Batrep: Imperial Knights vs. Hive Fleet Proteus (55 PL)

It has been some time since any of my local group has played a game of 40k. We’ve bantered about possibly playing a game sometime, and even suggested that we’re overdue for an Apoc game (and, with the impending re-release of the supplement, we’re due to host one).

It’s unusual–at least, as of late–for there to be enough interest, that we decided to capitalize on it and supplant our regularly scheduled board game night with games of 40k. In total, Sam, Brandon, and Simon showed up (a truly unusual cast of characters), and we paired up for games of 40k.

I wound up paired up against Sam and his army of knights. Sadly, I hadn’t made my list yet, and didn’t want to be seen as engineering against him. I also wasn’t particularly feeling like building a list, so I just went with quick and easy…

Sam’s Imperial Knights

• 1x Knight Warden (Warlord)
  • Avenger Gatling Cannon
  • Reaper Chainsword
  • Icarus Autocannons
• 2x Armiger Helverins
• 2x Armiger Warglaives

I didn’t ask for a list from him, but given that he only had five models, I figure I can reasonably piece together what he had. Though I’ve not faced his Armigers before, I’d heard of them and this seems like a logical force that Sam would use on a regular basis. In short, it wouldn’t have taken that much effort me to have come up with exactly what he was playing, should I have wanted to engineer against it.

BatRep: Hive Fleet Proteus vs. Necrons (98 power)

So, the real inspiration for my “not dead yet” post earlier this week was that I actually got a game of 40k in this past weekend!  No, it wasn’t at my regularly scheduled game night.  Instead, Albert dropped by on Saturday and we managed to knock out a game.

The amount of rust was absurd.  At one point, I had to go back and remember that BS3 now meant that you hit on 3+, and not on 4+, while another time I had to go look up the wound chart to figure out how that worked again.

Yes, undoubtedly, I’m more than a little rusty.

There’s really only one way to fix that, so we pushed through the cobwebs and threw down…

Hive Fleet Proteus

• HQ:
  • Swarmlord (The Horror, Catalyst)
  • Broodlord (Psychic Scream)
• Elites:
  • Hauraspex
• Troops:
  • 15x Genestealers
  • 15x Genestealers
  • 5x Genestealers
  • 5x Genestealers
  • 10x Hormagaunts
• Heavy Support:
  • Trygon Prime w/ Scythes of Tyran
  • Trygon Prime
  • Trygon Prime

Batrep: Ultramarines vs. Black Legion (80 power)

Simon managed to come spend the early part of Black Friday at my place where we commenced with a good old-fashioned game of 40ks. This is our story.

The Forces of Ultramar (Brigade):

• HQ:
  • Chaplain Cassius
  • 1x Lieutenant w/ the Burning Blade & Combi-Flamer
  • 1x Lieutenant w/ Powerfist & Stormbolter
• Elites:
  • 1x Chapter Champion
  • 2x Honor Guard
  • 1x Company Standard
• Troops:
  • 5x Tacticals w/ Plasma Gun & Multi-Melta
  • 5x Tacticals w/ H.Bolter, Flamer, & Powerfist/Plasma Pistol
  • 5x Tacticals w/ Missile Launcher
  • 5x Tacticals w/ Plasma Gun & Lascannon
  • 5x Tacticals w/ H.Plasma Gun
  • 5x Tacticals w/ Meltagun, H.Bolter, & Powersword
• Fast Attack:
  • 1x Attack Bike w/ Multi-Melta
  • 1x Attack Bike w/ Multi-Melta
  • 3x Bikes w/ 2x Melta & 1x Powersword
• Heavy Support:
  • 1x Whirlwind w/ Castellan Missiles
  • 1x Whirlwind w/ Castellan Missiles
  • 1x Thunderfire Cannon

Simon started off by stating he was going to try to fill out a Batallion with only 80 power. That seemed a little far-fetched to me because you just have to have some cheap options. I know that Tyranids can do it because they have so many 2-3 power level options–many of which are quite good–but for Marines & Chaos, it seemed far-fetched. It’s worth noting that he eventually had to pull the plug, but I barely squeaked by using the cheapest of all of the painted models I had for each selection. Of course, it didn’t give me a whole lot of options, but frankly the list isn’t so bad.

When I look at the list above, I have some mobility (the bikes), some long range fire power in the form of various heavy weapons; lots of ways to hold objectives; and some ways to deal with hordes (lots of bolters). The only thing the list seems to be lacking is any real assault power (or psychics). To combat the former, I wound up deploying all of the characters / small units together in a sort of a deathstar. That gave me a bunch of power weapons in a group that could prove formidable against most anything if they had to get stuck into assault. In total, that’s a Champion, 2 Lieutenants, Cassius, Standard, and the Honorguard, plus a couple of combat squads–granted, it’s not the toughest thing in the world, but it’ll work as an assaulty type unit in a pinch.

Batrep: Space Marines vs. Necrons (124 power) *

This week for game night, all of our regulars that don’t play 40k confirmed they weren’t going to make it, so we were able to schedule up a 40k evening. Unfortunately, we just had three players show up, but we managed to make it work with a little two vs. one battle.

Sam’s Imperial Fists

• HQ:
  • Chaplain w/ Bolt Pistol & Jump Pack (warlord)
• Fast Attack:
  • 10x Assault Marines w/ 2x Plasma Pistols & Powerfist
  • 1x Landspeeder w/ Assault Cannon & Heavy Bolter
  • 1x Landspeeder w/ Assault Cannon & Heavy Bolter
  • 1x Landspeeder w/ Assault Cannon & Heavy Bolter
• Flyers:
  • 1x Stormraven Gunship w/ Multi-Melta, Assault Cannons, & Hurricane Bolters

Sam and I wanted to mix things up with team options, and try some list ideas neither of us had ever worked with. Sam had made an 80 power list when he came over, with the intent of playing a bunch of heavy bolters & assault cannons, supplemented with Assault marines. Basically, he was fielding the sorts of things that he never plays with. In retrospect, it’s hard to believe that these few models comprised half of our army…

Batrep: Space Wolves vs. Ultramarines (70 power)

It had been quite a while since I’ve dusted off my 40k models, so with some friends out of town, we opted to forgo the regularly scheduled game night so we could play some 40ks…

Sean’s Space Wolves:

• HQ:
  • Bjorn, the Fell Handed (Warlord)
  • Arjac Rockfist
• Elites:
  • 5x Wulfen inc. 4x Thunder Hammers & Storm Shields and 1x Lightning Claws
• Troops:
  • 5x Grey Hunters w/ Plasma & Banner
  • 5x Grey Hunters w/ Melta & Banner
  • 5x Grey Hunters w/ Flamer & Banner
• Heavy:
  • 6x Long Fangs w/ 5x Heavy Plasma
• Flyers:
  • 1x Stormfang Gunship

I’m not 100% sure of the breakdown of units and loadout–or that they’re necessarily lumped into the correct categories, but that’s essentially what he had. Arjac forgot to come out during the photo shoot, but trust me, he was there. He also apparently paid to upgrade a single sergeant to a wolfguard battle leader in terminator armor, but forgot to put him on the table.

This is probably a good time to point out that neither Sean or I have played 40k in entirely too long, so this game involved a bunch of looking up rules, general misremembering, and an ultimate realization of how out of practice we were…