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.

Painting Termagants (again)

Though I’ve only played one game of 40k in close to six months, I’m starting to get an itch.  Well, maybe not so much an itch, but at least I feel apprehension towards the idea of playing the game.  While that isn’t exactly high praise, it’s at least a start!

So, I started working myself up to speed by painting a couple of Zombicide models, which I’ve since finished.  So now, I’m moving on to Tyranids.  The irony isn’t lost on me that I started with something that actually took more skill and time per model to complete.  The thing is, that painting Tyranids en masse takes more than just talent–it takes staying power.  I wanted to see if I had it in me to knock out at least a couple of models before I started painting 30 at once.

Yup, that’s what I went ahead and did.  I’m not exactly certain why I have 30 ‘gaunts laying around, but sure enough I do.  I originally had paid a friend, Mitch, to paint these, and he eventually gave up and brought them back to me hat in hand, so they were partially started.  Mitch moved out of state in July of last year, so they’ve been sitting around at least that long.  If I sleuth around more, I recall he gave them back on the night of a MTG draft (which, after a bit of searching turns out to be Ixalan–which although I posted it on June 4th, it turns out the draft night was actually May 18th).

That’s a long winded way of saying that it’s been nearly a year since I got these back from a failed outsource painting experience.  I don’t even recall when I’d purchased these…

The good news is that they’re all armed with devourers, so they should shred up whatever opponent I throw them on the table for.  Well, that’s if and when they get painted.

For now, let’s call these decided a “work in progress.”  More to come on them eventually…

 

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: Nurgle Daemons vs. Hive Fleet Proteus (50 power)

Part of why I haven’t been blogging much as of late is because I haven’t been playing 40k. I’ve still been playing games, but for some reason I choose not to blog about board games for the most part. If I had to answer why that is, I think it’s to give me a break. Blogging can be a chore, so I try to keep it to a relevant minimum.

Well, in an effort to get back on the wagon, I scheduled an impromptu game over Memorial Day weekend in the hopes of inspiring myself to play. Mitch showed up with his “as few models as possible” list and we threw down.

Mitchell’s Daemons of Nurgle:

• HQ:
  • Daemon Prince of Nurgle w/ Wings
• Troops:
  • 3x Nurglings
• Fast Atttack:
  • 1x Foetid Bloat-Drone
  • 1x Myphitic Blight-Hauler
• Lord of War:
  • Mortarion

In fairness, he asked if I minded him using Mortarion in a game. I’d never faced him, but had read up on him. I don’t want to face him in any size game, let alone a small game, but the worst that could happen is I’d lose, so why not? It also helps me make an informed decision on a unit’s power level to see it in action, rather than just doing theory-hammer.

The rest of his list I’d seen in practice as well, some on an actual game table.

Apocalypse 2018: Winter Edition – Battle Report

Writing Apocalypse battle reports is hard work. Writing a detailed accounting of what transpired in the order they happened is neigh impossible.

I used to bother trying to go through the ordeal, but I’ve learned my lesson. Since I was playing in the battle, and my army was really sequestered to one half of the table, I had almost no clue as to what was going on on the other side (other than they were clearly taking “too long”). I’m hoping then that someone from the far end of the table speaks up in the comments and gives me some idea of just exactly what was taking so long.

The day began with the potluck that went awry. We always do a potluck when it comes to Apoc games as it just works out well. In our first few, everything went groovy: people brought various foods and everything just worked out. Then, one game someone thought ahead to bring breakfast and that was a deal changer. It blew our minds that someone would bring breakfast.

Don’t ask me why, as we’ve always started between 8am and 10am, so breakfast should be first on someone’s mind.

Still, it was a novel concept and very well received. Well, in succeeding events, we’d had problems with too many people bringing breakfast, and this was just a continuation of that. Of the nine people in attendance, fully five of them brought some sort of breakfast item, which meant that lunch really consisted of a couple forms of cookies, a veggie tray, and some soup. I eventually busted out some frozen pizza and that made up for the difference, but a key lesson to learn here is that we should limit who all brings breakfast. Simply put three dozen doughnuts, sweet rolls, and muffins proved to be more than our old pallettes can handle.

With the food sorted out, and the teams decided (as detailed in the previous post), we moved on to determining who goes first.  In our last game, Sam had decided that nothing as important as first turn should be decided by something as insignificant as a die roll, and the test of skill was born.  For those that don’t recall, he and Mitch held their breath, and Sam lost.  Itching for a come-back, his new “feat of strength,” was whoever could chug a soda and smash the can first would be crowned the winner.  I escorted them outside, knowing that someone would make a mess and let them do their thing.

Sam proved that the old timers still had something left in the tank, and Chaos was scheduled to take the first beating.