculative Meltagun blast managed to bring the beast down and freeing up the Bikers to join the fight elsewhere.

The Havocs finally destroyed the Rhino, but the Tactical Squad had reached it's objective and it would be down to the outnumbered Chaos Marines to drive them off.

Turn 5

In the centre, the Predator and Havocs had been playing cat and mouse so much that they'd had very little impact on the whole game.

Throwing caution to the wind, the Havocs finally advanced to the top of the hill, risking the Predator in the hope of getting another turn to rain fire on my objective.

However, fate smiled on them when a lucky plasma shot stunned the crew, and then their leader swooped in to inflict more damage in the hope of using the additional move of a charge to get it withing strike range of the enemy.

In the shadow of the temple, the Chaos Marines did the only thing they could and charged, hoping that their greater number of attacks might break the Astral Claws and drive them off.

It disn't, and their fate was sealed when no further turns were rolled, leaving the Chaos Lord and Havocs stranded in the centre, unable to do any more.

Final Score: Astral Claws 1 - Chaos Marines 0

This was a fun game. Despite Matt's lack of troops, the game was very balanced and had the fight between the Terminators and Chaos characters been resolved quicker, one of my flanks might have had more on their plate than they could handle.

My Bikes proved to be really useful, especially as a mobile reserve, and swing the fight around my objective. Meanwhile, the Predator was totally inconsequential, cursed by an inability to hit or wound.

Similarly, the Chaos Dreadnought was a bit of a liability and its erratic behaviour meant Matt couldn't coordinate his attack and so his units were destroyed piecemeal.

Matt's Combat Patrol journey isn't over, and so the next time these armies face off against each other, I'll probably end up getting chopped to pieces by a screaming horde of Khorne Berserkers.

Which will be nice.

Happy Christmas!

Bringing a Tank to a Gunfight

This weekend, our little gaming group decided to play some small games of 5th edition 40k at 500 points a piece.

We've been playing some three-way 500 points games using a scenario that was found fir just such an occasion, but now Wes has jumped into the retro 40k pit with us, it was a chance for something a bit different.

Naturally, as I've just finished them off, I opted to run my Astral Claws as vanilla Space Marines, and as I've been busy printing, I also decided to be 'that guy' and bring a tank.

My army list was as follows:

• Librarian
• 10 Tactical Marines (Flamer & Missile Launcher)
• 3 Bikes (Power Sword & Meltagun)
• Vindicator

I appreciate that the Vindicator might seem to be a somewhat over-powered selection, but in my defence, it does have a really massive gun.

Game 1 vs Pete's Space Wolves

I've been on the receiving end of Pete's Fenrisians in other editions, so I knew what to expect. He would cross the table quickly and try to rip my face off.

Fortunately, he'd only brought one unit with jump packs and no vehicles, meaning that I should have time to thin them down, in a direct role reversal from when my Blood Angels play his Alpha Legion in 30k.

To the best of my memory, his army was:

• Wolf Priest
• 8 Grey Hunters
• 7 Blood Claws (Power Fist)
• 5 Skyclaws (Jump Packs, Power Fist)

He was as delighted as you'd imagine to discover that he'd be charging down the barrel of my Vindicator and so set about hugging cover as much as he could, sending the Blood Claws and Wolf Priest down my left, the Grey Hunters down the centre and the Skyclaws screaming down my right.

Unfortunately for Pete, Vindicators can fire indirectly and I scored a lucky hit on the Blood Claws, killing all but two of them.

The Skyclaws ploughed into the Tactical Combat Squad I'd left Manning the ruin, winning the fight but failing to break my unit.

In return, I charged in the second Combat Squad that I'd pulled back from the advancing Blood Claws. Accompanied by the Force Sword wielding Librarian, they made short work of the Space Wolf assault troops and steadied the line.

With the Wolf Priest and remaining Blood Claws isolated by my Bikes refusing the flank, the Grey Hunters were left to assault my line alone.

The Grey Hunters bravely charged in and killed several Astral Claws, and drove the Librarian back. 

However this was somewhat of a phyrric victory as they were much reduced and then counter-charged from both sides and cut down where they stood.

Although Pete still had troops on the table, we decided to end the game as he would not be able to kill enough of my units in the time remaining, handing victory to the Astral Claws.

Game 2 vs Matt's Biel-Tan Eldar

Matt made the decision last year to invest in a subscription to Combat Patrol magazine, and this is eventually going to start quite a few new armies, including the Eldar.

His army used pretty much everything he's painted so far:

• Farseer
• 10 Guardians
• 5 Jetbikes
• Wraithlord

Matt had given Wes's Imperial Guard a torrid time using hit and run tactics and this game began in much the same vein until I once again managed to score an indirect hit on the Jetbikes, killing three of them.

I'd also managed to race my Bikes forward to savage the Guardians in close combat and they were now free to harry the Eldar rear.

It should be pointed out that I had benefitted from some atrocious Eldar shooting, with the Wraithlord's Brightlance, guided by the Farseer, repeatedly missing the Vindicator and the Jetbikes' Shuriken weapons failing to significantly dent power armoured Marines.

With the Guardians killed, the Bikes were conveniently placed to charge in and kill the Farseer, robbing Matt of his leader.

Although the Bikes were now fair game for the Wraithlord, it could not stop the Jetbikes being forced into the open where they were destroyed by Bolter fire, winning the game for the Astral Claws.

All in all, a successful night and a chance to field some units that I hadn't used yet.

However, I suspect that the next time we do this there might be a few more tanks in attendance.

Tank You and Goodnight

As much as any project is ever finished, I've come to the end of my endeavours in the Badab War and my Astral Claws are 'complete' for now.

Unable to attend the final few events due to distance, money and prior commitments, I will admit that I lost a lot of my motivation.

I have, however mustered up the energy to finish off my last model.

This Predator is another 3d print from the same designer as the Rhino and Vindicator, and as such the main chassis printed well and was easy to assemble.

I ran into issues with the weaponry. I probably should have printed these with the smaller nozzle as the 0.4mm nozzle doesn't really capture the detail massively well.

Additionally, I probably angled the Lascannons badly and so they are not great if you look too closely. Were I to print another of these, I might ask Matt or Pete to do the smaller parts on a resin printer.

Painting was once again done in an extremely simple way to match the rest of the army and transfers were added for simple detailing.

The turret is mobile but I've glued the sponsor weapons rather than magnetising them as I can't see a situation where having them move is entirely necessary.

All in all I'm happy with the outcome of this model as it rounds out my army, adds some necessary heavy firepower and allowed me to test the limits of the 0.4mm nozzle which will help future prints.

Is it the best vehicle I own? No. Does it matter? Also no.

With a bit of moving around in terms of what things count as, that takes me to roughly 1500 points of 'Chaos' Marines should the urge to play 10th edition take me.

I've also scratched an itch I've had to build an army for the Badab War since I got into this hobby. If an opportunity for more scenario play comes again, I can add more to it.

But for now, they're done.

Acquired: -79

Painted: 179

Lead Mountain: 394

Vindicated

After printing and painting the free Rhino STL a couple of weeks ago, I went back to look at what the same 'creator' had available and picked up the STL for a Vindicator and a Predator.

I began with the Vindicator as I suspect that the sponsons and other elements of a Predator might be problematic.

I also took the opportunity to slightly change the print settings and went with 'optimal' rather than 'standard' with a smaller layer height. I'm trying to get the balance right between print quality and speed.

I think I might have hit the jackpot as this setting has much less noticeable layer lines whilst not upping the print time very much. This was useful as there was more to print, including the dozer blade, turret hatch and camera thing for the top.

I might try the next setting up for printing a Predator just to see if there are more small gains to be made. Additionally, I'll probably switch to the 0.2 mm nozzle for the top elements as they don't take long and a couple of other bits I printed didn't really work.

Painting was done simply and imitated what I'd already done for the Rhino, with only minor changes based on the slightly different details.

I am a torch worried that the big blue expanse on the dozer blade needs something adding to it, but until I know exactly what, I'm going to leave it alone.

I almost stuffed up applying transfers because I was repeatedly too impatient and came close to destroying the two large lion heads. A lesson in patience helped me to fix my own mess.

I also took the opportunity to use a couple of the additional bits I'd printed to improve my Rhino with turret hatches and a pintle mounted storm bolter.

In order to get them to sit flush I had to clip and fil the protruding elements and found out that PLA does not clean up easily. I might need to invest in something like a Dremel if I plan to do more of this.

All in all, the 3d printer is really coming into its own with vehicles, something which has significant implications for most of my 40k armies.

Acquired: -95

Painted: 161

Lead Mountain: 393

Production Lines

As I ran out of miniatures to paint for my Astral Claws, it became simultaneously apparent that it was extremely unlikely that I would be able to attend any of the remaining campaign events.

This had a massive impact on my desire to spend much more money on an army unlikely to see massive amounts of table time.

However, this did open up an opportunity to test how well my FDM printer could handle vehicles other than ramshackle Ork constructions.

I've started with a Rhino which is a free file available on one of the well-known sharing platforms. I printed it using the 0.4mm nozzle and standard settings as using the smaller nozzle had a ridiculously high print time.

The Rhino printed in three pieces and is hollow inside and there were no issues with the print, although getting the supports out of the racks was a bit fiddly.

When it came to painting, I kept things as simple as I have done with the whole Astral Claws army. Spray silver, wash black, dry brush silver. Add blue bits (gloss varnished) and gold details (Agrax wash) and then finish off with the lights.

I limited the amount of transfers on the model as I am trying to avoid buying a new sheet and there aren't many big flat spaces on the model.

Overall, I'm happy with this little experiment although I do have to admit that the layer lines are very much visible and this is no match for one of the plastic kits.

However, given that I'm not trying to paint this army to anything other than tabletop standard, from 3 feet away the Rhino looks fine and cost significantly less than the RRP of a standard Rhino.

I'm going to go the 3d printed route for a few more vehicles for this army, a decision that is helped by the same creator having a couple more vehicles in the same style (the Astral Claws made heavy use of the Rhino chassis apparently).

This experience has helped me to decide that I probably won't print any additional vehicles for my Blood Angels as I want to keep my armies consistent. Where I actually buy more for them remains to be seen.

Acquired: -97
Painted: 150
Lead Mountain: 406

Sic Semper Tyrannis

I know I said I was going to start working on some vehicles for my Astral Claws, but two things got in the way.

Firstly, I don't currently have any Space Marine vehicles to build and paint, which, as I'm sure you'll admit, is an issue.

Secondly, I had such a good time kitbashing my Ork Skorcha, I decided to continue on this theme by using the only Marine miniatures that I currently have unpainted: the Space Hulk Terminators. And the only Terminator armoured miniature that I had plans to add to my army was Lugft Huron, the Tyrant of Badab himself.

You may be wondering why I've decided to kitbash my warlord rather than search out the rather excellent out of print resin miniature that was produced by Forge World.

Well, my reasons are threefold: I wanted my version of Huron to scale well with the Space Hulk Terminators; I wanted a model that could conceivably work as a more generic captain as well; I currently using both of my kidneys.

However, the Forge World mini is firmly based on, what I believe to be, the only official piece of art of Huron as the Tyrant of Badab. Therefore I turned to this image for inspiration.

The key features were the Heavy Flamer and Lightning Claw, the back banner and Iron Halo, a loin cloth and the raise lions on his shoulder pads.

In terms of painting, I'd need to increase the amount of blue I used on the armour compared to rest of the Terminators, and make sure that there was plenty of gold to help him stand out from the crowd.

When it came to building the model, I was able to equip him correctly, although technically the weapons are in the wrong hands and the Heavy Flamer is the wrong pattern.

The Lightning Claw was constructed by adding Mk VI claw blades to the Power Fist, whilst the Iron Halo was trimmed from a Blood Angels helmet (the accessories on his belt also came from the same upgrade sprue). The loincloth is a trimmed bit of flag. A small Bretonnian shield was added to his shoulder to hide the small gap created by posing his arm a bit more widely spread.

The only thing I couldn't replicate were the ornate shoulder pads, but I can live with that.

When it came to painting I used the same simple methods as I have with all of my Astral Claws, although I did have to wrestle with the dregs of a can of Army Painter Gun Metal Primer, which I absolutely do not recommend. I've had it for years and it's been a really problematic paint in terms of thickness and coverage - I'd just run out of my more reliable Colour Forge spray.

I used more blue on the weapon arms as shown in the illustration and set about adding a bit of bling. Basically, anything that I'd painted bone on the other Terminators became gold along with the helmet and the Iron Halo. The idea was to evoke the illustration on a model that doesn't have the same amount of trim.

Transfers were added, but the Maelstrom Warders symbol on his knee was freehanded as I was out of transfers that size.

All in all I'm really pleased with how he's turned out. He scales appropriately with my army and has enough to clearly mark him out as a HQ choice.

However, by being my own conversion it means that he doesn't have to be Huron in the next campaign event if someone else has the official model.

In game I'll be using the profile for the Chaos Lord in Terminator Armour with a Combi Weapon and Exalted Weapon. Although there is a Huron Blackheart profile, I can't really use that as he's not in Terminator Armour and therefore can't join the Tyrant's Shield (his bodyguard unit) in game.

I'm now well on my way towards 1500 points, which seems likely to be the next benchmark in the campaign.

Acquired: -84
Painted: 59
Lead Mountain: 514

Easy Riders?

Since the Badab War event at Warhammer World in February, I haven't done much with my Astral Claws.

Partly this was to do with focussing on other projects, but mainly it was to do with the series of mishaps an missteps which occured as I tried to put together this little lot.

These are Iron Hunters, Astral Claws bikers and one of the only fast moving of Assault troops that feature in the Tyrant's Legion army list.

I had two bikers already that came with a lot I bought that included a Dreadnought and a Land Speeder (both of which I've painted up previously). Unfortunately, this does not constitute a unit under 10th edition rules and one but was missing a bolter.

Therefore, I popped onto eBay and bid for a lot of five bikes. I've never had too much trouble with eBay purchases and so a quick glance at the (looking back, suspiciously poor) image told me that I should be able to put together a unit of six bikes with a bit of work.

I was wrong.

When they arrived I discovered that they were an absolute mess. They had been assembled so poorly that I can only imagine it was done on purpose.

The screens for the handlebars were glued almost flat to the front wheels, some bolters were back to front, others were just normal bolters (complete with handles) stuck on top, one wheel had be assembled with half of it inside out.

Then there was the paint, which was called on so thick that entire helmets had been smoothed over.

I set about trying to salvage what I could, but they had also been put together with gallons of poly-cement, which meant nothing was shifting without a struggle, and try as I might (with Biostrip and Dettol), I couldn't clear clumps of paint.

The one bright point was discovering that hidden within the mess were three metal biker bodies: a sergeant with a Power Sword, a Marine with a Meltagun and a Marine with a Plasma Gun.

Ultimately, I was able to salvage just a single bike from the mess and replace the rider of one I already had with the Sergeant. Even then, the Meltagun guy's bike is really chewed up in places.

I've managed to get it good enough for tabletop use and so I now have a, smaller than planned, unit of Iron Hunters to harass my enemy's flanks, something the Powersword, Meltagun and jazzy banner (Chaos Icon) will help with.

This was a frustrating process as the rest of the sludge encrusted crap had to go in the bin. I will add another three bikes (including a Plasma Gun) to this unit, but I need a break from them and to find some I can assemble myself.

Whilst I was doing all this, I took the opportunity to make a couple of adjustments to some models I'd already painted.

My Aspiring Champion's base needed finishing and one of the Terminators needed to not have a Power Fist, because I already have three and Chaos doesn't like uniformity. I've also decided that all power weapons in the army will be done with Nihilakh Oxide over white, so both models got that treatment.

The Lightning Claw came from the Mark VI Marine sprues from the Horus Heresy, and it was a simple enough kitbash to do that I'm now tempted to use one of my spare Space Hulk Terminators to cobble together my own version of Lugft Huron.

Putting together the Iron Hunters means that I've now reached a bit of a milestone in my Badab War project as I can now field a 1000 point army of Astral Claws.

Admittedly, due to the bikes debacle, I'm having to put some Goliaths in as the Renegade Marauders (Cultists) that were drafted in by Huron as a desperate measure (seems appropriate), but it is a fully playable army:

• Corpsetaker Apothecary (Dark Apostle)
• 5 Tyrant's Shield (Chaos Terminators)
• 10 Legion Cohort (Chaos Legionaries)
• 10 Legion Cohort (Chaos Legionaries)
• 10 Renegade Marauders (Cultist Mob)
• 5 Devastator Marines (Havocs)
• 3 Iron Hunters (Chaos Bikers)
• 1 Dreadnought (Hellbrute)

As I said, I'm tempted to put Lugft Huron together, but I'm also considering bringing in some heavy Support vehicles. However, I am trying to limit cost on this project, so I may just continue to add some really crappy infantry and use the Space Hulk Terminators to make a second unit.

We'll have to see.

Acquired: 82
Painted: 55
Lead Mountain: 520

Badaboom!

And so I took myself back down to Warhammer World for a second day of playing Combat Patrol as part of the Badab War narrative event run by Arbitor Ian's YouTube channel.

The war was heating up and things were about to explode...well the game sizes and turn lengths were, at any rate.

The second day saw me being involved in two four player games, essentially using the doubles format, with scenarios reflecting specific actions in the Badab War.

Despite liking the game so far, I'm not sure how well Combat Patrol doubles up in this way as we came across a few rules interactions which became a bit too powerful when applied to two armies at the same time.

However, fun was had nonetheless.

Game 4 - The Vyaniah Raids

The secessionist world of Vyaniah was a hub of shipping for the war efford, defended by the Astral Claws, and as such became the target of  raids by the loyalist forces. But the Astral Claws were not the only defenders, and the raids were hampered by the emergence of a new threat - the Tyrant’s Legion!

This game saw my Astral Claws defending the Vyaniah orbital defence batteries against a raiding force of my old nemeses the Minotaurs and the Howling Griffons.

To bolster the lines I was joined by the somewhat numerous Tyrant's Legion who had the benefit of a scenario rule that allowed their destroyed units come back on from reserve.

Therefore the defending forces under the command of myself and Clarkie were:

Astral Claws

Corpsetaker Apothecary and 2 Servitors
10 Tactical Marines
5 Devastator Marines
Dreadnought

Tyrant's Legion

Command Squad

10 Shock Troops

10 Shock Troops 

Field Ordnance Battery

Armoured Sentinel

However, intent on overrunning our positions were the somewhat familiar forces controlled by Andrew and Will, who I had played yesterday.

Minotaurs

Captain in Gravis Armour 

3 Bladeguard Veterans 

5 Helblasters

10 Intercessors

Howling Griffons

Captain in Terminator Armour

Librarian in Terminator Armour

5 Terminators 

5 Infernus Marines

The Loyalists had the first turn and advanced upon our lines and the Minotaurs' Helblasters somewhat predictably started to bully my Devastators as they had yesterday.

Return fire on our following turn did reduce their effectiveness, but I remain somewhat traumatised that across two games Andrew didn't fail a single hazardous check for his plasma guns.

On our right my Dreadnought and melee troops advanced towards a rematch with the Minotaurs' Bladeguard.

The second turn saw Clarkie use a strategem which slowed the enemy advanced and stopped them charging. This is the one that felt a bit too powerful in a larger game as it affected both enemy forces and benefitted me significantly in a way no other strategem could.

However, Will brought his Terminators in anyway, but these were in the mid-table area as we had used our numerical advantage to screen out our deployment zone.

Withe the enemy unable to charge, the Astral Claws took full advantage and the Dreadnought ploughed into a squad of Intercessors, obliterating them, whilst the Corpsetaker and his compatriots brought down the Minotaurs' Captain and braced for the counter charge from the Bladeguard.

However, when it came, the Dreadnought was able to use a heroic intervention to get into combat, but could not stop the Corpsetaker from being killed.

Meanwhile, on the other flank, a thin silver line of Tactical Marines took heavy casualties from the Infernus Marines, but served to hold up the advance towards our deployment zone.

Eventually, the Terminators were able to charge and drive back the Shock Troops, but could not capture the objective due to clever use of a flag.

Ultimately, the Loyalists couldn't close the gap that had been caused by the Tyrant's Legion (Astra Militarum) secondary objective which allowed us to score points for keeping the enemy out of our deployment zone.

Again, this felt a bit much as usually they would be holding the line with squishy humans rather than power armoured Space Marines, and so it felt like Will and Andrew had walked into a perfect storm.

Secessionists 51 - Loyalists 35

Game 5 - The Fall of Surngraad

The Raptors’ taking of the fortress of Surngraad was a stroke of tactical genius. Raptors forces were landed hundreds of km away from the 

fortress, and marchd through frozen blizzards to take the defenders unawares. The Astral Claws garrison was misdirected and confused, and 

once the Raptors took the citadel, their allies in the Salamanders could teleport heavy assault elements in to finish the job.

Once again on the defensive, I was joined by some Astral Claws veterans (in every sense of the word, there were some extremely old models in play) commanded by Nathan.

The scenario saw Ben's Raptors trying to capture an objective to allow Simon's Salamanders to teleport in and catch in a vice.

The Secessionist forces defending the citadel, and spread out as much as possible to prevent shenanigans, were as follows:

Astral Claws Garrison

Corpsetaker Apothecary and 2 Servitors
10 Tactical Marines
5 Devastator Marines
Dreadnought

Astral Claws Veterans

Captain in Terminator Armour

Librarian in Terminator Armour

5 Terminators 

5 Infernus Marines

Meanwhile the infiltrating enemy force that began the game consisted of:

Raptors Infiltrators

Captain in Terminator Armour

Librarian in Terminator Armour

5 Terminators 

5 Infernus Marines

However, the attack got of to a somewhat limp start as after lighting up the Dreadnought and dropping it to just two wounds, both the Terminators (with the Librarian) and the Terminator Captain failed to charge into contact, despite both units being able to reroll. The Terminators rolled snakeyes twice!

Needless to say l, this reprieve for the Dreadnought was about to be exploited as it and the Veteran Terminators charged the Raptors elites and cut them down to a man.

Meanwhile, the Corpsetaker's unit cane under metaphorical and literal fire as the Infernus Marines bathed them in flames causing significant casualties.

In return, half of the Raptors unit was cut down in close combat.

On the second turn, success on a different table saw reinforcements dropping in all over the board:

Salamanders

Captain in Terminator Armour

Librarian in Terminator Armour

5 Terminators 

5 Infernus Marines

Whilst the Terminator squad arrived on one flank, looking to avenge the Raptors, the Salamanders Captain sought out his opposite number in a duel that would ultimately see the Astral Claws commander come out on top.

The Infernus Market nes demonstrated the Salamanders' vaunted skill with flame when they beat the Devastators to the punch and used overwatch to kill half the unit.

Unfortunately, the return fire inflicted similar damage in them.

The second Terminator on Terminator clash was initiated and getting the charge was proven once again to be crucial as the Salamanders had the better of the exchange.

That was until the Dreadnought piled in, killing almost the entire squad across two rounds of combat and although the reverted hero ultimately succumbed, when the dust settled, only the two Librariand were left standing.

Targetted fire brought down the last of the Loyalist Infernus Marines, leaving just the Raptors Captain and the Salamanders Librarian in play.

Whilst battered, the remaining Astral Claws were more than enough to prevent the enemy from catching two of the three objectives, meaning that victory was assured and rendered the secondary objectives both sides had scored somewhat meaningless.

This game was defined by Ben's hideously bad luck with his charge rolls on his first turn, causing the Loyalists to lose a third of their forces without reply. Ben and Simon fought well to keep the game in doubt despite that.

Secessionists 58 - Loyalists 19

With a second victory complete, my tally for the event was 3 wins, 1 draw and a loss. I definitely feel the beneficiary of circumstances that were nothing to do with me for two of those results, but it's still a better ratio than I've had in most versions of 40k that I've played.

As my results were part of a larger campaign, I'm not going to reveal the overall result of the weekend. You'll need to watch Arbitor Ian's next Tale of Four Badab Gamers video to find out the fate of the sector.

As for me, well I set a resolution to get out more this year and this weekend proved why. I met some really nice people and played some really fun games. The next Badab War event will be sometime in the spring, so I'm going to see if I can make it.

Is Combat Patrol an enjoyable format? Yes, very much so. Does it work as a doubles game? I'm not sure, both games overran significantly. Am I now hooked on 40k 10th edition? The jury's out as I probably have to play a couple of larger games before I can commit to an answer.

Nevertheless, I've had a cracking good time, and that's what matters.