A New Year, and a New Gaming Table

Hey there Chaos fanatics! It's a New Year in the crazy Warp- indeed, every day here is like a big New Year's Eve Party- if your idea of partying involves the complete disregard for physics, daemonic incursions, and the like. LOL

Anyways, I have a special article here for your approval.My friend Joe and I have recently put the "finishing" touches on his "new" gaming table, and we just played our inaugural game on it. I know that I have written about this table before (Part 1 and Part 2 and Part 3  if you are interested in an "in-depth" look).

In brief, I once had a huge gaming table. However, after getting married and "life event" stuff, I was no longer able to keep the large battlezone. So I gave it to my friend Joe. Now, for him as well, "life events" intervened, and for a while he did nothing with the table. But, in recent months, Joe's life has settled a bit and he has once again gotten the 40K bug. Since last summer, we have worked to create a new gaming table, made from the ashes of my old one.

Basically, Joe wanted something different from the cityfight table that I made. So, we just flipped the table over. Once again, Pete planned the design and cut the foam, while I would work to paint the table. Joe would help with both, but he's mostly a "supervisor" LOL.

So, what type of table did Joe want? Why, an ice world table, of course! Joe has visions of a Hoth-like situation- cold, desolate, frozen. Of course, he is currently building Dark Angels as opposed to Space Wolves (which is what I'd do if I had a damn snow table), but that's not important. Once the table was painted (blue with heavy stippling of white texture paint on top), we then set out to make the frozen lake / river that takes up a chunk of the table. We decided to use lots of water effects. It worked great, though the stuff isn't as resilient as resin (such as what Pete used on his lava table). The ice LOOKS great, though we may have to revisit it later with resin or something else.

In the meantime, I also made several terrain pieces for the board, complete with ice and snow. I used both 40K and Fantasy pieces. I painted up the prometheum pipes I had laying around. I also finished the Fortress  of Redemption (that Pete and Joe had given me for the holidays a few years ago)- I decided to give it some ice and snow and give it to Joe, since he's now playing Dark Angels. I'll still get to use it, so that's the important thing. Finally, I bought some Christmas trees for decorating holiday villages- on sale! So I bought 2 bags of them. We could make a small forest on the table if we wanted to (and we just might).

So, after working on it off and on for so long, the table was finally ready to be played on. I must say that Joe has the perfect "man cave" set up. The gaming table is in his garage. Now, the garage is finished, but it could only fit one car and not much else. However, it is LARGE enough to make an entire man cave out of it. Whilst he is still working on it, he has already put a small couch in there, and a space heater. With a bit more time, effort, and purchases of essentials, Joe will have the perfect gaming space. Heck- it is big enough to put a smaller table in there as well. We could have a small game going at the same time as the big one. Perhaps 2 elite squads are in the facility under the frozen lake, desperately battling to control the super weapon within. Or, if GW finally gets its act together, we could do a Battlefleet Gothic game alongside- the fight on the planet and in the stars above... the possibilities are endless.

So, about a week and a half ago, we fought our first game on the table. I decided that I HAD to use Khorne Daemonkin against his Dark Angels. Loyalist versus Chaos, as nature intended. Plus, I thought the red would look striking against the white and blue frozen board (it certainly did).

The mission was Secure the Relic, which was placed dead center on the table. Joe was clearly out for blood from our last game in which I played Mechanicus (see HERE). My Mechanicum forces brutalized Joe, and now he wanted to make me pay for it, There would be no mercy, no quarter in this game. It was also the idea that he wanted to win on HIS table for the first time out that made the game extra spicy.

However, I wasn't going to go quietly into that good night. I built up a rather effective Khorne list (I actually used a variation of it at one of the tournaments). I allied it with CSM Codex, to get Kharn and a Heldrake (cultists being the mandatory Troop).  Once again, Joe did not know much about the Daemonkin, as he has not faced anything quite like this before (the book has far different synergy than a traditional CSM / CD alliance). I, on the other hand, have had some experience against the new DA book (sadly, I was beaten handily but the Tournament Organizer who used  DA). However, I learned from that, and planned to use that knowledge against Joe.

First, I was determined to rush EVERYTHING forward. Nobody waits, everyone goes. Now, this meant casualties. My Daemon Prince got zapped immediately by Joe's Dreadnoughts. His terminators made short work of my bikers. My cultists were used as cannon fodder, naturally.

My aces in the hole were my Maulerfiends and Flesh Hounds. These two are very very effective. I decided to run the 3 Maulerfiends together, rather than spread them out across the battlefield. This meant that if they collided with ANYTHING in CC, that enemy would die, no question. The Flesh Hounds, with their 2 wounds each and S5 on the charge are great at killing Space Marines, or at the very least tying them up for several turns. Any +3 armor saves would be toasted by my third ace- my Heldrake. He would make quick work of Joe's regular Marines.

The game was certainly a back and forth. As more of my stuff died, I summoned Bloodletters and a new Daemon Prince to replace the one he killed. The Drake/Mauler/Hound combo was taking its toll on Joe. It didn't help matters that some of his Deep Striking terminators scattered off the board- and were LOST! Good times, good times.

Ironically, it was my bikers and cultists that actually won me the game. They played a crucial role, delaying the advance of Joe's terminators toward the Relic. Due to the delay, my newly minted Daemon Prince grabbed the Relic first, and began slowly walking away with it. The terminators just finished up when my Maulerfiends were swinging round, fresh from killing a squad of terminators and Devastators. They were now flanking, and took out those pesky relic-seeking terminators as well. Plus, my Heldrake was also flying in support, torching a squad of Space Marines (that had been tied down by my hounds).

 The game ended with my DP in possession of the Relic, with Rhinos and Khorne Bezerkers led by Khorne in protective support. Ultimately, the score was 5 to 2. I got 3 for the Relic, 1 for Slay, 1 for Linebraker (Maulerfiends were in his zone by that point). He got 1 for Slay and 1 for First Blood (both for shooting my first DP to death).

The game was a ton of fun, and the beautiful table certainly helped to make it an evocative setting to our battle. Joe vowed revenge once more, and I have no doubt that he shall have it, sooner or later. Nevertheless, the Scions of Gorechild have gotten a hold on an important Dark Angel relic. Who knows what that Daemon Prince will do to desecrate it?

(Please note- I took few pics of Joe's models because they are either grey plastic or just coated black. Once he works on them I'll be sure to put them on my blog). 

Have a Happy New Year. Until Next Time...

History Of A Gaming Table Part I

Hey there Chaos fanatics! Old man chaos is back in (somewhat) fine form today with a story about my own gaming table- a story of inspiration, vision, hard work, teamwork, and a lot of fun.

In May 2005, my friend Pete and I went to Games Day in Baltimore. There, we saw some great, great stuff. Besides all the great models and really cool people and games, I was intrigued by the battle tables. Now, up to this point, I had a green gaming mat, and Pete had made a great desert table, but that's it. As I looked around at Games Day I saw all kinds of terrain. Then, I saw something that I fell in love with as a gamer...

I saw an urban war zone, complete with roads, overpasses and very large buildings. When I inquired, the guys there said the buildings were provided by Gale Force Nine. As I looked at the beauty of that table, the gears began to turn in my head. That evening, back in the hotel, Pete and I began to bounce plans back and forth, and Pete whipped out his graph paper and began drawing... We thought of all kinds of crazy things we could never do (removable roads with sewers underneath, for example). Finally, we came up with a reasonable plan for it. It would be huge, have a bisecting road in the middle and have 3 roads going across the width of the table. There would be 8 (!) city blocks in which to put buildings, rubble, and whole armies. It would be a masterpiece.

In June, we began to build this dream table. Pete selected the heaviest, best wood to build a sturdy, heavy table (he has a tendency to over-engineer). We also bought white card to make the sidewalk sections. I called up Gale Force Nine and asked for several buildings. They said that they don't just make them like that- but I begged and they relented. They buildings were pricey, but oh so worth it. It was Pete, Joe, my brother, and another friend Brian building this in my basement in the heat of June. Just so you know, my basement has a boiler that emits a heat of like a billion degrees, so you could well imagine.

We had some laughs in that heat. Pete hammered everything into place. Joe decided to stop working and play with my vintage Scorpinok base from Transformers- since then he has been obsessed with it. Brian came to the house not realizing he was going to be pressed into service... I can still see him and my brother cutting little lines into the white card to denote the slabs for the sidewalks. I remember pouring a ton of Gorilla Glue and then putting the hab-blocks into place.

Then, when it was built, I began the painting process. At this point it was just me- this was now up to me to complete. I used paints from Home Depot to paint this huge table. I painted the roads black with yellow hash lines. I painted the hab-blocks dark grey, and then stippled lighter greys on top, to give it a textured effect. I also painted a ton of terrain pieces from Armorcast (at this point, there was really nothing from GW).

It took a full summer, but when all was said and done- the table and accompanying terrain came out wonderfully. Truly this is the biggest single project I had ever undertaken, with all of my friends lending their considerable might to it (except Joe, who is STILL playing with Scorpinok). The table was exactly what I wanted it to be- a table large enough for a huge city battle that could fit like 4 armies on it. It inspired Pete to build his own huge lava table (which is breathtakingly intricate and detailed).

We played some great games there. We played our "Gryphone IV Campaign" on that table (which my brother won with his Imperial Guard, by the way). The table has seen Plague Marines, Traitor Guard, Daemons, Imperial Guard, Ultramarines, Black Templars, Eldar, Tyranids, and Orks fight there. I bought new pieces of terrain for it as time went on (some from others, but certainly the GW Cityfight stuff were welcome additions). Good times at that table. Good times.

But, like all gaming sagas, this one must come to an end. It turns out that there were some problems with my table, or rather, my table's location. My basement was always too cramped to play in comfortably to begin with. It is an unfinished basement, and quite dusty (no matter how much I clean). The basement is also used for storage, thus cramping it further. And then there is the boiler- or as Pete calls it, the "gateway to hell". It is old and throws off so much damn heat that playing down there in the summer was next to impossible.

Finally, when my wife moved in last year, she needed to put her stuff down there too... As we cleaned and threw out old basement stuff we realized that the table was taking up too much room, and that it was always a hassle to play down there. So, we decided that the table would have to go. It took a lot of soul searching on my part, but I knew that this would be the right decision. So, I asked my friend Joe (STILL playing with Scorpinok) if he could take the table... He just bought a new house, and the table would fit comfortably in his garage. So, a few weeks ago Pete and Joe showed up and hauled away my table. A bittersweet end- I don't have my table, but at least my friend Joe has it which means I'll get to see it anytime I want...

But, this whole ordeal has left me with two questions:

First, I still want a gaming table of some kind, even if it is less opulent. But what should I do? I like the GW Realms of Battle- it is storage-able, but quite pricey. Pete suggested that I get two thin boards and paint them. It'll be cheap enough, and if they are lightweight I can store them (unlike my table, which weighed a ton). I'm not sure what I'll do... but I do know that, one day, I will have a gaming table once again...

Second... where the hell is Scorpinok? What the... I think Joe took both the table and Scorpinok with him... Damn him!! How did he pull that sleight of hand?! Now I have to find a way to get it back from him (I told you that he was obsessed with it!!).

Until next time Chaos fans!

Battle Report: Chaos Space Marines vs. Grey Knights (Part 2)

Hey there Chaos fans! Last time, we looked at a Kill Team mission whose result would have a big impact on the big battle. It is my forces of Chaos against my brother's Grey Knights. I won the Kill Team battle. As a result, the Grey Knight commander would be the target of assassination in the big battle mission. We selected our forces, and my brother placed his men right in the open, on the overpass. I thought this was a reckless and brazen move. I prepared to slaughter this servant of the false Emperor!

The target of my assassination- the Grey Knights Grand Master

With the Assassination mission, I was only allowed to field some of my units immediately. The rest were to be held in reserve. I put out my Dreadnought and my Black Legion Terminators at the start of the overpass. They would soak up a ton of fire, but I wanted my Dread to get in there quick. I had my Plague Raptors on the lower level. They would swoop in when the time was right. Finally, I put my Plague Terminators at the far end in cover. My plan was to march them through, and then get into a nice shooting position. This turned out to be my biggest mistake, however, as they were too slow getting through the cover in order to make a difference.

 

My initial strike force

Moving toward the enemy

My Dreadnought was the first thing to go down, naturally. He had soaked up a lot of firepower though (curses to the Psy-cannon), and I believed that I could get in my Black Legion Terminators into combat pretty quickly. My Raptors buzzed about below. Of course, I stopped in difficult terrain, and wouldn't you know it- I failed one of my dangerous terrain tests! And my Terminators were moving too damn slowly in the ruins. Thus, the best shot appeared to be my Raptors, despite the loss of one of them.

Ah! My old nemesis- difficult terrain!

Moving too slowly through difficult terrain

My luck improved next turn. My Khorne Bezerkers and my Khornate Daemon Prince made their reserve rolls (though the remainder of my Plague force had not arrived yet). My Black Legion Terminators made it into combat, killing all but one of the Grey Knights. He stood his ground, unfortunately.  This would give the enemy the opportunity to advance his second Terminator squad into my Black Legion. This would be their end, BUT... I hoped his Grand Master would be left exposed to my advancing Raptors. They had already shot at him from below the overpass and wounded him.

The Black Legion strikes!

"Advance... For the Emperor of Mankind!"

 My plan sort of worked. The Grey Knight Terminators moved toward the advancing Black Legion Terminators (and behind them, my Khorne Bezerkers and Khornate Daemon Prince). His Grand Master was by himself, with Grey Knight Marines just a bit away. Now, my Plague Marine Terminators were still too far away, so I decided to send in my Raptors quickly to try to finish the Grand Master off. Unfortunately, combat did not go my way on either front. The Black Legion Terminators were wiped out by the second Terminator squad, and the Raptors were unable to wound (my brother rolls very very very well- as he always has). I knew right there that he'd move in his Marines to kill off the Raptors. My Plague Marines had yet to appear (damn lousy reserve rolls). Of course, in his turn, he moved in the Marines and wiped off the Raptors.  He braced his Terminators and had them shoot at the advancing Khorne Bezerkers. His Dreadnought and Nemesis Dreadnight had previously appeared, and they also fired on my Blood God warriors.

My Plague Raptors won't be able to withstand the assault

The Khorne Bezerkers are shot at from all directions

My Plague Marines and my second HQ finally arrived- though too little too late to really turn the tide of battle at this point. I had one last card to play. My Khornate Daemon Prince had advanced under the overpass, and he could assault the Grey Knight Marines... the Grand Master was just too far away. If the forces of Khorne could tie him down long enough- my Plague Terminators were just about in position to open a hail of fire on the Grand Master. So- I went for it. My Daemon Prince assaulted the Marines. Unfortunately, though I killed a couple, they stood their ground.

Detained in another part of the city, the Plague Marines arrive too late to aid the forces of Chaos!

The Grey Knights face the Daemon Prince of Khorne!

In the Grey Knight's turn, my brother backed up his Terminators, continuing to gun them down as they ran up the overpass, meanwhile his Nemesis Dreadknight did the same. Remarkably, he didn't do that well, but he killed just enough to weaken the squad. However, the real fight was the Daemon Prince. Again, I killed too few, meanwhile, his Nemesis force weapons cut through the "stuff of the warp" and my Daemon Prince was banished back to the warp. The last chance I had vanished.

 The mission called for Random Game Length, and I let my brother roll. The game ended right there. He had won, as his Grand Master was left standing. I had given it my all- and I couldn't quite get to him.

The Grand Master survived the assassination attempt

Wow! This was a great game all around. Playing the Kill Team mission at the beginning was a great way to introduce the bigger game. It was tense, action packed, and added narrative punch to the main battle. It was also great to play a mission that didn't have "D3 objectives" or the like. It made the game feel fresh and interesting. My brother played a hell of a game. I thought it was reckless to put his men on the overpass, but what he did was bottleneck my foot troops- they had to climb the ramp to the overpass- and then they'd face massed Grey Knights.It was a good approach tactically, while also in keeping with Marine fluff- they fear nothing.

For my own part, I put the Plague Terminators too far away to matter in the game. My reserve rolls weren't great, either. When I later told my friends that I brought in a Daemon Prince, they said I was crazy, as Daemons get their asses handed to them by Grey Knights. I knew that too- but I figured what would be a battle between the Forces of the Emperor and the Slaves to Darkness without at least one Daemon? Perhaps it was a mistake, but the last, desperate battle between the Daemon Prince and the noble Grey Knights felt "legendary", and I had a blast with this game anyways- win or lose. Besides, I'll begin planning for my revenge... <insert evil Chaos fanatic laughter here>

Anyways, that's all for this Battle Report. Have a good one!

Battle Report: Chaos Space Marines vs. Grey Knights (Part 1)

Hey everybody! How's it going for you this week? Getting into any trouble? Well, we here at Chaos Corner certainly hope you ARE getting into trouble... just not TOO much trouble! Hehehe! Anyways, I'm here to give you guys a look at my most recent battle against the Grey Knights. However, I decided to use my Chaos Marines rather than my Dark Eldar. Truly, I haven't played with Chaos for nearly a year; I love the Dark Eldar, but I just wanted a break and go back to my Chaotic roots. My opponent and I also decided to try something different in our game. So without further ado, lets delve into this latest battle report...

My Plague Marines are in position... do the Grey Knights suspect?

So, my bother and I decided to have a match up this week. He's been enjoying his Grey Knights, and he decided to use them again. I decided to go with a Chaos force- not all Plague Marines, though. I have a lot of Chaos stuff, so I decided to go that route, though the forces of Nurgle would be a mainstay in whatever force I made.

However, something has been bugging me about 40K lately. The main book missions are all pretty much the same. Its always "capture these objectives". I really wanted to do something completely different. A different type of game altogether. So, I did a bit of research in all the rulebooks. I was reading Cityfight, and I came across a mission called "Assassination". Now, that was something different! A fun match-up with a different objective AND a different force organization chart. This would spice it up quite a bit!

 But then I wondered- who would be the attacker, and who would be the defender/the target of assassination? I continued to flip through my books and I found in Battle Missions rules for Kill Team. I said "Hey- this will work"! We would start our battle with a Kill Team scenario- whoever got below half strength and lost a Leadership Test first would lose. The loser would then be the target of assassination! It sounded like fun to me- so my brother and I decided to go for it...

The Grey Knights advance under withering fire... but the Emperor Protects!

We set up a Cityfight table- complete with GW ruins, factory pieces, and a bunch of the old Armorcast brick building ruins. I also decided to use an overpass set that I had custom built for me. With the terrain set up, we decided we'd have the Kill Team match on only one part of the table. Once we selected the one end, we made up our lists- which was set at 200 points. I picked a squad of (you guessed it) 5 Plague Marines, one with a Meltagun. For the remainder, I picked 3 Khorne Bezerkers (with one Plasma pistol). I thought it was a good set up at 203 points. Then my brother told me what he would be fielding- 5 Grey Knight Terminators. It just got interesting....

My Plague Marine is shot and killed by Storm Bolters

 In a terrible battle of the capital, a squad of Chaos Marines were doing a sweep- their mission was to locate the Grey Knights commander. As they made their sweep, they encountered 5 Terminators. If the Chaos Marines were to succeed, they would have to kill the Terminiators. If they failed, the Terminators might be able to trace them back- thus setting up the Chaos Lord for assassination. Pretty dramatic, huh?

The Kill Team mission was a lot of fun. With each man acting on his own, it made for some thrilling shoot outs and dramatic close combat moments. I moved some of  my Plague Marines onto the actory ruins, so they could be shooting at the approaching Grey Knights. Meanwhile, I sent two Khorne Bezerkers forward, and I sent 2 other Plague Marines with the third Khorne Bezerker around the side in an attempt to flank.

Desperate one on one combat

It was great- we traded shots as his Grey Knights advanced. However, their terminator armor was generally proof against my shooting. I had downed one, but he killed 2 Plague Marines and a Khorne Bezerker in his shooting. Finally, my flanking moved into cover, just as his Grey Knights got there. The one Khorne Bezerker charged in, but was sliced in half by the Terminator. My Plague Marine got to the upper level and fired- but still did not kill the Grey Knight.

Blood for the blood god!!

On the other side, the Plague Marines kept firing, but it was the lone Khorne Bezerker that fired his Plasma pistol, killing one Terminator. In the next volley, my Plague Marines and Khorne Bezerker survived the shots, and they shot back. Again, the Bezerker's Plasma pistol felled another Grey Knight, as did a Plague Marine's bolter. With a failed leadership roll, my brother was forced to concede. Chaos was victorious, and we "set up the field", ready to ambush and assassinate the Grey Knight commander.

So, we decided to make a list at 1600 points. Now, the force organization chart for Assassination is called "Hit and Fade". For the attacker, I can only use (at maximum) 2 HQs, 6 Elites, 2 Troops, and 3 Fast Attack. Not quite the list I was used to making, which is why I wanted to play this mission. So, what did I pick? A Khornate Daemon Prince and a Plague Terminator Lord (as HQs). I had  full squads of Plague Marines and Khorne Bezerkers. I also had a Plague Dreadnought as my only heavy firepower. For my other Elite choices, I ahd two Terminator squads- one set of Plague Terminators, and the other a set of Black Legion terminators. Finally, I had a squad of Raptors with the Mark of Nurgle. Ultimately, I was at 1593.

His attitude was "Come and get me!"

What I was not prepared for, was my brother's strategy. Rather than place his commander in a building or near cover, he placed him in the near-center of the Overpass. Yep- balls out right there, out in the open. He then surrounded him with 2 squads of Grey Knight terminators and another full squad of Grey Knight marines. That would be a lot to cut through. Would my brother's plan be brave and bold, or just foolhardy? Find out in our next posting!