You'll have to excuse the rough and ready photos, but if i tried to do them with proper lighting and the light box i'd have never got it done. You can see many of the units in earlier blog posts if you're desperate. Including my Warhound Titan, the army currently sits at around 3500pts. It still needs a few finishing touches and additional highlights as there are areas im not entirely happy with, but more on that later!
So, the Betrayal Weekend. The culmination of the painting task i had set myself!
Game 1 -Emperors Children
Game 1 was Firetide and my opponent had 2 Squads in Land Raiders, a unit of Palatine Blades and a Praetor in a Spartan, 2 Grav gun landspeeders and 2 Executioner Deimos Predators. Thats a lot of AV14!
The first few turns consisted of us bouncing lascannon shots off each others land raiders until i managed to distract his Palatines and Praetor with an assault squad (who killed all the blades, but got slowly whittled down by the Praetor and eventually broke). This allowed my Cataphractii to barrel out and waste the first Raider before munching the squad that fell out afterwards the next turn. My Autocannon heavy squad was taking down the Predators with glancing hits slowly, and also killed the Land Speeders that deep sriked behind my Spartan to try and immobilise it with grav (luckily they failed).
His Praetor was pounced upon and chain-plasmaed to death by the Moritat before the III Legion Spartan avenged his death with its quad-lascannons.
I whittled down his squads slowly, and at the end of the game i had secured one objective with the Cataphracts whilst his last surviving infantry model, a tactical sergeant, stubbornly refused to die or flee from a 2nd objective, despite weathering a hail of fire in the final turns. My tactical squad had secured the 3rd objective, but unfortunately a scattering firebomb in turn 7 killed one of the remaining 4 members and the cowardly curs ran 12" away from the objective!
With one objective each the Night Lords secured victory through claiming first blood and Slay the Warlord to bring a decent victory after a seriously bloody game.
Game 2 - World Eaters
Game 2 was Shatter Strike, rewarding commanders for moving infantry units into the enemies deployment zone. My opponent was James, with a very nice World Eaters force (You can see his blog here!).
James took the first turn and barrelled his assault orientated army straight at mine. A few shots were fired, but no casualties were sustained.
This contrasted horribly with a devastating opening salvo from the Night Lords. The Spartan opened proceedings by hitting the enemy Spartan with 2 lascannon shots, both of which penetrated the armour and destroying it in a spectacular explosion which slew 5 of the marines inside. Before the survivors could crawl clear the Deimos Executioner opened fire into them and killed a few more. Both enemy contemptor dreadnoughts were stunned by Rapier fire but the Rampagers land raider came through unscathed.
The Rampagers exploded out of their Raider and straight into my Autocannon support squad who held their ground despite some serious casualties. My Cataphractii responded by finishing off the squad in the Spartan wreckage, sending the Praetor scrambling away towards the safety of another squad following behind.
My Assault squad and Jetbikes dropped deep in the enemy deployment zone to try and deplete some of the fire support coming from there as well as distracting some of the world eaters units away from my end of the board.
Eventually the Rampagers were finished off and with my Tactical Squad, Assault Squad and Cataphractii getting into the enemy deployment zone the Night Lords won a crushing victory.
Game 3 - Death Guard
Game 3 was a custom scenario focussing on controlling a central bastion and making radio broadcasts from it. My opponent had 2 big Tactical squads with an Apothecary in each and a unit of Deathshroud terminators with a Praetor in a Spartan.
The Moritat scouted and moved up next to the bastion early on to boost my broadcast rolls and secured me a few early points. The rest of the movement was cagey with my Autocannons and Jetbikes using their range advantage to whittle down the first tactical squad.
After a shooting phase from the other tactical unit that saw my Autocannon squad lose a few members and flee through the building with the Assault marines, the combat unit gunned their jump packs across the board and dove headfirst into the tactical unit. After a lot of saves made on both sides from shooting, overwatch and close combat attacks my power axes and power fist stepped up to kill a few sons of Barbarus and broke the unit, running down the remaining 16 marines and apothecary with the sweeping advance. The Deathshroud kept my units away from the objective until they finally fell, and with both sides pretty crippled and the last few tactical Death Guard inside the bastion and the Night Lords assault squad on the roof, they game ran out a draw when it ended early on turn 5.
Game 4 - Doubles - Dark Angels & Ultramarines
This was it, the battle royale, the grand melee, the battle to end all battles (this weekend at least)!
6000pts per side, Extermination scenario.
6000pts per side, Extermination scenario.
We deployed a strong armoured column, headed by a pair of Spartans as well as the Warhound Titan lurking at the back to use its range advantage. Unfortunately when we rolled for mysterious terrain for the building in our deployment zone with rolled an unexploded virus bomb! When it eventually went off it actually killed very little, but boy did it scare us!
The early firepower focused on killing the Dark Angels Typhon siege tank while the Warhound unleashed its turbo lasers on everything else. We were racking up the kills on expensive units, but due to our opponents rites of war, a unit of Terminators in a Land Raider which would normally be worth 4vps as an Elites and Heavy choice were only worth 1vp as a troops choice. They also used a lot of squadrons, meaning that instead of scoring 2 points per dreadnought or Predator, we only got the vp's once all 3 were dead. This was quite frustrating to say the least!
Abbadon and his Justaerin were undoubtedly the stars of this game, notching up no less than 3 enemy infantry units, a couple of tanks and a dreadnought before eventually being brought down. The Warhound was felled by a combination of the Storm Eagle and the meltagun support squad it carried.
Abbadon and his Justaerin were undoubtedly the stars of this game, notching up no less than 3 enemy infantry units, a couple of tanks and a dreadnought before eventually being brought down. The Warhound was felled by a combination of the Storm Eagle and the meltagun support squad it carried.
Eventually we ran out winners, but the game was a lot closer than it would have been if our opponents hadnt designed their list for points denial.
After a great weekends gaming I came away with a pub quiz win and a best painted nomination to my name, but no wins still from painting (I've got a few ideas for improving the paint scheme, so im sure i'll come back stronger here)
The Loyalist faction scored a few big wins in the final games which meant they were victorious overall, but with 3 wins and a draw to my name i was pleased with my contribution to the cause.
Last week Forge World announced their next book, Massacre, which features the Night Lords. I was sure beforehand that i would be starting a new army for this book, but my current feeling is that i'll persevere with the Night Lords and am looking forward to seeing some of their unique units in more detail! I may add some units from another legion as allies, but doubt i'll start a whole new army just yet. So i shall leave you with this for now:
Last week Forge World announced their next book, Massacre, which features the Night Lords. I was sure beforehand that i would be starting a new army for this book, but my current feeling is that i'll persevere with the Night Lords and am looking forward to seeing some of their unique units in more detail! I may add some units from another legion as allies, but doubt i'll start a whole new army just yet. So i shall leave you with this for now:
