Maxmini jump packs

Not only mad Maxmini released these ones moments after I've ordered pre-heresy jump packs from them, ones currently on my Raptors.

Maxmini managed to crush me completely, pre-releasing these.

Oh, damn. These. Are. So. Awesome. I'm speechless.

Raptors

Painted a squad of Raptors just for the kicks. Hands were shaking, so not really that fine of a job. Good enough for a tabletop, I suppose.

In process did a minor conversion on an old metal Daemon Prince, and will paint him as an Iron Warrior later.

 Looking at painted raptors, I realised that there's really not too much detail, especially chaotic details - they look really bland. Got back to 2 assembled squads and made them look a little more bold.

Combat Patrol, 400 points.

I'll try to post some updates over the weekend — too much work and traffic this week.
Played some combat patrol over the past week with gobsan: I played Dark Eldar list, he tried Orks, Blood Angels, Space Wolves. Combat patrol involves following rules, put simply:

• You must field one troop choice
• No Vehicles with summary armor value (front, side, back) over 33
• No models with more than 2 wounds
• No 2+/2++ saves allowed
• Combat mission - Annihilation, on a 4x4 table with 25 % terrain
• No Psykers allowed - you can field a Librarian, if you want, but you can't use powers.

My list looked like this:

Haemonculus, Venom Blade, Shattershard, Hex Rifle.
9 Wracks, Liquifier, Acothyst, Hex Rifle, Raider with Flickerfield.
8 Wyches, Hekatrix, Venom Blade, Raider with Flickerfield.

Then I realised that I'm like 40 points over, for some reason, so I had to drop Hex Rifles and Acothyst, and switch Shattershard for a Casket of Flensing.

Anyway, this list proved to be really solid in a Combat Patrol setting. It rolled over Orks, losing maybe 3 models that fielded a bunch of Nobs in a Trukk with Painboy and wound allocation tricks, a squad of Tankbustas and Grot squad as a requirement. Wyches managed to take out Tankbustas on turn 3, rolling really good on a Fleet roll, and then hold against charging Nobs, losing 1 or 2 models. Then Wracks with Furious charge came in and landed something like 13 wounds. Ez.

Space wolves were easy too, but list was a bit weak - Rune Priest with a squad of grey hunters, in a Rhino, with a Land Speeder as support. Basically, I immobilized Land Speeder turn 1, I was too far away from shooting, and Wolves decided to hide behind ruins. Land Speeder exploded, Rhino got a glance and Shaken. Raiders moved to Rhino, still out of range. Rhino blew smoke. Raiders moved in, inflicting immobilize. Wolves stayed in, as they can't really charge even if they blow up a Raider with melta. So I decided to disembark and assault. Dark lances wiffed, but no biggie, wracks and wyches blocked sides and back on the Rhino, wracks managed to do whole 3 glances out of 30 attacks. Nice! But that was enough. Weapon destroyed and Immobize got upgraded to Wrecked, and Space Wolves were trapped inside. Win!

Blood Angels I can't really remember - there were Sternguard squad in a Razorback with TL plasmagun and lascannon, plus 8 strong squad of Assault marines. Dark Lances failed to do anything in this game, 5 Wyches died horrible death from Sternguard shooting while waiting outside of a Raider for a charge, tried to counter-charge being 3 strong, but lost combat and ran. Assault marines deepstruck in and got eaten alive by Liquifier and Casket of Flensing. Wracks then cleared Remaining 4 Sternguard.

Next day we played with updated lists, King of the Hill style: my list was the same, and gobsan tried to overcome it.

Space Wolves: Grey Hunters in a Rhino with melta, power weapon, wulfen, standart, and Long Fangs with 5 missile lauchers, and a Land Speeder. Tough. Damn. No power weapons in my list and it's almost impossible to kill Grey Hunters with torrent, when standart is down. Anyway, I managed to dodge Long Fangs nicely and save one missile with Flickerfield. Wyches Raider got blown by a melta in terrain, instead, I lost 4 models. Bolter fire would have wrecked it anyway, but they disembarked for it. Nice start, I thought. However, I killed one wolf with Splinter pistols, then charged and wiffed, not doing much, lost combat and girls ran for their lives. Next turn Liquifier and Casket combined almost wiped out Wolves, leaving 3 models on table. No chance to charge, Wolves ran away and tried to hide. Long Fangs, still unable to fire due to los, embarked on a Rhino, which was stupid - next turn Rhino got shaken, so they can't shoot off top hatch, can't disembark, because then they are just sitting ducks. Liquifier burned rest of Grey Hunters, Space Wolves concede.

Blood Angels: damn, this was hard. 20 tactical marines with MLs and flamers, and one Sanguinary priest. I kept my distance, moved flat out with both Raiders, LOSed Missile Launchers, saved Bolter Fire and was able to comfortably shoot and assault next turn. But, I made a horrible, horrible mistake. I assaulted each squad with only one of mine. My shooting proved ineffective, killing 2 or 3 models. Power armor with FnP coupled with bad rolls on ap on Casket and Liquifier is too much. On a charge, wyches killed one model. Haemonculus won 1v1 against Priest and got him killed, granting Fearless to a squad but wracks didnt really do much, because of FnP - same Initiative step. We stuck in combat for something like 7 turns, unable to kill each other. In the end, after almost an hour of nervous rolling, screaming and cheering, Hekatrix made her stand against 3 Space marines, and Haemonculus with 3 wracks stood his ground against 4 Space marines. Hekatrix killed one, but it was too much and Sergeant ran her down. Haemonculus killed 2 models, Wracks wiffed and got killed. So yeah, board looks like this: 2 Raiders, unable to shoot whole game, Haemonculus with one wound stuck in combat with two marines, and another marine and sergeant ready to charge. That was epic. Like, truly epic. Haemonculus kills one marine and saves 3 wounds thrown against him. So 2 morale test for tacticals, one on 8, one on 7. Both failed. Marines run. Not too far. We stopped at that and called it a draw, because we had no idea whose turn it is.

Big lesson for me: do not, for the love of Vect, get stuck in combat with superior numbers of marines. You have to kill them either on charge, or tie them up until some other unit comes in and helps them.

I'll play CSM combat patrol next time:
5 Plague Marines with 2 Meltaguns, Rhino, Havoc Launcher
5 Chosen with 5 Plasmaguns, Rhino, Havoc Launcher

Updated Aspiring Champion of Iron Warriors

Updated the model just a little - extra mechadendrite and some additional details, I think it's getting ready for a basecoat.

Blood Angels versus CSM, 2000 points and 1750 points.

Took my Iron Warriors to face gobsan's fairly new Blood Angels.
We used Rules of Engagement rule set, which is quite a bit more fun and variative than normal BRB set of missions.

2000 points game

I had my normal list: 2 Daemon Princes, Lash and Warptime, Termicide unit, Chosen in a Rhino with meltas, 2 squads of Plague Marines with Meltas and Plasmaguns, Berserkers with Power Fist, 6 Obliterators, Defiler, Raptors with flamers and Summoned Greater Daemon.

gobsan took Mephiston, 2 Land Raiders filled with Assault Terminators, a couple of Sanguinary priests, and 2 small assault squads, 7 or 8 members total.

Deployment zone, btw, looked something like this, where x's are objectives:

_________________

|       _x__|                    |

|___|                   ____ |

|                 _x__|          |

|_______|____ _x__|

We rolled for the mission: I had to hold my own point and reduce his troops to under 50%, he had to hold his own point and spend a whole movement phase near my objective, untouched - "rescue" someone.

The game

I started in a line formation on the bottom, everything behind ruins or in cover.

Gobsan deployed one Land Raider on 9, another on 12, Mephiston behind LR on 9, Assault squads in reserve.

We traded ranged fire for two first turns, with no effect at all whatsoever, I failed to even glance any of Land Raiders once - oh wait, no, LR on 9 lost a lascannon, my melta reserves were late,  my melta plague marines almost made in to LR on 12 tho. Greater Daemon popped from them, and next turn, hopefully, something would die.

As it turn out, my plague marines and Daemon were the ones to die. LR blew up rhino with Plague Marines, and Assault terminators multicharged Greater Daemon prince and Plague marines - 3 TH/SS and 2 LC. Thankfully, they were out of range of Sanguinary Priest, that were hiding behind Land Raider - Defiler was eager to blow up some dudes in power armor.

So Terminators charge, my Greater daemon manages to do 2 wounds. Not much. Same initiative, 2 LC Terminators - 8 attacks total, 2 attacks hit, 1 wound, 1 re-roll, wound. 2 Plague Marines die. And this is when I was like: why 8 attacks? it's 6, Defensive grenades! gobsan shrugged, rolled 6 die. 5 hits. 5 wounds. One TH/SS failed save and died. 2 wounds from TH/SS Termies on the Daemon, and 6 damn fearless saves. Long story short, he failed them saves.

After that I lashed terminators a bit closer and plasmagunned them to death.

Next turn my Chosen come from needed flank, my termicide comes in. Now it's getting ugly - Chosen manage to land one melta out of 4, and I get 1 on damage result table. Which is 1 anyway because of extra armor. Termicide scatters right in between 2 Land raiders, like 7'' away from each. A-fucking-mazing. So I decided to shoot Mephiston. To hit, guess what - 1, 1, 1. Nice. Niceeeee.

Obliterators manage to shake and immobilize LR on 12, and another LR immobilizes itself in terrain, trying to turn to shoot sponson lascannons.

We call it draw, because neither of us is able to do anything apart from holding objective. My army is mostly alive, so he won't be able to footslog to my objective, and his assault squads are hidden behind Land Raiders and can't be possibly reduced to 50%.

1750 points

Same army for me, minus raptors, minus Slaanesh Prince.

gobsan brought Mephiston, Sanguinary Priest, Sanguinary Guards - 5 bodies, 3 full 10 man units of Assault Marines, small DC squad with Lemartes, DC dread and blood talons and Furioso with blood talons and magna grapple. He kept everything in reserve.

Deployment looked like 2 diagonal lines, 18'' apart from table corner.

We both rolled same mission: have 2 units of 50% strength or 2 mobile vehicles in enemy deployment zone and hold your own objective.

I spread my army carefully to ensure that he wont be able to Deep Strike anywhere near me. Plague marines rhino moved upfront and popped smoke, and it looked like a perfect bait. and it worked. nearly everything came from reserves on turn 2 for Blood Angels, apart from Mephiston and one of the assault squads.

First assault squad scattered full 6 into the third floor of the ruins, and lost 4 models to dangerous terrain rolls: including sergeant and a guy with the melta. Nice.

Nothin else really happened.

On my turn greater daemon came into play and assaulted death company squad, reducing them to 2 models. Sanguinary guard lost 2 models to Plasma Cannons, DC dread lost DCCW with meltagun, assault squad in ruins shrugged off most of the fire, losing one model only.

Blood Angels failed to do really anything next turn, wrecked rhino-bait in assault with blood talons and got ready to be owned by meltaguns from point-blank. Sanguinary Guard assaulted Greater Daemon and managed to wound him once, DC died meanwhile, one more models was lost by Sanguinary Guard due Fearless saves. Yes, they had Blood Thirst.

After that Blood Angels concede, as everything is really wounded or ready to be wiped out, and he can't possibly win or even draw - no long range firepower at all.

Conclusion.

Special weapons - this is what makes Chaos army. I'll probably reconsider my lists to include more Chosen, or even Havocs with special weapons - 15 points a pop, with 10 points for meltagun, plus extra rhino? Really, it's good.

On the project progress - I've been sculpting some stuff on my veterans Mk3 shoulders, but i didn't really turned out well. Guess I'll scrap it and start painting, as bases are already painted and ready.

Also, stripped my metal Daemon Prince of paint, and made some minor conversions. Going to post it later, when I'm done with his right hand. So many options, so many options...

As a bonus:

My Summoned Greater Daemon:

My Slaanesh Daemon Prince: