Faith versus Perfection

  The Emperor's Children, once paragons of perfection and models for all Astartes, had just begun their muster when they were challenged by the Word Bearers.  Their depravity and lost grace drove them to accept and make haste to an abandoned Imperial world to teach the preachers some things.  While the force was a hodge-podge collection at this point, they were eager to see (and feel) pain again, and these challengers were asking for it.  

The forces

  The Word Bearers brought the same force that took down the Lion- two Daemon Princes and their Warp Talons, a Master of Possession and his Possessed, a Lord with Chosen and a Dark Apostle with Chosen, and the vehicle fleet of a Helbrute, 2 Predators, and a Land Raider.  It's not the most powerful force in the world, but there was some 'min-maxing' involved...

  The Emperor's Children had to depend on a lot of daemons to fill out the ranks.  They brought a Lord and his Infractors, a Sorcerer and his Tormentors, a couple units of Noise Marines and a couple more of Emperor's Children squads, a single Maulerfiend and Terminators for that 'heavy' element, all backed up by Spawn, Daemonettes, Seekers of Slaanesh, and a Keeper of Secrets.  

The mission and objectives

  This mission is super-easy!  With 12" deployment zones and each objective giving victory points (and more if a character is holding it), the mission were very easy to remember.  Even better, the battlefield is mined, so any advance roll of '6' will cause damage- Emperor's Children are very fast and known to advance often, so this was a huge (if only psychological) advantage to the Word Bearers!

 The Emperor's Children counted the Word Bearers' characters and chose Assassinate, and knew their own speed, so chose Engage on All Fronts.  

  The Word Bearers, realizing their own speed and the ability to deep strike made the Engage on All Fronts secondary mission and must as well, and they reinforced this with Behind Enemy Lines.  This is surprising considering the Word Bearers are playing an 'armoured' force while the Emperor's Children is lauded for their speed!

Deployment

  The Word Bearers started by deploying everything to flanks, leaving only the Predator Annihilator to hold their home objective in the middle.  One unit of Warp Talons and their winged Daemon Prince remained in reserves, do deep strike into the abandoned enemy zone.  The Chosen and characters rode in the Land Raider and followed the other unit of Warp Talons on their left flank, while the Possessed had a ton of support all deployed in and around the ruins on the right flank.  If the enemy is going to use speed, then the Word Bearers would bait-and-drag to surround them...

  The Emperor's Children, still trying to understand their muster, deployed in a wide flank all the way across the board.  Some Daemonettes and the Terminators stayed in reserves while more Daemonetts and Seekers skittered behind the squads of marines to lend their support.  The Spawn and Keeper deployed to the flank to hunt the enemy leaders.  

  Both sides cajoled each other with their false worship-styles and prepared to teach the other a lesson.  Ironically, the Emperor's Children couldn't be 'perfect' just yet while the Word Bearers did not have too much faith against them.  This battle was going to be little more than hate-filled brother versus hate-filled brother.

Round 1

  The Emperor's Children won the initiative roll and so got to act first.  The entire force moved forward, much advancing (slowly to avoid the mines), and threatening the enemy quickly.  To really drive the point home, the Seekers leapt forward past their escort and settled right in front of the Possessed to tease them.  Slaaneshi followers don't do things 'normal'!  Meanwhile, the Tormentors shot at the Annihilator in the center to cause minimal damage, and a unit of Noise Marines tried to do the same to the Possessed and completely whiffed.  

  The Word Bearers reacted as a Khorne-aligned force would and simply unloaded on everything they could.  The Possessed claimed dibs on the Daemonettes, so the Destructor and Daemon Prince fired at the Noise Marines to kill over half the squad.  The Possessed, instigated by the daemons teasing, then led the charge and helped wipe out the smart-mouthed cavalry.  

On the other side of the battlefield, the Annihilator had claimed the Maulerfiend as the Focus of Hatred and unleashed all three lascannons, but failed to finish the armoured beast off.  The Land Raider crawled forward and disgorged all the Chosen and their leaders and contributed its four lascannons against the Maulerfiend and still failed.  The dice were not in the graces of the Chaos gods...  Finally, the Warp Talons moved to help fight the Spawn- needed all their claws and the help of a Chosen Champion to kill them.  The other unit of Chosen and the Lord charged the Flawless Blades screening the Keeper of Secrets and destroyed all but one.  Not to be denied his prodigous skill, the surviving Blade took down a Chosen in return.  

End Rd 1- Emperor's Children 0, Word Bearers 0

Round 2

  The Emperor's Children were reeling from the sudden onslaught and nearly paralyzed as they tried to formulate a new plan to respond.  Their enemy had reacted too quickly to their plans and, even with poor dice, managed to stymie the advance and cause some significant damage!  The army simply moved up and depended on passing their Battleshock tests.  To start, they still claimed their own home objective (the Tormentors had 'marked' it before moving away), giving the army three victory points so far. The Tormentors continued their advance forward, peppering the Possessed unit and trying to utilize their precise weaponry to attempt to kill the Master of Possessions, yet their efforts were unfortunately unrewarded. The Noise Marines standing alongside them had no choice but to stand idle, as the Emperor's Children found no interest in units that were already under attack by one of their own. On the other side of the battlefield, the Infractors moved up to claim the center objective and engage the Daemon Prince, and the final Flawless Blade retreated to allow the Keeper of Secrets to engage the two units of Chosen who had slain her favorite mortal followers. The rest of the army watched in glee as the carnage began to escalate.  The Lord, leading the Infractors, tried to hurt the Daemon Prince and failed only to see two of the veterans hacked down by the monster.  But the real action was with the Keeper of Secrets, who let out a other-worldly howl to begin its rampage.  The Chaos Lord and his Chosen were well-prepared and popped the 'Strike First' rule- his hammer causing eight mortal wounds and adding a couple more from his bodyguard, infuriating the massive creature.  The Keeper decapitated three of the Chosen from the Dark Apostle's squad.  The preacher and his survivors put another three wounds on the Keeper, completely flipping the turn's momentum!  The Emperor's Children army had lost the glee from only a moment ago and now understood the dread.  

This is COMPLETELY opposite of the last dice- the return of probability!

  The Word Bearers (having changed dice between turns and now confident with newfound luck) only had to press their advantage and win.  They controlled two objectives and the Dark Apostle was one of the controllers, earning them 12 victory points.  They chose the Keeper of Secrets as their Focus of Hatred to ensure success as they retreated everything from it.  With that, the Land Raider unleashed all the Soulshatter Cannons to kill the greater daemon and signal for the rest of the armoured elements.  The Annihilator finished the severely-wounded Maulerfiend and the Destructor mowed down many Daemonettes.  The end of the cacaphony of cannons signaled the charge for everyone- the Possessed charged the surviving Daemonettes to finish them and then contacted the Noise Marines, the Lord's Chosen joined the Warp Talons to charge the other unit of Daemonettes and wiped them out, and Daemon Prince continued to battle their Lord and Infractors, suffering only one wound but wiping them out.  The Emperor's Children could only watch their own massacre, and missed another unit of Warp Talons and a winged Daemon Prince appearing in their backfield.  This gave them another 7 victory points for 'Engage on All Fronts' and 'Behind Enemy Lines'. 

End Round 2- Emperor's Children 3, Word Bearers 19

End of the Game

  While the game is supposed to be five rounds, this one was called after two.  The Word Bearers were now so far ahead in points while their opponent didn't even have enough units to claim objectives, so there was no way to win for the Emperor's Children.  

  With a final score of 3-19, it was a very clear Word Bearer's victory. The Emperor's Children had tried their first battle and apparently had a long way to go to achieve that perfection they are [in]famous for.  That being said, the army was only just started and had no options to choose from- my son had to dig out his Daemon collection to fill the ranks.  Worse, the fledgling army had to face against a Primarch-buster list and probably wasn't a fair judgement anyway.  But this was a chance to learn the special rules and make a plan for expansion...

  The abandoned Imperial world resolved into silence as the red-armoured heretics had cleared and claimed it.  Their own brothers, arrogantly challenging the seasoned force, thought their reputation would carry the day, but the Word Bearers were ready.  The Lord of the Emperor's Children knew that he would need to muster much more to threaten the veteran army and retreated in chaotic order.  Next time, heretics, next time...

Happy Gaming!

More Blue Mech

   I've hobbied more and even played some games of 40k, but I've been too busy to finish editing those batreps and posts.  Admittedly, today's post is a 'cheat' so I have more time for those other posts.  Eventually, these 'cheat' posts will have to result in some batreps for Battletech as well, and that's exciting.  Let's get this one out of the way so I can get on those!

  The "Beginner Box", released by Catalyst Games Labs way back when, came with two battlemech models to start playing right away.  One of them is one of my favorites and the other is so common that every House uses some version of it.  When it came time for me to slap some colour on them, I just went with the box art and that led me to choosing Steiner as my primary House and that's transferred over to the recent work.  When you have too much stuff and you just default to box art- who needs creativity?

  The mech is a Griffon- a common medium mech that sports decent firepower and doesn't cost too much BV- which is why it's so common amongst all the fighting forces of the galaxy.  Note that my paint scheme isn't exactly the same as my other jobs, but mechwarriors aren't bound to match each other perfectly.  This is war, not a tea party.  

  

  With this model, I tried the 'lining-in' technique to really pop those details.  It looks fantastic, so I may add that technique to some others.  I'll have to compare to see if it makes enough of a difference to the eyes from tabletop distance to force the issue.  I painted this model at least a year before the rest, so it's interesting how my approach to painting these has changed over time already.  

  Alright, that's the post!  It's a painted model, added to my growing lance, and proving progress even while I'm playing catchup.  Now for at least one more mech...

Happy Hobbying!

Classic Biggest Gun!

  Well, no Inner Sphere lance is complete without the biggest gun you can mount on a 'mech, and the most famous of that is the AC/20.  There are many tanks and a few non-assault 'mechs with it, but the infamous silhouette of the Hunchback is the most obvious display of that huge gun.  And House Steiner won't be without one.  

  If you followed the last post, you'll already know how I did the blue.  So this post starts off from there with the only real detail being the 1/3 white on the right side (from the 'mechwarrior's PoV) and the huge gun.  As before, everything here is basic techniques, so I'll just show pics with the colours that I used.  

  After dealing the the blue-and-white colour-scheme, I then had to move on to the head/cockpit.  The Hunchback is weird becuase it's not the typical glasas canopy or ballistic-proof windshield, but instead a golden metallic grill.  With the copper-transformers on his arm and back (very low-tech based on my paint-scheme), this made things a tad confusing.  So I had to experiment a bit to figure out how to make the two look different and keep the attention on the head as all other 'mechs.  

  Once all the basic stuff is done, it's time to paint the whole purpose of this mech- the AC/20! 

THE gun of guns...

"Get close- I dare ya!"

  And that's it!  I'm not halfway done with a 'lance', and I'm thinking the next 'mech will have to be a Zeus- the mascot of the Lyran Commonwealth.  Between the Atlas and the Hunchback, I have some big guns and plan to keep that theme going...

Happy  Hobbying!