Blood Angels vs Imperial Guard at 1250

I had a fun game the other day playing against Imperial Guard as lead by my brother, Marc.  We played Big Guns Never Tire (3 objectives) with Vanguard Strike.  I ran a Librarian Terminator (Blood Lance and Wings), Sanguinary Priest(Plasma and Claw), three full Assault Marine units as combat squads with three in reserve (split a melta between the squads; sarge sporting a Claw) along with the fully kitted Stormraven.  I know a few players out there will drop jaws, cry foul or otherwise have fits about the points sink, but with very little else to deal with fliers, the Stormraven is a good choice and has so far succeeded in it's role more times than it has failed.  Marc castled up behind his Aegis with a Manticore, Command Platoon and Vets with his two Vendettas waiting for turn two. I focused on keeping my Marines out of line of sight as much as possible in deployment and turn one, which was Night Fighting, relying on my reserve units to make the dash for objective denial since Marc placed two of the three objectives in his deployment zone.  The whole of the game played very tactically with the only casualties being a Vendetta, due to the Stormraven and a unit of Marines that got too close to the Manticore.Neither the Librarian nor the four IG Psychers got a chance to duke it out, but I feel the threats were played very well.  Here's some highlights:

Blood Angel deployment and turn two disposition except for the preist...

...who took up position between the two combat squads.

Turn two and the arrival of the fliers!

IG deployment and disposition until turn four.

Turn three the Blood Angels begin advancing on the IG strong point and pay for their arrogance on turn four.

Turn three and four...taking fire!

"EVASIVE!!!"

A little off the track...

Okay, so these aren't directly related to miniatures battle games, but have been a significant influence in my enjoyment of the hobby. These paintings are on their way to a local doughnut shop called Doughbot Donuts who makes the most epic donuts this gamer could ever want. It's a shame I don't live closer 'cause these would rock during a game of Warhammer 40,000. My current favorite is the Bacon Chocolate!

If you ever get into Downtown Sac in the early part of the day, stop by their shop and try them out.  Pure AWESOME awaits!

 Necron99, later known as Peace, is my favorite character from the classic animated story Wizards. Shortly after seeing this film, courtesy of VHS, I converted a Guardsman to look like Peace and used it as a character mini in many a game. I'm tinkering with the idea of doing an allied detachment consisting of a platoon of Necron99 Guardsmen lead by a  Commissar called Blackwolf, though I'll most likely take the concept to a unit of Blood Angels Scouts or maybe some Storm Boys.

Gojira!  Godzilla to us westerners.  Who can deny that the awesome, often stunningly detailed miniature sets featured in the TOHO films hadn't inspired the would be terrain maker in all of us.  For a few of us, the great old monster has become synonymous with the armies we play.

As the Sun Rises!

Here's some shots of a game I had with Ben of Empire's Comic Vault in Sacramento.  Tau vs. Space Wolves at 1750.  Believe it or not: in all the years I've been playing this was my first game facing Space Wolves.  Yeah, I play Tau.  I've been playing them since late 4th edition and have seen the army change quite a bit. Any how, some particulars about our game:

Dawn of War, Big Guns Never Tire with three objective and Tau taking the initiative (I've been unusually lucky with this over the last dozen or so games).  Being a fan of random chance, I suggested we randomly place the objectives adjusting their locations per the rules.  The board I made for Ben is a three-part modular design, so a D3 to determine the section the marker lands in then another D3 to locate its final position.

The Tau reserved a Monat Twin liked Fusion Blaster suit and the Wolves reserved their Landspeeders and Scouts.

The Rune Priest and Predator were the main targets for the Braodsides and Hammerheads while the Suits and Devilfish worked on the tactical squads.  The Wolves, for their part, weathered quite a storm of rail fire and ultimately claimed victory.  In all a very fun game!

As I play more games, and become more familiar with the rules, I plan to start reporting more detailed battle reports.  

Rounding out the GEG Tyranid Scenery Set

At the request of Great Escapes Games for a "larger piece of terrain to block line of sight" I created the Hive Cyst.  The Cyst is a spore like the mycetic spore that carries large creatures and broods, however, the cyst carries the myriad of support organisms like Spore Chimneys, Spires and various plants and burrowing creatures all designed to transform a planet into biomass for the Hive.  This particular Cyst carried Spire Seeds.

I've suggested that the piece be classified as impassable or lethal terrain.

And here's the whole set ready for play...

An Elder Gate for the Thousand Sons

Ben, a Thousand Sons player, had the idea for a Skyshield Landing Pad custom. This structure would tie into his army's theme of the quest for knowledge and sorcery.  We agreed that it should be an old temple of some sort yet still fit within the rules for the GW model.  After some designs, we came up with the idea that it would be configurable for friendly games as well as competitive play.  I chose to style it after an Old One's place of power as described in the lore of both the 40k universe and the Cthulhu stories merging the two in my own way.  The next step was to decide how the shielded and unfurled modes of the SSLP could be represented on the Elder Gate. I came up with a wall of fire since it would make sense that the wall would be mystical fire and that the encircling nature of the wall would relate to the Thousand Sons current emblem: an Ouroboros of fire. It then occurred to me that I could size the Wall of Fire to the proportions of the Aegis Defense Line.  This way, Ben could get dual use from the set.

Once all the preparations were made I began work. The process was fairly straight forward:  meticulously clip squares of acid free Bristol board and glue them to an armature of foam board and styrene. Then seal all the surfaces with more glue. The glyphs and tablets would be made of polymer clay as well as the walls of fire.  Now came another decision: what style of runes and symbols to use for the tablets?  I had at first considered using material from HP Lovecraft's Necronomicon mixed with Lizardmen runes then realized that if these beings were to be the progenitors of all the other races, should not their writing be some kind of root as well. So I looked over all the symbols and alphabets of the other races and began to scrawl across the tablets mixing the styles as the muse hit me.  I came up with four panels which would indicate the ziggurat's purpose: a gate to the Webway and the Warp.

Multiplayer Mayhem at Empire's Comic Vault

Here's some photos taken of the carnage. The points were a thousand each. Cliff played Space Marines, Ben played Tyranids and I played Tau. The mission was The Relic. All I'll say is that by turn four Ben's Tervagon had sprouted quite a bit of gaunts. Fourteen in one spawning alone!  The Crisis Suits went away by turn three as did a team of Fire Warriors.  The Marines had the objective but had the Tyranids hot on their trail.  For a thousand points, it was a fun and tactically challenging game. Next time, I plan to take notes for a better Bat Rep.

MOAR CHAAAAAOSSSSSS!!!!

An ancient place of dark power has become the last ditch defense for a desperate force of overwhelmed defenders...

Now all I need to add are the Chaos Cultists swarming up the sides while a battered squad of Space Marine Scouts cower behind the barricades unaware that the forces of the Warp have already claimed them!