Sunday, March 24, 2024

Building a Better Bridge Table Part 6: Nearly Done

 I did some more spray painting today, but I do not know if it helped much. I did setup the two pieces together and tried to blend the two sides together more, since they looked a bit different. I also set up the roads and bridge to get an idea of how it will look. I would love to fill in the river at some point but I have never played with resin so I need to practice on something else first. 





This board provides about 36 square feet of gaming surface, equivalent to a 9 ft x 4 ft table. 

Here are two potential deployment maps. The blue represents the "river", which is more of a canyon currently. The red is No Man's Land. The two player map allows large deployment zones to enable big games (larger than a 1 ft x 8 ft deployment zone on our 4 ft x 8 ft table). The three player map below has deployment zones about equivalent to a standard 1 ft x 6 ft deployment zone on a standard 4 ft x 6 ft table. These are just some examples from me playing around with it.





Here is the board with the two-player deployment zones drawn on, for an idea of how it would look. 


Previous work:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5


Saturday, March 23, 2024

Building a Better Bridge Table Part 5: Color!

 Added some additional texture and some colors, finally. I wanted a mix of multiple browns and greys to try to get a natural rocky desert look. It is a little more splotchy than I would like so I will have to do some more blending. But its a start.



Previous work:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Wednesday, March 20, 2024

Building a Better Bridge Table Part 4

 Latest update: I have added more texture, pasted up the edges/sides, and put down a full coat of brush paint as a primer. Next step will be start adding the browns and greys

Previous work:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3



Sunday, March 17, 2024

Battle Report: Blood Angels vs Death Guard

 Background:

TBD


Scenario: Onslaught

Game Length: 6 turns

Primary Objective
Onslaught Objective: Control the objective you place in the opponent's deployment zone: 5 VP 
Onslaught Attack: Each unit destroyed in the first turn: 1 VP

Secondary Objectives
Slay the Warlord: 1 VP
Attrition: 1 VP for whoever destroyed the most units


Belligerents:

Death Guard: Phil
Primary Detachment: Death Guard  The Reaping
  • Praetor Wolfgang: Catphractii terminator armor, volike charger, thunder hammer
  • Deathshroud retinue: 5 terminators with hand alchem-flamers, power scythes and rad grenades
  • Tactical Support Squad Folterer: 8 marines with flamers, sergeant with artificer armor. 
    • Transport: Rhino with pintle-mounted heavy alchem-flamer.
  • [Line] Tactical Squad A: 12 marines with chainswords, sergeant with power fist and artificer armor and Apothecary Gerhard
  • [Line] Tactical Squad B Toddestraffe: 12 marines with chainswords, sergeant with power fist and artificer armor and Apothecary 
  • Tactical Support Squad Blitz Schock: 7 marines with volkite calivers
  • Heavy Support Squad Feuer Sturm: 7 marines with missile launchers
  • Predator Mittel Panzer 021 with Predator Autocannon and lascannon sponsons 
  • Contemptor Dreadnought Jürgen:  Gravis melta cannon, melta gun, Gravis power fist
  • Deredeo pattern dreadnought with Arachnus heavy lascannon battery, twin-linked heavy bolter, Aiolos missile launcher, and helical targeting array
2062 points

Loyalists: Pete
Primary Detachment: Blood Angels  Day of Sorrows
  • Garo Arteo, Bloody Executioner of the Crimson Gate: Praetor w/ artificer armor, iron halo, digital lasers, jump pack, blade of perdition, bolt pistol, Paragon of Unity
  • Contemptor Dreadnought: gravis lascannon, gravis powerfist, metlagun
  • [Line] The Triarii Guard: 17 tactical marines with chain swords, sergeant with artificer armor, power fist, and plasma pistol. Vexilla and augury scanner. 
    • Transport: Spartan Assault Tank with flare shield
  • [Line] The Sanguine Berzerkers:14 assault marines w/ jump packs, bolt pistols, 2 power axes, sergeant with power fist, plasma pistol, artificer armor
  • [Line] The Golden Shields of Baal: 10 breacher marines, void-hardened armor, 8 bolters, 2 melta guns, breacher shields, sergeant with thunder hammer and artificer armor
  • Kratos Battle Tank: Melta blastgun with coaxial autocannon, lascannon sponnons, hull-mounted heavy bolters. flare shield, reinforced hull
  • Heavy Support Squad: 7 marines with lascannons and augury scanner
2060 points

Army Selection and Pre-Game Plans:

PhilSince they are both his armies, Pete wrote both lists in an attempt to make them balanced and then let me choose which one I wanted to play. I was very excited to try out the Death Guard for the first time. For once, I would be the one dishing out their deadly shooting instead of being on the receiving end of it! 

Looking at the force selected, I had a lot of Troops but only two Line units so I knew how I used those two tactical squads would be essential to winning a game where the majority of potential victory points come from objective control. I decided to put the two apothecaries with the tactical squads to give them the best chance of surviving until the end of the game. I also knew my heavy weaponry on the two dreads and the Predator would be stretched trying to deal with two heavy tanks and a dreadnought. On the plus side, I would have more units than my opponent, which would give me some advantages with this scenario's staged deployment, letting me deploy the last few units. I also knew I had a lot of anti-infantry firepower with the feared volkite calivers, missile launchers, and the flehsbane flamers, which will force the Blood Angels infantry to keep their heads down. Although the strength of this Death Guard force was in its shooting, I also had the satisfaction of going into battle with the toughest infantry unit on the table in the Deathshroud. Their WS5, W3, and Battle-hardened (meaning it would take S10+ to trigger Instant Death) meant they were going to be very, very tough for the Blood Angels to remove. 

Pete



Deployment:

The Death Guard won the roll to select their turn order, and elected to go first and deploy the first unit, using the scenario's staged deployment rule. 

The battle was fought across the former front lines on the city borders of Zdojan


Phil:  I wanted to go first so that I had the best chance of destroying an enemy unit on the first turn, which could be a tie-breaking VP in a scenario where there were only a few ways to earn them. 

I placed the Deredeo where it would have good line of sight to where I expected Pete to place his bigger tanks, on the more open left flank. The center of my line was made up of my heavy infantry, the missile launchers, volkite calivers and the Deathshroud. This would allow me to control the center of the table. On the right, I put some firepower in the Predator and Contemptor. On my far left, I placed the two tactical squads. My plan was to concentrate my only two scoring units together and place my objective on that flank. They would have the Deredeo for covering fire and the tactical support squad with flamers in the Rhino to clear them a path. 

However, once I saw that Pete placed his objective on my far right flank, where I had nothing but the Predator to defend it, I quickly realized I would have to adjust my plan. I decided to send the Rhino to support my right flank and attempt to prevent the Blood Angels from easily taking their objective. 

I also knew that target priority was key in Horus Heresy because only certain units have the potential to damage certain enemy units. In many previous games I had been in the hopeless position of not having any weapons that can reliably threaten an enemy heavy unit after the first turn or two. I was concerned to be facing three very tough units (two tanks with AV 14/15 and 5HP and a Contemptor). But I also knew how deadly a large squad of lascannons could be, so I decided to focus my deployment on destroying the Heavy Support squad in the first turn. This would eliminate a major threat before it could attack and earn me a crucial VP. I knew it was a risk to ignore the armor on turn 1 and use my best weapon, the Deredeo, on infantry, but I knew I had a better chance of wiping out that squad in one volley than the tanks or dreadnoughts. So I deployed a concentration of force opposite from the Heavy Support Squad.

With the deployment complete, my plans were set and ready to be put into action.

The Deredeo supports the two Tactical Squads

The Deredeo sports a frightening arsenal of weapons

Wolfgang and his Deathshroud anchor the center of the Traitor line, supported by heavy weapons



Pete: Well this would be a fun challenge – facing off against the intractable Death Guard in an Onslaught Mission 6 turns long. Could I get to my objective in the DG deployment zone and clear away all Phil’s tough shooting units on my way in? Plus, I needed to accomplish something the Blood Angels weren’t known for – defending an objective in my own deployment zone. With an army like this, I’d prefer to mass my forces and strike in unison and power on turn 2, maybe turn 3, to crush the weakest part of the opposing army and be too fast with too many units to have shooting reactions nullify the charge. Instead, in this game I would need to divide my forces and fight almost two separate battles. 

I decided to have the mighty Spartan with my large tactical squad be a tough and nasty barrier to the DG advance, supported by the deadly lascannon heavy support squad and the Contemptor Dreadnought for scrapping with elite units like the Deathshroud or Phil’s opposing Dread. To my left, to go for my objective, that gave me the Blood Angel Praetor with his fierce Assault squad retinue, the brand-new Kratos heavy tank, and the tough-as-nails Breacher squad. Both the Assault squad and Breachers are scoring units, which would be key to gaining the 5 VPs for securing the objective on turn 6. Thankfully there was a lot of terrain to block line of sight on my path to the objective so I should have a bulk of my units alive when I charge in late in the game to secure win. 

Time to get rolling. Death to the traitors. Glory for the one true Emperor!




The Heavy Support Squad takes up position at a supply dump.

The Tactical Squad, The Triarii Guard, are mounted in a Spartan

The mighty Contemptor holds the center of the Loyalist line

Garo Arteo leads the Sanguine Berzerkers.

A massive Kratos anchors the Loyalist left flank.

On the far left, the Golden Shields of Baal prepare to advance on the Blood Angels' objective.



Final Deployment 



Saturday, March 16, 2024

Xhorik 87th: Drop Mech Suits

The Xhorik drop regiments make use of heavy mechanized suits for certain critical missions. The most commonly used is the OGRE Class. Similar to drop sentinels, they are piloted by an individual and deployed by grav chute, but they are smaller, more heavily armored and generally equipped for combat at close quarters.

The left shoulder has the icon of the Xhorik mechanized heavy drop infantry painted white on a field of orange, the regimental color.

The XVI marking on the right shoulders indicates the 16th Squad of drop mech suits in the regiment. 



16th Squad of OGRE Class Mech Suits, Xhorik 87th Drop Regiment

Four suits armed with ripper guns. One has the cockpit open and the pilot's helmet is visible.

The remaining suits have melee weapons and boarding shields.

The sergeant (boss) has a thunder hammer


This unit gives the drop troopers their first decent melee unit. This should especially help in games of Zone Mortalis where their fliers and artillery are useless.

Saturday, February 24, 2024

Building a Better Bridge Table Part 3

I am continuing to make some progress on the table. I need to have it complete by April for Bill's visit.

I got all of the foam blocks glued down and the gaps filled with drywall putty and sanded down. I evened out and sanded the edges somewhat as well, although they are nowhere near perfect. 

Then I started applying texture. Currently, I am in the process of giving everything an initial coat of white paint. More texture and painting to come. 

Previous work:

Part 1

Part 2








Saturday, February 3, 2024

Building a Better Bridge Table Part 2

 Since my 8 ft x 5 ft foam tabletop met its untimely demise, I have been wanting to build a new and improved one. I sketched out the idea in Building a Better Bridge Table Part 1. I have made a small bit of progress since then.



I started with two halves of the hexagon and then built up the river banks from there with a mix of 1" and 2" thick insulation foam. I have done more work on the "downriver" side of the board (as I picture it) where the river splits and widens. On the other side, I am thinking of making taller cliffs and a slightly narrower river channel. 

Sunday, January 7, 2024

2023 Hobby Recap

2023 felt like another fairly slow year for the hobby, but I think I squeaked out a bit more content than 2022, mostly due to a switch to painting with Contrast paints in the summer that enabled me to crank out fair number of infantry. 

2020 output:

  • 54 infantry
  • 3 vehicles/artillery
  • 2 terrain pieces
  • 18 blog posts
  • 6 games played
  • 7 battle reports
  • 18 total blog posts

2021 output:

  • 81 infantry
  • 1 vehicle
  • 3 terrain pieces
  • 7 games played
  • 6 battle reports
  • 52 total blog posts

2022 output:

  • 27 infantry
  • 4 vehicles
  • 1 terrain piece
  • 4 games
  • 3 battle reports
  • 22 total blog posts
2023 output:
  • White Scars Contemptor dreadnought
  • 2 White Scars Rhinos
  • 10 Sons of Horus Cataphractii terminators
  • 5 White Scars recon marines with sniper rifles
  • 10 White Scars scouts with sniper rifles
  • 39 Xhorik grenadiers and characters
  • 8 militia representing other fighting forces of the Xhorik Campaign
  • White Scars vs World Eaters and Death Guard with battle report
  • Sons of Horus vs Death Guard vs World Eaters with battle report
  • Xhorik 87th vs Ghoulv's Iron Battalion (Militia v Militia) with battle report
  • White Scars vs Blood Angels vs Salamanders without battle report
  • Sons of Horus vs Blood Angles battle report only (catchup from last year)
Total:
  • 72 infantry
  • 3 vehicles
  • 0 terrain pieces
  • 4 games
  • 4 battle reports
  • 20 total blog posts

Not a bad output, although I regret that we did not get a game in over the Christmas/New Year's break like we normally do. It is getting tougher and tougher to find time for a game night. 

I lost my big 8 ft x 5 ft battlefield to an unfortunate accident this year, so building a new battlefield for large games is on my goal list for 2024.

On the gaming front, I got in a good mix of games and got to use each of my three main Heresy factions at least once. Overall results were not so god, with one win (with my militia, shockingly!) and three losses (two with Scars and one with Sons), including coming in last place in both three-way games. 

From a painting standpoint, I did not meet my goal of making the Scars competitive. I built and painted two more Rhinos because they are thematic, but I should have added two Land Raiders instead. I started on two Sicaran variants, but they are sitting 20% painted on my desk because working on them has not sounded like fun. I did manage to add a lot of sniper rifles so I will be able to try out a Recon Company Rite of War in 2024 if I want, which sounds compelling for the White Scars as they were the original scouts and forerunners of the Great Crusade. 

Goals for 2024 are: 
  • Get the Scars to a point where they are competitive in games (maybe!)
  • Add the next tranche to the Sons of Horus
  • Dig into my backlog of Drop Troopers, using Contrast recipes to speed things up
  • Build a new battlefield
  • Finish a piece of terrain (I have several half built on my desk)
  • Come up with some interesting ideas for the campaign and progress the story with a few games
It will be a challenge to get to all of these with my limited hobby time but it is reasonable. 

Monday, January 1, 2024

Other Militia and Auxiliary of the Xhorik Campaign

In addition to the Major Factions of the Xhorik Campaign of the Horus Heresy, there were numerous other fighting forces, including dozens of regiments of militia, auxilia, mercenaries, and planetary defense forces. Here are a few of note:

Trooper of the 317th PDF Regiment; Xhorik Prime Planetary Defense Force

Trooper of the 317th PDF Regiment; Xhorik Prime Planetary Defense Force

The 317th PDF was one of the many planetary defense force regiments raised by the governor of Xhorik Prime when the traitor forces started approaching the Xhorik System. Hastily assembled with meager training, the 317th was decimated in their first two engagements with the Death Guard 14th Great Company as the Traitors approached Bielyr. The regiment suffered over 60% casualties in the first few days of intense and chaotic combat. The remnants were disbanded and quickly integrated into other PDF regiments that had also suffered heavy losses. Despite the casaulties, the PDF regiments were able to slow the Traitor advance and provide time for reinforcements to arrive to the front.



Meltagunner of the 3rd Xhorik Polar Regiment, The Snow Devils




The Xhorik Polar Regiments were tasked with defending the far northern extremes of the planet. A network of orbital shield generators that covered the northern latitudes was the primary strategic value of the region. However, the Traitor Legions were able to easily land on the planet due to treachery as the entire Federation of Unimund, the most populous region, sided with Horus. Thus, the polar regions were of limited strategic value to the Traitors as the shields only protected Kozar and the northern deserts from orbital bombardment or direct deployment from orbit, but the much larger Traitor armies were free to land in friendly territory and then advance by land against the Loyalist strongholds. Praetor Wolfgang never had sufficient Legion marines to send them to the theater, so he relied on auxilia troops to neutralize the shields. The Snow Devils were able to hold out throughout the campaign by fighting a protracted series of small battles and ambushes, relying on a series of hidden bunkers and their being better equipped for the environment than the Traitors.




Rifleman of the 4th Urgfurt Foot Guard, The Grave Diggers

Rifleman of the 4th Urgfurt Foot Guard, The Grave Diggers

Urgfurt is one of the heavily-industrialized states that make up the Federation of Unimund. During war, they could repurpose their chemical plants to manufacture a variety of specialty weapons, including toxic gases. The Urgfurt Foot Guard regiments typically advanced under a cloud of chemical munitions and wielded advanced models of las weaponry. During the Heresy, the Federation sided with the Traitors against their old rival Kozar, and formed the industrial heart of the Traitor position on the planet. The Grave Diggers saw heavy action during the battle for Bielyr, shelling the city and surrounding area for weeks with their artillery before it was finally cleared street by street by Death Guard infantry.  



Desert tribesman of the Stone River Sept

Desert tribesman of the Stone River Sept


Even after the various independent nations, federations and city states of the western region of Xhorik Prime were brought into the Imperium, vast swathes of the eastern wastes were still populated by nomadic desert tribes and roaming ork warbands. When the Great Crusade moved on, a small garrison of White Scars was left on Xhorik Prime to recruit from the Stratocracy of Kozar and to subjugate the wild east. After years of fighting with the elusive and skilled desert-dwellers, the two sides had built a mutual respect for each other and started to work together to eradicate the techno-savage ork populations of the desert. Thus, when the Heresy came to Xhorik Prime, several of the nomadic Septs sided informally with the White Scars. They never allowed themselves to be marshalled into any sort of Imperial or even Planetary army, but they fought the Traitors in their own way with ambushes and raids on any who ventured too near their desert homes, forcing the Traitors to protect their eastern flank instead of being able to throw everything at the Loyalist positions in the north.


Commando of the Xhorik 87th Drop Regiment, The Firebirds

Commando of the Xhorik 87th Drop Regiment, The Firebirds


The Xhorik 87th was formed from the Kozar 87th Drop Troopers after that nation was brought into the Imperium and integrated into the planetary governorship of Xhorik Prime. Kozar already had a long history of using airborne drop troops to defend their small mountainous territory from orks in the east and their ancient rivals in Unimund to the south, so they were able to provide some relatively elite regiments to the Imperial armies. During the Heresy, the Loyalist Kozar army made heavy use of drop troops deployed by grav chutes to strike at vulnerable enemy positions. And even after the planet was lost to the Traitors, remnants of multiple regiments regrouped on Xhorik Secundus to lend their unique talents to Operation Downfall, a desperate attempt to re-establish a Loyalist foothold on Xhorik Prime.



Gunner of the Pulsar Chyron mercenary company

Gunner of the Pulsar Chyron mercenary company 

The Pulsar Chyron mercenary company was formed during the chaos of the early years of the Horus Heresy. What had been previously been a logistics and interstellar shipping company gradually transformed into a mercenary outfit as they had to militarize to remain in business during the turbulence spawned by the civil war. As trade dried up and conflict spread, they soon found themselves being hired more for their armed guards and newly-fortified ships than for their logistical efficiencies. By the middle of the Heresy, their success and size had attracted the eye of Horus himself. His war machine had siphoned off millions of tons of Imperial war materiel prior to the start of the conflict and this fortune was used to hire numerous mercenary companies such as Pulsar Chyron. A large portion of their forces were committed to the Xhorik Campaign where they fought numerous orbital battles and ferried Traitor troops between planets and warzones. They also deployed troops to multiple land engagements, including the heavy fighting for the Valbaara Plateau and the bloody road to Berat.


Lance Corporal of the Peacekeepers civil defense force, 22nd brigade

Lance Corporal of the Peacekeepers civil defense force, 22nd brigade


The most elite level of planetary internal security, the Peacekeepers were tasked to maintain Imperial control over the Xhorik system. Although they took day-to-day direction from the planetary governor, they reported directly to the Archidux of the subsector, with a duty to assassinate the governor if he proved disloyal. Deployed primarily to crush any riots, rebellions or social unrest when local police were overwhlemed, the Peacekeepers also fought numerous engagements with pirates, smugglers, and occasionally even marauding xenos such as orks. During the Xhorik Campaign, they fought bravely against the Traitors, utilizing their Valkyries and armored transports to great effect against the lumbering armies of the Traitor auxilia. They made a name for themselves during their final stand at the Governor's Palace where they held out against an overwhelming Traitor attack for three days and nights before being butchered to the last man by World Eaters Berzerkers. After the Heresey, their duties within the Xhorik system would be taken up by the Adeptus Arbites.

Synther of the Umbra Blades mercenary company


Synther of the Umbra Blades mercenary company


The Umbra Blades organization predates the formation of the Imperium. Their origins are unknown to outsiders, but there are records of early encounters near the Xhorik System by the White Scars (then known as the Star Hunters) recon companies at the forefront of the Great Crusade. Later Imperial armies would do their best to eradicate the organization due to their rampant mutations (some even suggested that xenos genetics had somehow been crossed with humans) and the prevalence of psyker abilities within the group. However, the group was was able to evade capture for years, causing some to speculate that they were able to make use of some limited degree of Warp travel. This persecution by the Imperium caused the Umbra Blades to side with Horus during the Heresy, for a promise of a home in the Xhorik System under Horus' Dark Empire. Heavily armed by the Sons of Horus, they fought continually throughout the Xhorik Campaign, making use of skills honed by years of skirmishes with Imperial forces prior to the Heresy, as well as their unique gene-craft and cyber-augmentation.


A sample of the many fighting forces of the Xhorik Campaign during the Horus Heresy.





Sunday, December 17, 2023

Xhorik Commander

 After a long hiatus, I finally painted a few models: a Xhorik 87th commander with power fist, another grenadier, and another recon marine with shotgun (I figure he can be a cheap body to add to the sniper squad and be the first one to bite the bullet). Again, painted 90% with Contrast.