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Sage your painting really is improving with every mini you do, nice work dude.

As I said on another thread... he's terrific Sage. Len has the right of it, you're getting better with every mini.

Git.. you still looking for basic troopers to fill out a squad? I have 2 spare Get of Freki you can have...

Yeah... that would be great! Thanks!

thank you! (blush)

Don't blush... PAINT! *cracks the whip*

I have just spent the better part of 15mins scrolling through your thread for the posts on your colour tests and you chapter symbols. Its not on Git I demand a contents page to this monster this instant......... only joking but it was a bit of a mission. Anyway just have your man's plasma rifle to do and then he'll be getting the first Thunderhawk heading your way Gits.

Gitsplitta wrote:Don't blush... PAINT! *cracks the whip*

Yeah GIT, if anyone needs the whip to be cracked its you! Maybe you should spend less time on the forums and more time painting! lol.

LOL guilty as charged...

Holy crap my Mantis Warriors actually WON a real battle... against an adult! Never thought I'd see the day.

Actually kind of a "perfect storm" of things went right for me. Took lots of photos, battle report to follow when my friend and I sort out the details.

Gits

Nice to hear!!! See, fluffy forces can work out!!! Congrats!

So, you guys all know that my P&M blogs are more than just P&M... they're kind of the whole enchilada as it relates to my various armies. Plus I'm not quite up to haveing the best generals on dakka tear my military competence a new one by posting a separate thread in the battle reports section. So, for your entertainment... a battle report featuring the "Mantis Warriors Penitent" (which is what I've decided just now to call them since their return to the Imperium).

Had a great game last night with a friend from my FLGS who has a very nicely painted Chaos Demon army. He's a dakkaite too, "Nerf". He was coming out to pick up an old TV of mine for his video gaming "master plan" and suggested that since he made the trip we might get a game in. We're both preparing for the finals of a tournament in October that we both qualified for earlier this year, so I jumped at the opportunity. I hadn't played an adult for 2 months or so... so I was a bit nervous. OH, and before you get too excited we both qualified for our painting skills... NOT our playing skills! (kind of a neat tournament idea... we can talk about that later if you're curious).

I'd hoped to work with him on this batrep, but since I have "momentum" and everything is fresh in my mind... I'm running with it. I will however, update this post as I get feedback from my friend and will let you know when it's been fully completed. I hope to be able to include his input on his army design and strategy before it's over... I'll certainly include mine.


So, lets start with the visitors...
Nerf's Chaos Demons:

First Wave:
Bloodthirster
Skarbrand
2 x Demon Prince of Khorne

Second Wave:
5 x 8 bloodletters

Wings with 4 wounds each and a million power weapons with 4 million attacks. Woof!


The home team...
Gitsplitta's Mantis Warriors Penitent:

HQ:
Libby - Null Zone and some shooty power (not the flamer)
MoTF + flunkie

Elite:
Sternguard (5) - forgot to give them ANY wargear... so just the bolters
Ven Dread - 2 x TL Autocannons

Troops:
Scouts (10) - sniper rifles, heavy bolter, srg w/ PF
Scouts (10) - sniper rifles, missile launcher, Telion (Darius Stone in my chapter)
Tac Squad - plasma, missile launcher, rhino, srg w/ plas pist & p-sword

Fast:
Assault Squad (5) - 1 PP, Srg w/ plas pist & p-sword

Hvy:
Dreadnought: TL-LC, CCW, Hvy Flamer
Dreadnought: Assault Cannon, CCW, Hvy Flamer


Mantis Warriors: In general, this is fundamentally the configuration of my Mantis Warriors that I've been working around for some time now. Scouts, vets, dreads. MoTF has become mandatory in order to get the dreads in the heavy slots. Sniper scouts because, well... that's all I have painted at the moment. I chose the librarian strictly for Null Zone and to beef up my assault squad a bit. The Tac squad in the rhino is a luxury I usually don't allow myself for fluff reasons, but as a result of the "Great Marine Swap" I'm going to end up with an inquisitional tac squad with rhino, I thought it would be a good idea to practice with them a bit. Interestingly enough, this is the very last time any of these assault marines will fight with my army. They're packed up in a box as I type this and will be shipped off to Lennysmash as part of our trade, so this was their last opportunity to fight alongside their brothers-in-arms. Given the opponent and the fact that I deny myself the use of tanks, it was about as good a mix of troops as I could get (lots of rending and "poisoned" weapons, lots of rapid fire & dreads who were basically bloodletter-proof).

Demons: Will update this when I get input from the demon-master himself,- but in essence I believe Nerf's idea was to overwhelm his opponent with a zillion power sword attacks while using the wee-beasties to soak up fire and take out vehicles. No shooting, but absolute carnage when they get into H-t-H. Worried the heck outta me, that's for certain. Unfortunately he'd accidentally left his tray with most of his bloodletters at home, so we had to proxy them with my orks.



The Game:
We consulted the BRB and rolled up Annihilation and Dawn of War deployment. I lost the roll and was compelled to go first.

Once again we were fighting over the abandoned ork Stompa factory. Once you have really nice terrain it's really had to play on anything else. Demons got to arrange the terrain to their liking (power of the warp and all) while I franticly put together my army. Even though my table is 4x8 we confined the field of play to a standard 4x6 surface. Having real buildings is fun but it's also a challenge in that the standard rules don't really suffice. So every game I play on this table I tweak and change the rules a bit... I like this version... with a little tweaking it might be the one I stick with. In short, buildings are difficult terrain for infantry, impassible to vehicles. Being on a building is the same as being in it & confers a 5+ save (ramshackle ork construction you know...). Committing two movements (move and run) will get you from anywhere on the outside of the building to anywhere on the inside (or top), and there is NO unit coherency in the buildings. i.e. all figures in the building are considered to be in coherency, no matter the relation to one another. So a regular unit could get from the base of a building to anywhere they wanted to within it, but could not act. A fleet unit could actually get into the building *and* assault in one turn (or visa-versa). Lastly movement within a building is infinite... i.e. during a movement "chance" you can move any figure in the building to any other place within the building, normal restrictions like being in H-t-H or the 1" need-to-assault-to-get-closer-than-this apply. These rules represent the fact that orky construction is filled with exposed beams, girders, wires and pipes... things a trained soldier would have no problem scrambling up with or without a stairwell or ladder.

Piles of rubble were just difficult terrain but conferred the same 5+ saving throw.

Deployment:
I decided to "hole up in a corner", at least I wouldn't have to worry about the demons raining down from the skies until the rest of my troops came on to cover my back. I took Telion's squad and put them in one of the ork buildings, then the scout squad (with the PF) out in front. I added my librarian for good measure as a lookout atop the building.

Turn 1-A: (Mantis Warriors)
My half of turn 1 saw the Mantis Warriors foot slogging in around the scouts in order to prevent any unfortunate deep-striking incidents and set up a gun line. As per usual the Tranquility Detachment ran the sternguard as a screen for the venerable dreadnought. These two units are formidable when run in tandem, especially when I remember to give the sternguard a little war gear. The assault squad moved forward aggressively on the left flank as the librarian dropped down to join their ranks. The Dreadnoughts and MoTF filled in the center, providing heavy support for the vulnerable scouts. The tactical squad drove up the flank to provide support for the assault squad and a solid anchor for the left.

Turn 1-B: (Demons)
The powers of the warp waxed and waned and what materialized on the battlefield were 4 mucking huge demons of Khorne! Yowza!! This is apparently what the Master of Demons (Nerf) was hoping for and he smiled slyly as he dropped them down one by one. Luckily none of the scattered in my direction and I figured I'd get at least one decent turn of shooting before things got ugly.



Score: Demons - 0, MW - 0

Turn 2-A: (Mantis Warriors)
The assault troops, libby and tac squads advance quickly on the left, with the libby running into the rubble to help improve his chances vs. a demon assault. He fires up his Null Zone power, which only affects the nearest demon (but I'll take it). On the right, everyone save the dreads sits tight so they can fire at long range. The scouts of course... take aim. Two full squads of snipers, the sternguard using poison amo and the dreads open up on the demons. When it's all over, the nearest demon (Bloodthirster) is dead, and Skarbrand has 3 wounds!



Turn 2-B: (Demons)
Two squads of bloodletters materialize, one in the center and one to the far right. The large demons move at frightening speed toward the Imperial lines. With no shooting attacks however, the forces of chaos are still trying the close the gap.



Score: Demons - 0, MW - 1

Turn 3-A: (Mantis Warriors)

Across the broken, fetid, industrial wasteland that was the remnants of the ork compound, Sgt. Buzka could see two large groups of gibbering demons materialize out of the warp... while giant behemoths of violence and death lept through the air behind them on shredded, impossible wings. In a matter of moments the beasts would be amongst their vulnerable scouts... their *first* scouts in over a century... the future of the chapter snuffed out to feed the vile powers of chaos. "Men." stated the sergeant in a tone as flat as death... "you know what must be done." After 200 years of ceaseless campaigning with his brothers... no answer was necessary, and none was given. "FOR THE EMPEROR!!" they cried as one as they charged the center of the demon horde.

On the left flank, the rhino continues its outflanking course, while the assault squad moves to give assault cover to the lower unit of scouts. The librarian, now unattached finds a spot in the rubble in relative safety from which to fail a psychic test and suffer a wound. Meanwhile the snipers take aim...

In the only truly heroic moment of the battle for my army, the five sternguard with no special weapons advance to the center of the board, within easy charge range of two demon princes, a greater demon and 16 bloodletters, determined to slow the demonic advance enough to buy one extra turn of fire for the rest of the army. Knowing what must be done, the venerable dreadnought eases back and trains his wepons on a demon prince, staying out of charge range should his shots fail to fell the beast. A hail of fire opens up again from the Mantis Warrior lines, hoping to provide enough covering fire to allow the sternguard to emerge alive. Skarbrand and one of the demon princes are destroyed, as are most of the bloodletters, however in order to make certain the center stays muddied up, the tranquility snipers (sternguard) charge the 3 remaining bloodletters, killing 1 while losing 2 of their own.



Turn 3-B: (Demons)
Two more squads of bloodletters materialize out of the warp, one dangerously close the to Mantis Warrior lines. The greater demon and untouched bloodletters assault the valiant sternguard. With one sweep of his great axe, there is nothing left of the Veterans of Tranquility... their limbs sheared, and bodies split asunder.



Score: Demons - 0, MW - 3

Turn 4-Aa: (Mantis Warriors, movement)
Things get a little dicey here so I split out my half of the turn. The rhino finally finishes it's outflanking move and deposits the tactical squad withing rapid fire range. The assault squad gambles that it is better to leave the scouts unprotected than to be an impediment to their firing, and jumps to the far side of the bloodletters. Librarian casts Null Zone (successfully this time). On the right the dreadnoughts, incensed and inspired by the selfless sacrifice of their brethren surge forward towards the demons, while the veteran dreadnought... in silent suffering over the loss of his fellow Tranquility Campaign veterans, vows vengeance with every round. Meanwhile, the snipers take aim...



Turn 4-Ab: (Mantis Warriors, shooting)
The two dreadnoughts unload their heavy flamers and main weapons on the bloodletters killing most in the near squad on 1 of the 2 remaining from the squad that was charged by the sternguard. On the left flank, Brother Ignus forgets to set the safety on his plasma and fries himself... but not before taking out a bloodletter. His brothers take out two more. Here my friends is where the assault squad really shines, I believe the five assault marines shot and killed the 5 remaining bloodletters (thanks to the Null Zone). Though I think I would have had an advantage in assault strictly due to numbers, those bloodletters would have killed a lot of marines before going down. Good job boys, beer is on me! (There it is... in the corner, go get it!) The venerable dread and scouts open up on the greater demon, and he goes down in a hail of sniper and autocannon fire.

One of the dreads charges through the retaining pond and into the 3 remaining bloodletters on the right center. Their attacks ping off his heavy armor. He kills two outright and the last succumbs to a "fearless" wound.



Revenge is sweet... and HOT.


Turn 4-B: (Demons)
The final squad of bloodletters arrives (scatters) to the rear. The demon horde, knowing no fear, charges towards the marine assault squad... determined to reap vengeance and blood for their blood god. The lone bloodletter is an unbelieveable 1/16" short of being able to complete his charge! Woah... that was close.



Score: Demons - 1, MW - 6

Turn 5-A: (Mantis Warriors)
I play "keep away" yet again, and my assault squad gets the heck outta Dodge (towards their beer). Lots of shooting, more demons die.

Turn 5-B: (Demons)
With no more reserves there is little hope, but demons follow their nature... and charge forward undaunted.





We roll, game ends.

Final score: Demons - 1, MW - 6



I want to mention that Nerf was an outstanding opponent. I have been on the receiving end of one sided battles like this and it is not fun or easy. Throughout Nerf was honorable, a gentleman and would even remind me of things that I had forgotten to do that were to my benefit and his detriment. That is good sportsmanship above and beyond the call, and I would be honored to play him any time, anywhere.


Hope it was worth the read, and I hope to include some of his comments in a later edit.

Gits

Cool

Epilogue: The librarian and forgemaster of the Mantis Warriors stood in quiet conversation looking grim. A century of fighting demons and the forces of chaos in the Eye during the Dark Times (i.e. their exile/crusade - Gits) had paid it's dividends. A major demonic incursion had been stopped with nearly no casualties.... nearly. The scouts had performed admirably, their carefully aimed sniper rifle rounds finding the weak spots in the demons hide. Victory would have been impossible without them.

"Was this their first direct experience against demonic forces?" the Forgemaster asked.
"Aye" answered the Librarian.
"They did well"
"Aye, Stone will have them ready when it's time for them to assume their full responsibilities."
...
"How long did you know Brother Buzka?" asked the Forgemaster.
"We were scouts together."
"We would have been lost without his sacrifice... you know that." said the Forgemaster, sensing the sorrow and loss of his battle brother.
Aye, but how can a man survive 100 years of battleing chaos in the heart of the Melstrom, only to fall to it here... in the heart of the Imperium?!"
"It was the Emperor's will, perhaps THIS is why he survived all those years... one moment, one decision, one supreme sacrifice to secure the future of our chapter."
"Perhaps, Forgemanster, perhaps." (The Librarian slowly squared his shoulders and looked towards the horizon, as if the clouds of dust were revealing the past by concealing the present). "Let us quit this foul place and escort our fallen brethren to their eternal rest. It is our time now, and there is much work to do"


Final Thoughts:
I was pleased with the way the battle went, but I had more than my share of good luck. The scouts managed to dish out a prodigious number of wounds with a healthy percentage being rending. Sternguard shooting was formidable as always. All the dreads performed as expected & I'm sold on the the CCW combination for most of them as it makes them much more versatile. On average I rolled very well, which is quite atypical for me. The fact that the demons managed to almost always scatter away from my army was a huge help, buying me a clean extra turn or more of shooting in the game. It was, in essence... a giant game of "keep away". I liked the little assault squad as it was a handy thing to bounce around and provide fire or a safety screen for my vulnerable troops wherever needed.

As for the size of the pics, you can have them in "full size" :



But that maeks for a very large size, depending on their resolution!!!

When you're in your gallery, you can adjust the size of the picture from "Recommended" to "Full Size", it's just on top of the links you copy & paste to show your awesome stuff!
Hope this helps!

As for the game, it was pretty straightforward indeed, I usually have the same kind of games when I play my own demons... They get shot & burned & run from, with only a few opportunities to assault my opponent's troops!!!

Nice fluff parts as well... I can well imagine the mighty veterans charging in for the sake of their Chapter... Very SM-esque!!!

OK, so I can change the setting but it doesn't actually do anything... there's no way to save the change. It automatically reverts to the recommended size setting.

This was fun!

Then maybe you can resize it manually (that's what I did to copy your pic)!

All links look like this :

[ url=http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2010/9/16/139965_Mantis%20Warriors%2C%20DS-T1.jpg][img ]http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2010/9/16/139965-Mantis%20Warriors%2C%20DS-T1.jpg[/img][/url]

For each of the four sizes (Thumbnail, Small, Medium, Full-sized), the difference in the link is a small added suffix to the pic number (marked in purple on the above link).

Respectively, _th ; _mb ; _sm ; nothing (just like the link used as example).

So if you want your pic to be a thumbnail, the link will be

[ url=http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2010/9/16/139965_Mantis%20Warriors%2C%20DS-T1.jpg][img ]http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2010/9/16/139965_th-Mantis%20Warriors%2C%20DS-T1.jpg[/img][/url]



For your initial problem : the default size is Medium / _sm, so if you want them full sized, just remove the _sm in the link pasted from the gallery!



As for final examples :

[ url=http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2010/9/16/139965_Mantis%20Warriors%2C%20DS-T1.jpg][img ]http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2010/9/16/139965_th-Mantis%20Warriors%2C%20DS-T1.jpg[/img][/url]

yields :

[ url=http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2010/9/16/139965_Mantis%20Warriors%2C%20DS-T1.jpg][img ]http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2010/9/16/139965_mb-Mantis%20Warriors%2C%20DS-T1.jpg[/img][/url]

yields :

[ url=http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2010/9/16/139965_Mantis%20Warriors%2C%20DS-T1.jpg][img ]http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2010/9/16/139965_sm-Mantis%20Warriors%2C%20DS-T1.jpg[/img][/url]

yields :

And, eventually:


[ url=http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2010/9/16/139965_Mantis%20Warriors%2C%20DS-T1.jpg][img ]http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2010/9/16/139965-Mantis%20Warriors%2C%20DS-T1.jpg[/img][/url]

yields :

I just hope this was helpful... And not that foggy or boring, as I fear!

Great report! The yellow and green really gives a nice contrast on the battlefield, would be nice to see your forces not so spread out thought, perhaps it's time for a army shoot soon (really wanna see em all toghether ?

@Yggs: Doing it manually worked! Thanks!! Now that I know that I can edit my photos so they're the correct size (these are a bit big). I figure the battle report shots should be pretty big as you need to see what's going on & it's disruptive to have to go to the pic page to view them within the context of the battle report.

@Limbo: Thanks! Unfortunately the assault marines are on their way to England, but I can get a shot of the rest. It's still a mish-mosh of old and new figures...

Glad I could be of help...

In picture 4-ab is that a beer bottle drop pod?

I expect that out of SW but not the Penitent.

Excellent, your force was well rounded and you adjusted your tactic's to keep your eye on the victory points. however 1 reater demon showing getting into HTH would ruin your day... well played!

One *anything* getting into H-t-H would have ruined my day. You saw what 3 crappy bloodletters did to my *charging* unit of sternguard didn't you? Holy moley! If they'd have reached me any of those units would have gone through me like you-know-what through a goose!

What's that??? 32 power sword attacks at +1 strength and +1 initiative on the charge? Oh... 11 unsavable wounds? I only have 10 guys... is that enough?


That's no beer... it's "Packer Pop"!!

Awesome batrep!

I was asked by Ordo Dakka if I could do a little how-to on my hinged chainswords. After writing it up in PM form... it seemed like a lot of work for just one PM, so I thought I'd post it here. As I did not photograph the whole process in steps you'll have to use your imagination on the photos shown... but it's frankly not all that difficult a process, so I'm sure you can figure it out.



OK, it's not as difficult as you might think. I've done three experimental models, so I have a few pics to work from. First I get a plethora of swords to work with, so if I mess up I can start again.

In essence, the bottom sword is mounted fairly normally. In my chaos mantis and ork bug boy conversions, I have the models holding the swords as normal.





While in my actual Mantis Warrior loyalist conversion, I have the base blade mounted directly to the arm (which is I believe the superior way this weapon would be attached).



I know I'm going to need to cut both joined parts of the two blades off to make the join. How you do this depends on your philosophy of how the weapon works. In the Mantis Warrior (technologically more sophisticated) system, all the blades are connected to the same drive system, so I just needed a clean joint to represent the transition from one blade to the other.



In this case I just removed the motor from the second sword, then cut the angles of both parts so they made the look I wanted. You'll have to remove some teeth as well to get the angle right. Use the plastic glue that melts the plastic together to keep these pieces from falling apart & make sure they're lined up very straight!

With the chaos version, which is my mind would have been field-repaired over the centuries without the proper equipment or parts... I actually had a second motor on the "upper" blade (see above photo). Each of these were made differently. On the bent sword I just kept the chainsword in-tact including the motor and cut out enough of both swords to make a reasonable hinging point where the teeth would not interfere with one another. On the extended sword, I actually used my jeweler's saw to cut off the motor of the upper sword in slabs from the body of the sword (top first, then sides). The I reassembled the slabs on the joint with a bit of green stuff to fill in the gaps.

On the integrated Mantis Warrior swords, I added a power cable from the back of the weapon into the body of the armor (actually under the arm). This particular cable is too big I think, and on my future Vanguard I'll use a smaller one.

The other tricky thing with the swords is how to disguise the joint. On the cruder chaos and ork swords, it was fairly easy to cut the nubbins around the motors or gears to make the bend look plausible, however on the regular Mantis Warrior swords it's trickier, because you've got a clean joint to make into a believable weapon. There are several possibilities, only one of which I've explored myself.

1) My first attempt was set of sliding plates below a pivot point on the top of the joint. (see pic's above) I was not happy with how this turned out.
2) tony_nids_10 suggested a set up like a normal modern knee brace.. which I quite liked. A photo is on page 9 of my blog, but I can't seem to get it from there to here...
3) My other thought was to simply have a roughly triangular plate cover the joint, with a pivot pin on the top and a sliding pin and slot near the bottom. (no pics, but imagine the 3-plate version with only one plate and a curved slot at the bottom with a pin that keeps the swords tracking along the slot.

Last part is positioning. Seemed to me that the most natural motion would be the best, so that when the arm is bent, the swords are bent. When the arms are extended, the swords are too.

That's it! Once you puzzle out the basics it's actually quite easy to do... just make sure you have extra bits around so you can experiment.

Gits

Nice battle report. I was glad to read that your opponent was such a good sport. Imo, winning is overrated. That's one of the reasons that I built a speed freak army! If I want to win a game it's often as simple as saving all the points spend on trukks and wagons and just buying boyz. in a 1000 point game, after the cost of the boss, you can field 150 boyz! Even mars would run out of ammo trying to drop that much angry choppa wielding fungus, but the simple truth is I know what my boyz like. They want to drive a crossed a crater filled field at 80 miles an hour, surrounded by explosions and they don't care if its the enemy or the trukk next to them fill with gits that owe them teeth! I'd rather loss ten games in a row if they are worth a trukk load of laughs, as apposes to winning one game filled with rule lawyers and arguments. This is a fun game with a richer then Germen chocolate back ground, & thats why I follow your blog, & why I like to make armies for their story and not for their tournament winning lists. Don't get me wrong when I built my noise marines I bought each piece thinking about how they would play together, but when I built my Blood angles (or as I continue) I'm not building a list, I'm building a chapter. I'm not making space pirates to crush my friends armies, I'm building them because the fluff talks about pirates and I gotta feed something to my Tyranids. I love your threads Git. Keep up the love of 40k, not the love of beating our like minded 40k brothers.

NIce work git, not been on here in a while but I'm loving all thats going on! Nice report. Daemons become so much less threatening when you take a null zone libby! PLus seeing your enemys face when you inform him he has to reroll all saves within 24" is grat fun.

Keep it coming man.

Imp. Monkey

Just a quick note for those of you who don't follow my Doom Eagle Odyssey blog. I posted a rather large battle report for my Mantis Warriors vs. My son's Doom Eagles. So if you're interested head on over there... should be easy enough to find, it's been reasonably active since the post.

i love that! can you make a marine with one of those for our trade!

How was the base done on the dread on page 10?