Another Small Project Selection

Hello!

It's another compilation of recent-ish small projects that haven't appeared on the blog yet! We've got a Dwarf pirate, a bunch of 'Tau' and a hot git!

First up, this guy, one of the infamous Long Drong's Slayer Pirates. This was for a discord speed paint challenge, so he was done in an hour. A classic mini that takes to contrast and the like well - though I did accidentally paint him in jeans! Didn't win the competition but he did get plenty of votes so I'm happy enough with that!

Next up, a bunch of 'Tau' Fire Warriors. A full strike squad of the little blue guys and also a unit of Breachers represented by auxiliary kin, presumably part of a trade deal with the Leagues of Votann. Slightly fiddly conversions for the Breacher weapons, but the result looks decent and with the shoulder pad they fit right in alongside their Tau allies.

Finally for this one, we have the melee monster of the Aeldari, the Avatar of Khaine! As usual, it's fun to paint a big centrepiece model, so this was a pretty good time, using mostly pretty simple techniques and a fairly limited palette. It's a great update of a classic and I think pretty hard to go far wrong with this mini, but that said I'm pretty happy with the result.

Anyway, hopefully you've enjoyed seeing these, thanks for reading, and stay safe out there.

Leicester City GT report

Hello!

Over the weekend I went to the Leicester City GT, and I had a blast! It was the biggest tournament I'd been to with around 250 players (plus a smaller AoS event running alongside) and the first sizable one since the 40k Grand Tournament at Warhammer World back in early 2020. So I have been looking forward to this one for a while.

For this post I'm going to briefly talk about my list then give an overview of each of the games, then some thoughts at the end. I'll go ahead and spoil the result now - I lost all of them. No wooden spoon however, I did rank at the top of all the people with no wins. I was never going to win so I'm not super disappointed, but of course it would be nice to come somewhere safely in the middle - but more on all that later.

I had a real tough time decided on what to take with me, as I was torn between fun, power and convenience. I had initially intended to go Orks, but Tyranids would be a much more 'meta' option and Death Guard would have been much easier to move around on a tray! In the end I did go with the Snakebites, taking a similar list to the one I took against JP recently, but with some adjustments made in the name of logistics. Less Boyz, more Toyz.

HQ: Mozrog Skragbad (Warlord, Surly as a Squiggoth), Weirdboy (Da Jump, Fists of Gork)

Troops: 10 Beast Snagga Boyz, 3x 15 Boyz (Powerklaw), 2x 10 Gretchin

Elites: 8 Burna Boyz/2 Spannas (1 Rokkit Launcha, 1 Kustom mega blasta), 3 Mega Nobz (Big Krumpaz)

Fast Attack: 5 Squighog Boyz (Bomb Squig)

Heavy Support: Kill Rig (Frazzle, Squiggly Curse, Scorched Gitbones), Squiggoth, Battlewagon (Deffroller)

Lord of War: Gorkanaut (Big Krumpaz)

Game one was against Stephen and his Necrons. No Silent King, but he did have the Void Dragon, a load of Heavy Destroyers and many many Canoptek units. The mission was Abandoned Sanctuaries.

Ultimately the game was decided by a poor decision to attack against Spyders first (with ultimately little effect as the one I killed came back) rather than the Void Dragon, allowing him to attack, ignore invulnerable saves, and down Mozrog Skragbad. Before then I think I was right in the game but I wasn't able to come back from failing to kill the big guy. Highlights of the game before that were probably the Squighog Boyz and Mozrog battering Wraiths. It ended 100-53 to the Necrons.

Game two was Data Scry-salvage vs Aarron and his cool jungly Tau; green suits, blue Kroot and loads of vegetation on the bases. No vehicles, just loads of suits.

I felt like I played this one well - I scored early points and made him work to take out my big targets for Bring It Down. Sadly it was a tough match up and I think it fell apart when the Gorkanaut made a charge out of the Tellyporta into the Broadsides and only killed a couple of drones. With that they stepped back and Kauyoned it to death. I made good progress chewing through the chaff but the Suits and their drones were just tough to deal with. This one ended 78-55 to the Tau.

Game three was the first of a pair of Dark Angels players. Rob had a cool mix of Death, Raven and green wings. Big blobs of Terminators and Black Knights supported by, among other things, plasma Inceptors and the Land Speeder Vengeance. Mission was Death and Zeal.

If I'm honest with myself I played this one very poorly, going half arsed on attempting to take out the Terminators in the middle vs ignoring them and focusing on the corner objectives. I did manage to control the primary points pretty well but I just fed more units than necessary into the grinder in the middle. In spite of this, it was the closest game of the lot, with Mozrog coming back from the dead to kill off a couple of characters once the Terminator blob had stomped off to secure a corner, and needing Azrael to fail a charge on a Weirdboy in order to hold my home objective in turn 5. Sadly for me he did get in and cut down the psyker with ease, a four point swing ending the game 78-76 in favour of the Dark Angels. 

Game four was more Dark Angels, this time almost full Deathwing. My opponent, Reg, had a psyker support from Librarians and an Inquisitor, plus a couple of sneaky phobos units, and then about 40 Terminators.Tide of Conviction was the mission, giving opportunity to grab some Good Bitz early.

I did get off to a strong start, but the grind eventually started to favour the Angels and their ObSec Terminators. I did manage to kill a decent number (15-20 of them I think) but I didn't have the staying power to hang with them. Highlight was the Gorkanaut exploding to kill a whole load of stuff on both sides, including the wounded Squiggoth. This game was a bit slower than the others, the only one I didn't finish, so ended 48-38 to the DAngels on turn three. There were still some opportunities for me to score but I don't think I was ever likely to overcome the deficit with the units I had left.

So onto the last game, it was Secure Missing Artefacts against Gerard and his Astra Militarum (using the 8th ed book at the time of playing the game). A classic Guard gunline with a load of Leman Russes, artillery in the back and plenty of squads of meat shields up front.

Once again, this was a tough match up - 8th Ed Guard may be a bit underwhelming in 9th but if there's one thing they can do it's blast Orks off the table. I felt like I was in a strong position in turn 2/3 when I made it into melee and tagged some tanks, including getting the Squighog Boyz into a Demolisher Commander, but those metal boxes were just too tough and in the end I was wiped out, bar a few Grots and the Weirdboy. A fairly close scoreline saw the Guard take the win 86-75.

And there you have it. A few close ones but ultimately five losses is five losses. Like I said at the start I still had a great time, all my games were fun and my opponents courteous, but still I feel it could have gone better! I think I had two games that I lost because I played badly, and three games where I lost because my army was 'bad'. All my games went through a similar pattern - turn one and two the Orks spread out everywhere and caused some damage, then in turn three they pretty much all died and I didn't have enough to scrape enough points at the end. 

As much fun as it is playing Orks, bringing some big stompy stuff and lots of Boyz, and having an adorable red squig in my corner, I kind of got tired of that second half collapse and then not really being able to play the game at the end. I was particularly disappointed with my big models on this regard - the Gorkanaut and the Kill Rig in particular did not do the damage I would have hoped for once they reached melee. They, and everything else, really struggled to get through any reasonably hard targets. The Squighog Boyz were probably my best unit, but they still failed to make their mark against most of the stuff they were set upon. I have a lot of respect for the people who do make Orks work - notably the player who came second overall was running them, but it definitely feels like the 'classic' builds are suffering at the moment.

Now, with that little whinge out of the way, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it. Even if you aren't a full on competitive player, these kind of events are still great fun and I definitely recommend it should you get the chance. Stay safe out there!

Crusade Battle Report - Adeptus Mechanicus vs Tau

Hello!

Another Crusade game for the Grim Dice league - this time the Adeptus Mechanicus of Ryza took on the Tau from a currently unknown Sept. Regardless of where they come from, those Tau holding tightly onto their strange, valuable xenotech is clearly and affront to the Omnissiah that cannot be allowed to stand. We were escalated to 75 power level now, so I once again had a few new units. The mission, once again from the Plague Purge pack, was Extermination Sweep - a six objective mission with a very complicated set up map but pretty simple objectives - hold the points at the end of the battle round. There's an action to make an objective 'sticky' and fast attack choices became ObSec.

As mentioned, the Helios Explorator fleet brought in some reinforcements. Tech-Priest Eldane Katronosa (now in the new body of a Tech-Priest Dominus) lead a new Manipulus (Gwoll Zygan), a Datasmith (Cykent Bosk), 10 Skitarii Vanguard, 5 Rangers, 3 Kataphron Breachers, 3 Destroyers, 5 Ruststalkers, 5 Sterylizors, 6 Sulphurhounds, two units of 2 Kastelan Robots and some air support with an Archeopter Fusilave.

For the Agendas, we went with Calculated Eradication (kill units on objectives - quickly becoming a go to for me from the Plague Purge options), the classic Reaper, and Break the Seals - search a random objective for archeotech - which turned out to be one that I had a chance of grabbing for once!

The Tau, piloted by Hikowa Dean (clearly a Tau name), were running a custom Sept. A mega buffed Commander led the force with special characters Shadowsun and Aun'shi but their side. Three Strike teams with a Fireblade and some pathfinders made up the bulk of the force, with Stealth Suits, Sniper drones and a Broadside for fire support and a squad of Crisis Suits kitted out with cyclic ion blasters for the 'hammer'. Lots of dakka!

Deployment - most of the units hiding behind buildings and the weird deployment setting the core of our forces quite far apart. The Pteraxii, Sulphurhounds and Crisis Suits were all in reserve, while the Stealths were taking a sniping position in the central tower.

We rolled off, and the choice went to the Tau - opting to take the second turn. A wise move since we scored at the end of the battle round.

First turn and the Archeopter did a bit of a suicide run to bomb the Stealth team and blast away at the Pathfinders. The rest of the force moved up cautiously and plinked off some wounds on the Stealths.

The return fire from the Tau took out the Archeopter and killed off a couple of the Breachers. The last Stealth Suit jumped onto an objective to put the Tau in the lead.

Turn two, and the reserves arrive, including the Ruststalkers who had previously left the board to sneak over to the other side. Operation apply pressure and kill off what we can - while Katronosa made their way to the Archeotech site.

Shooting from the Robots and the Destroyers was ok - killing off the Stealths and Pathfinders and removing a bunch of drones. The Sulphurhounds lit up the Tau commander, removing the drones. Then a disappointing charge phase - thanks to Tau charge reducing tactics all three of the reserve units failed to reach melee. A mixed turn for sure.

Turn two and the Tau suits came out to play. Shadowsun and the Crisis Suits both removed a Kastelan robot, while massed shots from firewarriors killed off the Ruststalkers and the Commander made short work of the Destroyers. My right flank just about hung in there as the Broadside whiffed against the Suphurhounds, rolling double ones to wound with the railgun. I think at this stage we were equal on objectives so the Tau maintained the lead.

Turn three saw the remaining robots make it into melee, punching out Shadowsun and most of the Crisis suits. Shooting from the Rangers with their Transuranic Arquebus combined with the Sulphurhounds to kill off the Broadside, and the Vanguard unit took out most of a Strike team. It went pretty well...

Apart from the charge of the light brigade here, when the Sulphurhounds charged the Commander, getting overwatched to death immediately, thanks to exploding sixes from multiple sources.

Once again, a mixed turn, with some good damage dealt but forces were dwindling. Though outside of the fighting, Katronosa succeeded in digging up an Archeotech weapon part - Digital Cannon acquired!

Going into Tau turn three and it was getting fairly interesting, with Aun'shi doing his agenda to hold a secret meeting in the middle of the board, and the rest of the remaining Tau forming a big firing line. The Pteraxii and Kastelan got taken out by a blistering fusilade of fire, but the Vanguard were still in play. This once again tipped the objective game in the favour of the Tau - at this point pretty much an unassailable lead.

I got a turn four to try and make a dent in the remaining Tau forces, but some excellent work from a shield drone negated most of the firepower and melee was a little disappointing thanks to the active Doctrina Imperative. Katronosa got into melee with the Commander but they both bounced off each other's armour.

With that we ran out of time - a clear victory for the Tau but an early finish probably saved a few units from potential battle scars.

This was a fairly even game in terms of damage output but I probably needed some charges on turn two to go off. Going second was definitely the right choice for the Tau, and probably made the difference. Overall though, while the Tau were clearly up to some shady business with the local populace, the forces of Ryza picked up some valued Archeotech so quite frankly the Tau can have the rest of this ruined city.

In addition to the archeotech, we also got a battle honour for the first of the Kastelan units - Elite 'Crew', meaning they would get to reroll ones to hit - very valuable for their fists in the Conqueror protocols with they hit on 2s. The next game is scheduled to be against Nick and his Custodes, so we get to be naughty AdMech going against some other Imperials again.

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it, and stay safe!