Bloodbowl demons and plants

Hello there sports fans! I've got several things I want to go over before I leave for San Diego for all next week:

1. The gift that keeps on giving: my nephew is being inducted into bloodbowl and he's looking at a chaos army. No bloodbowl chaos army is complete without a minotaur! Looking at the available models at Games Workshop I have to say I was a little disappointed. GW's minotaurs are big but the biggest of them is metal and I don't care for the way the hooves look. SO, to remedy that I looked at Privateer Press's Circle Oroboros Gnarlhorn Satyr. He's big, he's mean, he's got armor so it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to put him out on the field to start smashing face.

The model itself is actually quite tall, at least twice the height of a standard trooper. He comes on the 60mm wide circle base so I had to fish out one of my smaller ones for bloodbowl purposes. There was a minimum of flash so I didn't have to spend hours carving off metal bits (he is metal but Privateer Press is slowly changing to plastic).

I had a week (sort of) to assemble him, paint him so he would be ready before I left (tomorrow). My nephew likes the Philadelphia Eagles, evidently. So I painted him a green and white overlay. Not quite the teal but we'll see how it goes over. I made a helmet out of plasticard and green putty... which turned out o.k. I guess. Then I added the "3".

Paint-wise I tried layering here on the skin with a shadowy skin tone, then medium, then highlights then a brown ink. The ink probably should have been watered down a little but the dark skin gives a nice contrast to the white and green armor. I did the same thing with the horns and hooves.

The base was flocked with sand and I tried to make it look like a football field.

Let's hope he likes it!

In other news, remember how I was going to make a completely scratch built demons army?


Here's the cunnin' plan: I'm going to have to mold these two, then take the first casting and carve it down a little and re-size things then make my own spru of the individual pieces, re-mold it then I'll have something. This isn't ideal but neither are my sculpts right now. The baked clay pieces are just so incredibly brittle and making fine details are a hell of a lot harder than I thought they would be. Also you really can't cut up the originals after they are baked.

There is an oil based clay I could use that you CAN NOT bake but it is stronger and thus easier to work with and better for molding. Or I could just use green stuff. Oh well, work in progress.

Also, remember that big jaws thing. I found a home for it:

Feed me Seymour!

Merry Christmas, see you all later!

Demons and Robots

DEMONS AND ROBOTS

The new robotanic metal band is on tour at your local dive bar!

If only...

This Saturday was supposed to be the début of my Cyrxian forces against the Protectorate of Menoth. Alas the Protectorate bailed so the battle never happened. Probably for the best as I still haven't come to an understanding of the rules.

Game 1
Instead there was a 4-way battle of 500 point teams. Demons and Necrons (team democrons) vs. Orc(k)s and eldar (team Eldorcs). At 500 points I have room for my required choices and that's it. 20 Necron warriors, 1 Lord with a rez orb.

Objectives on opposite ends of a square table, lots of random terrain between us.

Turn 1
Eldorcs elected to go second so I deployed behind a bowl of fruit next to our objective. My demon ally does not get his choice of the wave of demons and his khorne bloodletters and whatever that superbloodletter's name is show up and run for cover.

Eldorcs (2 units of jetbikes, a warwalker, a wraithlord) (big orc with lots of CC stuff, 2 trucks full of boys and a nob with a power claw, a can) have the jetbikes and trucks rush forward. The artillery (orc can, warwalker and wraithlord) open fire and wipe out a bunch of bloodletters.

Turn 2
Demon reserves don't enter, bloodletters and superletter run 2" through the cover (1" difficult terrain and 1" run). Necrons position themselves to shoot (did I ever mention how I dislike 'rapid fire'?).

Eldorcs trucks and jetbikes run forward and shoot. Artillery takes out more bloodletters.

Turn 3
Demon reserves don't show up. Bloodletters continue to run 3". Necrons open fire on the trucks but only destroy a weapon.

Eldorcs jetbikes open fire on the Necrons but to no avail. Orcs jump out of the trucks and rush the Necrons. They manage to deal no wounds (half are swinging at the lord anyways) and my Necrons don't hit anything either. Artillery takes out more bloodletters (me demon ally could not roll for crap).

Turn 4
Demon reserves (pink horrors and the Masque) come and land right next the eldar jetbikes. The Masque tries to do that puppet thing where it makes the enemy move. One group of orcs not in the truck but not in combat get moved right into rapid fire range. Pink horrors and Necrons cut them down.

My lord is take out in close combat.

Eldorcs open up into the pink horrors and Masque, wiping them out. More Necrons go down against the orcs. The superletter and remaining bloodletter are charged by the orc boss and can. No one is wounded.

Turn 5
With my demon friends deadlocked with a khan, jetbikes bearing down on my one free unit and my other unit locked into a close combat that they would eventually lose to attrition, things were looking grim for the Democrans. The orc boss went down to the superletter but was then cut down by the can. The remaining bloodletter wouldn't be able to hurt the can because of the armor value.

My Necrons in combat were wiped out by the orcs (lord did not make the WBB roll). The remaining unit of Necrons were hit by the jetbike unit but few loses. I called the game at that point.

Thoughts
I dislike 500 point games. Not because I lost but because Necrons are worthless in such small games.

Game 2
The eldar player had to leave, something about catching a plane to Ohio. So we played one of those 3-way battles where two people fight it out and the last person wipes up whatever is left. This time I got to be that third person, sort of.

1000 points (thank the toaster gods) Demons vs. Chaos vs. Necrons.

Same table with two objectives in one quarter and everyone else in the others.

Turn 1
Necrons go first castling up in one quarter with the monolith out front screening the warriors, a small unit of scarabs screen behind the warriors, immortals and a lord next to the monolith, one unit of warriors in reserve. We run for some cover, awaiting the inevitable badness of demons but safely out of range from the chaos warriors.

Demons go second, the chaos gods disagreeing with the wave choice (this guy has some of the worst rolling, ever he really needs to make his waves even to avoid that). So the superkhorne greater demon (where everyone re-rolls to hit and he can't fly) with 2 units of 6 fiends try to drop on the chaos warriors but scatter off the board and then are destroyed by the deep strike mishap roll. Considering half of his army was wiped out we told him to try that over again. This time he landed pretty close to the chaos warriors and then ran everything forward towards them.

Chaos warriors roll up towards the demons (3 rhinos full of 2 units of guys and then a unit of possessed with a psycher of some kind) and open fire, wiping out a unit of fiends.

Turn 2
Necrons begin to take pot shots at everyone, taking out a weapon on a rhino and killing a fiend. I continue to press close to the objectives. My reserves come in, surprisingly so I let them file out of my monolith.

Demon reserves decide to come in: a soul grinder (fully loaded) and a unit of demonettes. Grinder opens up on my Necrons with phlegm (big template) but misses entirely. The demonettes run forward.
The other half (superkhorne and fiends) rush the chaos marines opening up one rhino and devouring the gooey insides but leaving themselves exposed for the other two.

Chaos marines kill the superkhorne, psycher and possessed rush the fiends and a fierce battle ensues with the possessed coming out on top.

Turn 3

I open fire with everything I've got against the soul grinder and even get my particle whip to land right on the thing's head then fail to roll a penetrating hit (needed a 4+ damn it). My immortals manage to glance off the phlegm cannon while the other unit of warriors wipe out the demonettes until there is only one left.

Demon fiends are finished off by the possessed, the soul grinder rushes my Necrons and tear up 5 of them. Luckily they are close enough to my Lord to get the benefit of the rez orb. The lone demonette rushes the other unit and the Necrons take it down.

The lone chaos rhino still intact rolls up towards the objective and the possessed start to walk down towards it as well.

Turn 4
With the soul grinder breathing down my neck and chaos marines lumbering my way I'm in a tight spot. I luckily make all of my WBB rolls then pull that same unit away from the soul grinder. Then proceed to ram my monolith into the chaos marine rhino but I don't roll high enough to penetrate the armor. I open fire with all of my Necrons into the soul grinder and manage to whittle it down to one close combat weapon. I then rush my scarabs (remember those? They've been hiding this entire time) into the soul grinder to delay it. Meanwhile my immortals and lord teleport within firing range of the possessed and start picking them off at a distance.

The soul grinder wipes out a base. And combat resolution wipes out another base.

Chaos possessed run towards my immortals. The rhino backs up and tries to take out the monolith with a melta weapon but misses.

Turn 5
My monolith particle whips the possessed and takes most of them out. I would have whipped the rhino but I was worried it would scatter right back on my or my other units. My warriors run away from the grinder towards the objectives. My scarabs are wiped out in close combat and the grinder consolidates up.

The grinder then rushes the monolith (surprise there but considering the demon player has just this model left I think he was in the mood to goof off at that point) but he glances it.

Chaos marines again try and take out my monolith but fail.

Turn 6
My immortals take out the rest of the possessed, my monolith closes in on the objective next to the chaos marines, contesting it, fires at the grinder, misses. The rest of my forces close on the remaining objective.

Grinder tries again to take out the monolith and fails.

The chaos marines try again and fail.

Victory Necrons

Thoughts
On the one hand I was lucky that the fiends did not target me. On the other hand I castled up pretty well and defended my quarter pretty well. The mobility provided by the immortals and the lord is always nice but I did miss my destroyers. I don't have a lot of options to open up armor. Sure, ALL of my forces can glance something but that usually does not happen. 20 warriors with rapid fire hit on a 3+ lay down a lot of hits. But then I need 6's to glance and 5-6 to take off weapons or immobilize the target. That doesn't happen as often as you'd think. Additionally it seems like every vehicle now ignores shaken and stunned so glances statistically don't do much for me ever.

Toast for the toaster god!

Saturday Game 2

The second game was a little more... weird given that I was fielding my proxied chaos army allied with a chaos marines army. The opponents were chaos marines and orks.

Set up was dawn of war (night fight first turn, something we promptly forgot about) with 2 objectives.

Turn 1
Orks and Chaos: Orks were of the horde variety. He rode into town with 3 units of 30 each unit had a nob with a power claw and boss pole. 3 Khans (think mini dreadnaughts), then a... I don't remember what they were called but the HQ choice with the custom force field that protects against shooting. OH! and he had about 10 lootas (orks with long range heavy weapons).

Chaos was set up like last time: possessed, and a bunch of rhinos full of different flavors of chaos marines.

The orks rushed forward and essentially screened the rhinos.

Demons and Chaos: I was allied with a khorne army. Given the ork horde he set up outside of his transports so he could rush them. The defiler was on the far left.

I had a soul grinder, pink horrors with bolt and the changeling, and plaguebearers as my intended first drop. I say intended because demons deploy all sorts of weird. I choose half of my army ahead of time then roll a dice. On a 3+ my intended selection deep strikes in. On a 1-2 the other half drops instead! I rolled a 4 so I got to deep strike my half. I chose to place the soul grinder near the lootas. There was a good chance he would be shot up by them BUT I would also get to drop my own shots first.

Learning point 1: when deep striking onto a friendly/enemy unit or UNPASSIBLE terrain you roll on the mishap table. On difficult terrain you count it as dangerous terrain and roll a D6, on a 1 you take damage. Otherwise you land normally!

I landed on difficult terrain and rolled on the mishap table of a 5 putting my grinder back in reserve. HAD that gone differently I would have landed right next to the lootas and had several shots at them. Oh well. The pink horrors dropped right where I wanted them near the far right objective and the plaguebearers next to them for protection duty (as pink horrors are poor in CC).

My khorne berserkers shot then rushed the orks, as did the defiler so all 3 units of 30 orks were tied up. The far left unit would tie up the defiler for the remainder of the battle. As nothing but the nob could wound it but he kept missing or never glancing enough. The defiler would kill 1-3 orks per turn and never mow through them enough to get through. The other units of berserkers killed off all of the other two units in one round. Suddenly the battlefield felt a lot less croweded!

Turn 2
Chaos and Orks: the khans rushed the berserkers, which was bad because the khans have better armor than the 'zerkers could penetrate! So it was a slow death for the 'zerkers as the khans tore them apart. Meanwhile the chaos rhinos rode up towards the two objectives.

Chaos and Demons: I rolled to deploy the rest of my army. Rolled 1's and 2's for everything and then finally got my soul grinder to drop right next to the khans (to help save the day). I took shots at the rhinos but to no avail. My pink horrors shot at the rhinos, also didn't do anything.

Turn 3
Chaos and Orks: the khans finish off the 'zerkers and look at my plaguebearers. The chaos rhinos rode up and shot a melta gun into my soul grinder and killed it. Once again if you're not playing a flavor of SM, why are you playing 40K?

Chaos and Demons: I roll to deploy and get my fiends to drop behind some cover near the defiler-ork horde showdown but safe from the lootas. My pink horrors fail to do anything to the khans.

Turn 4
Chaos and Orks: the lootas move forward... for some reason. The rhinos unload possessed near my pink horrors. The khans hit my plaguebearers and kill them completely. A rhino begins to ride over towards the fiends and lootas.

Chaos and Demons: my fiends rush the lootas and wipe them out. My pink horrors kill some possessed. My Keeper of Secrets drops in on the far right near the objective behind the possessed and my teammate's terminators drop in and open fire on the possessed.

Turn 5
Chaos and Orks: the rhino unloads and manages to destroy all my fiends through shooting. Ugh, they were left out in the open. The possessed and khans rush the terminators and terminator lord. The terminator lord destroys and entire unit of chaos marines because he has some sword that gives him infinity-billion attacks but if he rolls any ones the owning player has to body slam the table or something like that. The possessed and khans kill the rest.

Chaos and Demons: and look who decided to join the party? My unit of 15 bloodletters! Who drop just short of the unclaimed far right objective. I try and run them to it, I need a 3, what do I roll? A 1! My keeper rushes the possessed (with Tzeentch lord, he's always been in there) and kills off 3 possessed and two wounds on the lord. My pink horrors continue to sit on top of their cover and basically do nothing.

Learning point 2: the changeling has an ability that makes an enemy shooting unit take a leadership test. If they fail I get to choose their target! I could have used this several times during the game but never remembered to. This might have saved my soul grinder.

Learning point 3: Khorne 'zerkers have krak gernades which are effective against enemy armor. They actually could have attacked the khans.

Learning point 4: pink horros may be BS3 but they are also assault 3!

Tie

I had a whole unit of CC monsters show up on the last turn and do nothing. 250+ points out of a 1000 point army that ALMOST didn't make the game. Additionally, my team mate did have icons (teleporting 6" of an icon means you don't scatter) but they were not in an areas I actually wanted to be in. So did my bloodletters and pink horrors but the pinks weren't in the best location and the bloodletters didn't make the game.

I was warned that demons were weird but I sort of like the unpredictability of them. So I think I will continue on my quest to make a scratch-built army in time for adeptacon.

Demons at Adeptacon?

Several new things to post today:

1. Went camping out in the Shenandoahs, lots of fun. There I found a completely intact, albeit dead, horned beetle! Given that I wanted to make a more scarab looking figure for my Tomb Spyders I think molding this guy and then adding bits and pieces will do the trick.

2. Adeptacon: the tournament scene where GW doesn’t have a strangle-hold on what you can and can not do. For example: not all of my figures have to be GW’s. I can scratch build an entire army and I won’t be thrown out the front door but rather I’d be praised for doing so. The particular tournament my camping friends want me to go to is team-based. 4 people each with 1000 points play in teams of 2. You get your standard 2 troops and HQ but only 1 fast, heavy, and elite.

So your army list is a little limited but you’re playing with someone who is supposed to coordinate with you. That said this particular group would like to do a themed army, chaos. I started throwing things. After I calmed down they said, ‘What about demons?’

‘Say what?’

…Demons… What about demons? 1000 points of demons is, what, 25 models? I could have that assembled and painted by April. I bet I could even learn how to play it quasi-effectively.

So let’s take a look at the demons line: huh, all of the HQ is metal, all but the elites but the bloodcrushers are metal, all of the fast attack but seekers are metal, all of Nurgle is metal. And do you know what metal means? BLOODY EXPENSIVE, that’s what it means. OR how about a soul grinder? $62. About $400 for 25 models or 1000 points.

The new question is now: could I scratch build a demon army and have it painted and ready to go by April?

Consider what it would take: how about 10 pink horrors, 10 bloodletters, 3 nurgling bases, 5 fiends, a soul grinder, and a keeper of secrets.

I’ve got my soldering iron due to arrive today. Even if the models don’t look 100% awesome, they are the perfect testers because they are demons! All I would really need to do is buy the bases (I tried to make my own but that ended in tears).

Hmm… maybe this would work?