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I'll start out with some more shots of the ongoing battle. We're just doing a turn when we get the chance... so it's been slow going. Let's see, where did I leave off? Oh, yes, the sides were about to get stuck in.

On the right flank, AdMech turn 2: I decide to play the odds and send my rust stalkers after the Necron sniper guys who just deep struck in. The combat goes well and I drop 2 snipers, they fail morale and the rust stalkers run them down.


This exposes the dune crawlers to a wraith charge, so instead I move them up and charge the wraiths myself. This gives me an extra attack at S10, which means I'll be doubling out the wraiths IF I can get past their 3+ invul & 4+ FNP. High risk, high reward. Really at this point I have no choice... I've got nothing else that can deal with the wraiths. Before I charge, the rangers up on the gantry unload their plasma calivers into the wraiths... killing 1. Squad of 6 is now down to 5. The dune crawlers and wraiths exchange wounds. Lead DC is immobilized and shaken, but two wraiths pay the price.


On the left flank the two dragoons finish off the last bike and follow-up towards a 2-point objective. In the center the servitors shoot one of the warrior units and kill a few guys.

Necron turn 3: All of the warriors load up into their transports and the planes scatter. Two make a hard right and gun down the dragoons on my left flank with Tessla fire. The third plane takes out a haywire servitor.


On the right a spider moves up to support the wraiths in assault (it's too far away to join the combat though). The wraiths and dune crawlers belly-bounce with no damage taken on either side.


Here's the way the table looks and the end of Necron turn 3.


The Mechanicus are in a serious predicament. With 3 loaded aircraft the Necrons are in position to drop on to all the best objectives in force, including those on the AdMech side of the table. The AdMech's only hope is to be able to knock down one or two of the aircraft so his warriors have to move on from the back board edge. With no AA, I don't like their chances.

That's all for now... more as we continue to play.


In painting news, I've started working on adding detail to my void shield generator. It's tricky business because I don't want to drown the model in detail. I'm starting with just steel cables, copper pipes & a few bits of red (an experiment with the blood "technical" paint).

 Gitsplitta wrote:
This gives me an extra attack at S10, which means I'll be doubling out the wraiths IF I can get past their 3+ invul & 4+ FNP.

Unless Necrons get some special thing (or the rules changed and I missed the memo), anything that instakills doesn't get feel no pain. So S10 would just need to break past the 3++. Can someone confirm?

I really like the generator. The added details make it pop much more. The blood paint looks almost ceramic, which is an interesting juxtaposition to the metal on metal on metal.

They have reanimation protocols which isn't FNP.

They actually get -1 to it from instant death so they had a 3++ and a 5+ RP.

The trick here is to kill the spyder. If you kill him they lose the RP. You should try and shoot him early in the game so when CC happens with the wraiths you have a chance.

Sorry for the confusion, my bad. Icelord has it right. Reanimation acts like FNP but doesn't have the doubling out restriction.

@Icelord: Unfortunately the spyder was completely hidden behind some large storage tanks until just his last movement phase. I could shoot at him in my next turn though... and probably will with the plasma caliver rangers on the bridge. Does the weapon need to say it has the ID special rule to reduce the reanimation roll, or does it just had to cause ID due to doubling toughness?

Taking a couple of days off to actually get a game in with a friend. Trotting out my Halloween army for giggles and a change of pace. Should be back at it tomorrow and fully expect to have the VSG completed this weekend.

Battle looks great with all the new terrain.

I promised you a progress shot. At this stage it's done down to the main platform. Still need to do the base section.



At this point I'm actually finished with the first round of upgrades. I'll get you some final pics soon, hopefully uploaded tonight and posted tomorrow. Not sure, my home computer crashed hard last night and I'm still not able to bring it back up. :/

There will definitely be a second round of updates for the VSG to cover things like lights, lenses, buttons and the wired-in servitors... i.e. hapless human chattel. I want to get some other things done first though. At least for the moment I've made significant improvements.


Thing 1 and I finished our game last night and the bugger beat me! Very close game, he just out-thought me at the end and snagged the extra point he needed for victory. Couldn't be more proud of him.

Looks great, Love how you did the blue orbs on top.

The blue orbs really do draw the eye and look sharp. But the silver bits do a good job of breaking up the structure, and I like what you’ve done with the red.

Sorry to hear about the loss. But if fun was had, I guess it’s OK. While it’s good for young whippersnappers to get in a win in now and again to keep their interest up, you need to make sure they never learn everything from you. Or at least think you still have tricks up your sleeve. It can only end one of two ways:

They strike you down and steal all your power. (if you are raising a Sith)
-or-
When they are in the middle of their epic quest, they return to you on your deathbed, and you teach them the final ultimate move. If you don’t actually have any secrets left, you just tell them the power was within them all along. (most other kids)

I think I'm raising Sith....


There's copper on it too. Unfortunately the glare of the flash washes it out so it doesn't look much different from the rest in this pic. When I get the final shots done tonight I'll take them in a proper photo booth. Hopefully everything will show up then.

I knew there was something I was supposed to have commented on recently...

Good job on breaking up the gold-ness.

That's really beautiful. But, boringly, the blue is incredible.

Got a few more photos for you from the battle with the Necrons... just for fun.

The struggle continues on my right flank. The dune crawlers are slowly whittling down the wraiths. Slowly.... In the mean time the rust stalkers try to take out the canoptic spyder that's providing the FNP for the formation.



A night scythe drops off a group of warriors, temporarily taking over the 4-point objective and putting themselves into a position to score an extra point for being in my deployment zone (I can't for the life of me remember the official term for that objective for some reason). The Necrons dig in like ticks amongst the plasma generators.



Back on the right, next turn. The dune crawlers are down to the final wraith.



Right next to the above melee', the rust stalkers and spyder continue the battle of attrition. You can see another group of freshly deployed warriors running into a fortified tower.



In spite of all the shooting I can muster... the warriors in the plasma generators survive... though I was able to bring a unit of skitarii vanguard out of a building in order to contest the 4-point objective.



This picture actually documents an error on my part which we did catch in-game. After finishing off the last wraith, the two dune crawlers wall off the 2-point objective from the warriors in the tower. In actuality the crawler on the left was immobilized so couldn't have moved. The one on the right could have clambered over a pillbox though in order to accomplish the same thing.



When all was said-and-done... we were tied... EXCEPT that Thing 1 had remembered to get the point for being in my deployment zone and I (even though I'd had a unit that could have easily done it) did not.


Victory Necrons! (something like 10-9)

Always nice to see two well painted armies battling it out over a terrain filled table.

Thanks for the pics!

Looks good, and I'm glad that Thing #1 was rewarded for the construction with a victory.

Love the photos and my thoughts exactly for Thing 1

Have been having a LOT of fun playing my AdMech lately. Had 3x 2000 point games with my War Convocation last week... all against excellent opponents with really interesting armies.

Game 1 was against a Genestealer Cult army. Really interesting with their ambush rules. Came down to a roll at the end of T5. If the game ends, he wins, if the game goes on, I would probably table him. The game ended.

Game 2 was against another AdMech army... but one very different from my own. A Cult mech army with lots of robots and servitors as well as an electro-priest formation (he just wanted to try it out). I've got some photos from that to share. In the end we tied... Once again my army proved to be very killy... but I'm not quite good enough yet and grabbing those maelstrom objectives.


Here's the set-up from my opponent's point of view. He's running Ryza. I apologize for the quality of some of these pics. My phone camera broke... then I sort of fixed it... so the quality of the pics now is a little hit-or-miss.


Here's his deployment from the side view... yes, that's Cawl in the foreground. It's worth noting that he's got 6 robots and 9 heavy servitors, far more of both than I did. As a result I effectively surrendered the left 1/3 of the table to him as anything that got near the tall building in the background was going to get annihilated.


Some of his electropriests coming out to play.


My rangers hunkering down by a ruin.


My two Kastellans... outnumbered 3 to 1.


I added the techpriest enginseer guy and some servitors from the "Imperial Allies" book. They had a marvelous hiding spot inside a LOS blocking ruin, on an objective, next to the void shield generator, right underneath the two dunecrawlers that they were tasked to keeping in good repair. I also like this photo because it's very dramatic. It also features one of RiTides ModCubes which I use exclusively as my objective markers.


My Knight Lancer started the game in a ruin to give him a little better chance of surviving... Still by the end of turn 2 he only had 2 HP left. Knights are cool, but they just aren't survivable... Funny to think about paying a "knight tax" for this formation.


The first real action of the game. My infiltrators stupidly come out of their *perfect* hiding spot in a LOS blocking ruin on an objective to play with some electropriests. They uzi'd the first group into a fine red mist... then got gunned down on the following turn by my opponent's Kastellans & his heavy servitors in that tower I talked about earlier...


He had his two units of Kastellans pushing hard down each flank, this is the group on my right, opposite my knight and my dragoons.


The second engagement of the game, my damaged knight and the dragoons assault the robots.


Knight goes boom after taking out a robot and the tech priest, leaving the dragoons to hash it out.


The Dragoons get some help from my rust stalkers who were dealing with some electropriests in the center and finish up the Kastellans, only to be charged by Cawl. They do OK given the circumstances. This is the pic *after* their first round of combat.


Here's the end game shot from my perspective. As you can see it's mostly my units on the table at this point. Yes, I could have kept everything safely behind the VSG and yes, I could have easily avoided Cawl... but this was supposed to be a fun & casual game... so I brought my toys out to play. As it was I *nearly* killed Cawl... but not quite. He survived the final assault phase of the game with 1 wound left.


Really fun game. Two very different armies given that they were from the same (or similar) factions. Cawl is definitely a beast... but he's not as unkillable as most folks are making him out to be. I made some cheat sheets for each unit which has made a huge difference in the playability of the army, especially in the war convocation. While the cult mech army is definitely very powerful, you don't have a lot of options as to how to play it. I like the mix you get in the war convo (or even if you're just taking a Skitarii detachment with a Cult Mech CAD) much better. Your speed and assault punch are all in the skitarii... as well as some brutal shooting.


All this gaming has gotten me inspired to actually do a bit of work on my models. I'm in the process of converting the 4 transgenic arquebus ranger models (useless) into either regular rangers or plasma culverns. Am re-basing said models and finishing up the basing on those servitors you saw. That should be done today. Also sending a number of things off to Nerdy for painting... Cawl, one more set of robots and a few vanguard so I can fill out a squad of 10. On my own I'm thinking of doing 2 more each of the infiltrators and rust stalkers. Having 7 of each gives me a little more flexibility in my list building.

I should have some pics of the models when finished & pics of my 3rd game vs. the Fire Hawks first company very soon.

Great batrep. My fave pic is where the dragoon seems to be knocking over a robot with its lance! Cracking stuff.

Thanks graven, much appreciated!



Lookie what I got today! A new Dominus painted as a show-piece (which is why he doesn't have a base) by Nerdfest09!

Excellent games. Looking forward to the next set of pics.

Thanks SL!


Game 3 vs. Fire Raptors First Company with a crap-ton of air support. Going to start this one with a bit of fluff. Don't get your hopes up... this is just a quickie.


The adepts of the AdMech exploratory fleet had identified an anomaly on a small planet in a system not very far away. An extraordinary anomaly. The tech priest dominus was immediately notified and the fleet's course modified to investigate. When they arrived at the planet designate XV-1953-S, known to the greater Imperial citizenry of the area as Geiger VI... they found it had been devastated by war. The cities lay in ruins and most of the population had been killed. The cause wasn't hard to discern... the signs of Necron activity were everywhere. Scanners showed there were still Necrons on the planet, but they had long abandoned the area the anomaly was discovered in and were currently engaging elements of the Fire Hawks astartes chapter for the last, surviving civilian areas of the planet. That is as may be, but they were not here to help save this planet... they were here for something far more valuable. A malfunctioning Necron wraith. "Just think what we could learn from this thing." ...the dominus thought to himself. Indeed, the wraith was wandering randomly thoughout a several block area of a bombed out city. Not interacting with anything, just randomly moving. It also appeared to be "stuck" in physical form... not being able to phase through objects but bumping into them before eventually re-routing itself to the clear. To the dominus' eyes, it looked for all the world like a malfunctioning robot... and THAT was something he'd had some experience with.

"The Mechanicus may never get an opportunity like this again!" he snapped to his attending adept. I want a full-strength retrieval convocation on the planet as quickly as possible!"

"But what of the Fire Hawks still fighting the Necrons?" asked the adept.

"They are no concern of ours. Ignore them. We MUST get that wraith!" replied the dominus.


The mission was "the relic" as primary with kill points as the secondary (in order to help even out the fact that my opponent had such a small army). Also the usual tertiaries. My warlord trait allowed my warlord, if he was with a unit that discovered a mysterious objective, to pick which effect it had. While the game had no typical MOs, we decided to make the relic (wraith) one & whomever got to him first would roll on the MO table. In the case of my Dominus... he would essentially "hack" the wraith.. being able to choose the effect it had.

Unfortunately the pics I have aren't as narrative friendly as the last game. My army was the same as the last time. I'd intended to switch the guns out on my dune crawlers from the S10 blasts to the AA packages, but I forgot. This was an error.

My opponent John was running his Star Hawks (another Badab War chapter) First company. It consisted of a 10-man terminator squad, a land raider, an assault terminator squad, a chapter master in terminator armor and a librarious conclave ... oh... and Tiggs... oh... and a 4-flyer strong attack wing of some sort. Did I mention that I had no AA at all?


Unfortunately, I don't have an early table-wide shot. Suffice to say we set up in our corners... John with his death-star in the land raider (nothing else was on the table) and me in a loose aggregation around my VSG. My infiltrators were able to infiltrate onto the relic, and my dominus joined them in his first movement so that he was with the unit when the "discovered" the relic. I did the only thing I could think of doing... I proclaimed the relic was a "skyfire" objective.


So, the day started badly for the Fire Hawks as the land raider deployed in a ruin for protection decided it wanted to stay there.... for the whole game. #nodozerblades That meant that the super-killy death star of INVISIBILITY was legging it across the board. Thank the Omnissiah!


Does my heart good to see Astartes getting in their morning exercise.


So... my first turn consisted of trying to get the skyfire wraith into the hands of a unit that could use it... that being my Kastellans. John's first turn consisted of a loot of foot-slogging.

By my half of turn 2, I'd succeeded in passing off the wraith to the robots. The Fire Hawks then succeeded in trying to throw a monkey wrench into my plans... a 10-man, tactical dreadnought armor wearing, monkey wrench.

OH, and did I mention that all of his flyers showed up this turn as well?


Then a miracle happened. Everything opened up on the robot carrying the relic. EVERYTHING. And he tanked it all. Could not roll less than a 5 twice in a row, which means he made all his saves/FNP rolls. Not only that, but his field reflected shots that put a hull point on one of the flyers and killed a terminator!


Then, during my turn 3... a second miracle happened... those dune crawlers with the "wrong guns", the uzis from the infiltrators & anything else I could bring to bear just shot the crap out of the terminators... then the infiltrators charged in and nearly finished them off. One threat down.


It had to happen though... the Fire Hawk's invisible death star reached my line... and started killing things.


... and then they killed some more stuff...


Funny thing was... even though they were going through my units like crap through a goose... they were still loosing guys... one terminator here, a wound on a character there. I was having an effect... but it was almost unnoticeable. By John's half of T5 (bottom of 5), we both thought he had it in the bag. All that stood between John and the relic were 3 infiltrators and my poor little unit of 2 Kastellans and their tech priest. And then everything went horribly wrong for the Fire Hawks... the overwatch killed marines, AP2 his from the robots killed marines, AP- hits from the infiltrators killed marines. When it was all said and done... the infiltrators were gone... but the robots with the relic were completely unscathed. All the Fire Hawks had left was an immobilized land raider, one healthy flyer and one damaged flyer.

My hero! He's getting some kind of special paint job/kill marks. He was unbelievable!


Last but not least... after 2 games of doing NOTHING... my little engine seer / servitor group finally fixed a hull point on one of my vehicles. Huzzah! He's "the little engine seer that could".



Hope you enjoyed it!

Love the batreps Gitz, that last one with the Firehawks sounded quite exciting. Keep em coming!

Yay for the servitors finally succeeding

Lovely pics and write-up, Gits!!

Got a new photo background via a Kickstarter from the same people who brought you the Fat Mat. Think the figure is too close to the background... will have to fiddle with it.


Here's a good picture of the new Dominus Damo did for me. I intend for him to be pinned to a base or removed and pinned directly to interesting places on a display board, which is why he's not on a base yet.



These little guys were donated by RiTides and painted by Damo for my 40k army. thanks to the "Imperial Agents" book I can finally field them! Thanks guys!
I just finished the bases on them, though unfortunately this isn't really a good angle to see it.



... and the first step of changing the transgenic arquebii into something more functional (and re-basing).
I'm thinking that two of these guys are going to have their guns swapped out entirely for plasma culverns.



The other thing I've been doing is repairing figures... a LOT of figures. Skitarii look great but they are pretty flimsy. My little observation... If you didn't pin it when you built it... you're sure as heck going to pin it when you have to repair it.

That dominus is extraordinary, very well done Damo. What are the little fellas, something from FW?

Brilliant batrep, beautiful army.

I have often wondered about the flimsy nature of these guys, but they look so good.

Cool bat raps Gits.

Really like the 'servitors'.

EDC

Always love seeing your work. Your basing gives me hope that one day I may do something cool haha.

@Yorkright: Yep, 30k servitors.

@Cam: Thanks, and I agree completely. Wish I had more to do with that, but I'm delighted to be able to play with it.

@EDC: Thank you sir!

@MA: It's not all that hard... I just do a bunch at a shot, one step at a time... makes things go a lot faster.



Had another game last night vs. yet another AdMech army. Here's a little report.

Scenario:
We played the eternal war mission with the objectives of various values (1-4) and extra points for killing fast attack.

Here's the table, kind of a medieval theme... we won't know what the objectives are worth until we discover them.


Deployment, my opponent John goes first. white dice denote extent of VSG. I do try to make a point each battle to put some units outside of the VSG. Hiding the entire army behind it isn't much fun for anyone.

Battle line of the "dark" mechanicus. I think John might have done better if his army wasn't already black & blue...


My battle line.


Heroes of the Mechanicus.


Right off the bat, shooting takes out a robot and rust stalker, even though they're in ruins and it's night fighting.


Here's the fight on the right. Started well as I took out his dune striders without casualty... but hell was coming to dinner in the form of a full squad of vanguard and some rust stalkers.


These guys...


Think this is the end of T2. The center of the table is a complete kill zone. Nothing that enters it lives. My left flank has a nice little no-man's section at this point and my right flank, and the 3-point objective there... are up for discussion.


Two squads of weedy gits (infiltrators and rangers) are lurking through the grave yard on my left flank.


My guys protecting an all important patch of woods on my left flank. This is the second game where I "refused a flank" rather than trying to plow ahead into heavy gunfire.


My little vanguard squad camp out behind a bridge and hold a 3 point objective the entire game... good job boys! How's the fishing?


At this point the most interesting stuff is happening in the center and my right flank. The large squad of vanguard push forward, shoot up then charge my infiltrators. What ensues is a long, bloody battle of attrition.


The early returns are good, but there is a full squad of rust stalkers hard on the heals of the vanguard.


Majestic... isn't it?


The "tower of power" (see previous pic) along with the two dune crawlers have 2 jobs... destroy the opposing dune crawlers... and keep that darn unit of grav kataphrons on the bridge busy. They do both (T3 I think).


Crawlers go boom.


PITA Dominus keeps going to ground on the bridge which somehow works out to a 2+ cover save (gear, canticles... who knows?). My only hope is to pound them with enough scary stuff to keep them going to ground... which freezes the unit in place and means they're snap-firing. I do manage to take him down to one wound... but that's as close as I ever got to threatening him.


Here's a good table view. You can just barely see his infiltrators moving into the ruins on the left. My knight took out two of his oncoming rust stalkers on the right and has scooched over to help with the right flank. He's just out of range of the GtG grav servitors.


In the next turn, John's rust stalkers move like the wind and join in the combat on the right.


The table starts to turn!


... oh wait... then the knight charges in... (D-weapon, Stomp, Stomp, Stomp!) Problem solved. (sorry, no pics)


On my left flank, the infiltrators skitter through the ruins to threaten my rust stalkers who are cleverly placed just behind the void shield.


The sides engage... and John's infiltrators do a good job taking care of my rust stalkers (they go first with AP3 weaponry).


However the damaged Kastellan unit charges in to keep the flank from falling (just too many S6, AP3 attacks).


A final look at the board. Both flanks are under control, the center is a wasteland no one dares enter and I control the majority of objective points.



Every unit did something to contribute to the ultimate victory so I was pretty happy. The knight played a pivotal role in securing the 3-point objective on my right (finally he does something) and as usual, the VSG pays for itself over and over again in units protected. John did eventually take down the shields but it just took too long and too much of his fire-power. His rust stalkers, infiltrators and vanguard all did really well with their assaults and pressured my flanks far more than I thought they would. I think I ended up with a 11-6 victory (8 points of objectives + STW & FB and one FA unit kill vs. John's 5 pts of objectives + LB).

That looked like a great game, your army goes with that table amazingly well!