Thursday, November 24, 2011

Mordian 7th - 5th Platoon Rough Riders complete!

Happy Thanksgiving to those readers in the States today - among other things, I'm quite thankful for having the day off! Not having to go in to work at 6 in the morning, and having no other pressing demands (hooray!), I was able to finish off the Rough Riders this morning!

The Mordian 7th originally included an entire platoon of Rough Riders, let by Captain Hilts. While on extended recon patrol on Flotis III, the vast majority of the units horses were stolen (and presumably eaten) during a daring raid by Ork Kommandos. Captain Hilts led his men in a attempt to rendezvous with the rest of the regiment, afoot through Ork-held territory. Over two thirds of the unit were slain en-route by harassing attacks by Evil Sunz Speedfreeks, and Captain Hilts himself was savagely wounded after being set afire by an Ork Skorcha. Vowing to kill the Orks responsible and 'give them a taste of their own medicine', Captain Hilts requisitioned a number of bikes and several flamers, declaring he would forgo the stealth and range provided by riding horseback to the savagery and fire that he and his unit had experienced at the hands of the Orks. Captain Hilts generally hides his burned face behind a combination hood and rebreather, giving him a rather unsettling appearance. His hatred for Orks knows no bounds, though it's whispered among other units in the 7th that Hilts is every bit the savage now as any Ork, and that the 'breathing canisters' he uses contain not only oxygen, but Frenzon or some other combat drug..


I was worried that as all the bikes are identical, the whole unit would end up looking a bit monotonous, so I really tried to ensure the torso and arms for each model was significantly different. Overall I think it gives the unit a sense of motion and vibrancy.


The unit was designed such that it could be used as two 5-man units. The first half includes the standard lance-armed models and a sergeant...


...while the other half includes all the specialty models. A pair of flamers gives the unit a bit more anti-horde, while the other two models simply count as lance-armed guardsmen (well, discarding the remains of a lance in the case of the fellow on the far right). The masked man in the middle of the picture represents Captain Hilts, with his various tanks of combat drugs and an Ork Choppa. On the tabletop I plan to use him as a counts-as Mogul Kamir.


Another unit complete, and the Mordian 7th Painting Chart is turning green! Not looking forward to tackling the 35 infantry models in the 1st platoon, though. Oof.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Mordian 7th - 5th Platoon Rough Riders in progress

With a bit of a holiday weekend ahead I'm planning on finishing off the unit of Rough Riders that I pulled out for the Cavember contest that Col. Gravis is holding. It's been crazy with work of late, so I've only managed to block in the basic colors thus far - but hey, a little progress is better than no progress at all!



Now that there's a bit of paint on, it's easier to point out what all is in the unit. For special weapons, I went with a pair of flamers, and added enough lance-armed models to drive home the idea that the unit is armed with Hunting Lances. The unit is led by a counts-as Mogul Kamir, but I have included a chainsword-armed model as well to act as a normal sergeant for smaller games. The unit also includes a standard, though much like the one in the veterans squad, it's just there for flavor and has no in-game effect. In the original Mordian 7th, there was an entire platoon of Rough Riders, including a mounted command squad, so in this incarnation I'm going with these are the last remnants of the platoon, and one of the men has managed to keep the standard aloft throughout their winnowing.

With a couple days off coming up, I'm quite confident that I'll be able to get them done in time for the deadline!

Friday, November 18, 2011

Cavember Painting Contest Expanded!

Col. Gravis is having a painting contest centering around Rough Riders based on a post from the excellent Col. Ackland regarding what he's calling Cavember - originally it was centered around Praetorian Rough Riders in particular, as Col. Gravis makes some spectacular kits for the army. I'm a huge fan of both the Praetorians and Rough Riders in general, so I have been excited to see the various renditions folks come up with. Recently however, he's opened the contest up to Rough Riders of any regiment which has given me some impetus to get a little more work done on my own Mordian 7th!


I've included a unit of Rough Riders in every incarnation of the glorious 7th that I've done all the way back to the RT era. I started off using the original Imperial Guard Rough Riders on horseback, though in recent years I've gone for a Mechanized Rough Rider on motorbikes instead. The unit above was from my 3rd-4th edition days, and were made from a combination of the old Dark Eldar jetbikes and various bits taken from the Imperial Guard Heavy Weapons sprues. The original how-to was on the GW site yoinks ago in the "Dok Butcha's Konvershun Klinic" articles they used to do. I posted a walk-through on their construction a while back here as well...


My previous version in 5th edition utilized the fantastic bikes available from Ramshackle Games and the unit I'm going to be painting up is built using much the same process as those shown above.


At the moment they're just assembled and primered, so they aren't all that photogenic thus far. With the contest just being opened up to a wider audience I've got my work cut out for me - only 12 days to go before the deadline, and with a full 10-strong unit I'd better get cracking!

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Battle Report - Dark Eldar vs. Blood Angels

Haven't had a lot of hobby time of late, and as such I haven't had much in the way of interesting pictures to share. Time to remedy that with a whole MESS of pictures from a test game a friend of mine and I played in preparation for the Tempus Fugitives event coming up in March!

Skyhook Playtest Series, Game 1: Blood Angels vs. Dark Eldar - 1000 points, Annihilation

After collecting PalpaDave, he laid out his force:


The army stayed there for longer than I expected!

DEPLOYMENT

We went with the standard halved table setup and the Annihilation type, and rolled off. Dave won the roll and the Blood Angels chose to go second.

The Dark Eldar deployed the Venom and Jetbikes on the left flank:



While the Raider and Hellions took up station in the middle of the DE deployment zone:


The Blood Angels deployed... Nothing! As his entire force was capable of Deep Strike, that ended the segment.

TURN ONE

The Dark Eldar don't move.

The Blood Angels cannot yet arrive.

TURN TWO

The Dark Eldar don't move.


...A tumbleweed rolls by.

With a roar, the two Blood Angel assault squads arrive, and the Dark Eldar were so dismissive of the event at this point that I apparently failed to take a picture of it. The two squads arrive roughly a quarter of the way in from each short table edge, roughly at the centerline of the table.

The foolish Mon-keigh deployed outside their effective weapons range and turn two ends. Elapsed time from the end of deployment: about three minutes.

TURN THREE

The Dark Eldar pounce on the Assault squad on the left flank, while the Raider and Hellions also swing out to the left to assist. A volley of splinter weapons accounted for a fair number of assault marines, though not enough to break their resolve.



This left the second assault squad rather far out of position, though being jump infantry the dark kin knew they wouldn't be out of the action for long.


The Blood Angels responded by destroying the Venom with a volley of Melta fire. The Crimson King and his unit dismissively rode out the blast, and accepted the charge of the assault marines. A furious melee ensued, with the preternaturally fast Archon laying out a number of marines with his Agonizer. The Blood Angels retaliation slew the Trueborn, leaving only the Crimson King and his Haemunculus,


On the right flank, the second Assault squad bounded forward, and turn three drew to a close.


TURN FOUR

The Raider and Hellions move in to assist the Crimson King while the Reaver jetbikes arrow off to attack Captain Furioso, and with contemtuous ease, the Crimson King slaughters a further four marines, with their return attacks nullified by a combination of eldritch techno sorcery and frightful bio-engineering. The Blood Angels grimly fight on.


In the Blood Angels phase however, the tables suddenly turned! A lucky strike by Perada was not intercepted by the Crimson King's shadowfield, and he was skeyered by the Blood Angel's relic blade.


At the same time, it became apparent that the Reavers had sorely misjudged the effective threat range of Captain Furioso. Fully half the squad was snatched from the air and crushed into scrap by the Captain's power fists, and his ceramite battle plate and martial skill was proof against the vile Xenos' counterattack.


The second Assault squad continued its advance, and turn four came to an end.


TURN FIVE

The Haemonculus' lashed out with his Huskblade and the true nature of the Dark Eldar's reality-bending technology became apparent:


...And from another angle.


Unfortunately the sole hit was taken by the remaining assault marine, leaving Perada unharmed. The Haemonculus was wounded in the melee, but wasn't out of the fight yet!


The Reavers proved completly ineffectual and were destroyed with contemptuous ease by Captain Furioso.


The Hellions and Kabalite warriors aboard the Raider unleased a flurry of shots from their splinter Weaponry, but only managed a bare handful of casualties. The Hellions arrogantly assaulted the second squad, but while they were able to account for a number of the marines they were badly mauled by the marines' retaliation. The sole survivor peeled off, easily outrunning the sweeping advance.


In the Blood Angels phase, the duel continued between Perada and the Haemonculus, with neither side able to gain the upper hand. Captain Furioso was moving in to support however...


The second Assault squad shot the Raider out of the sky, the Dark Eldar dismounting and landing lightly on their feet. With that, turn five drew to a close.


We rolled to see if there would be further turns, but the dice said there was not, and the game ended. We tallied up the Victory Points and the Blood Angels won, 32 to 13.

The battle was really quick and quite a lot of fun. Both armies were designed to avoid the Unstable Footing rules, so at any given time, the Dark Eldar were only rolling two or three dice for the archon and haemonculus at the beginning of a couple turns. The Kabalite Warriors would have had to roll had there been a turn six. Overall, a very enjoyable experience - a nice quick 1000 point game was just the thing to take the edge off a challenging stretch at work!