New Year, New Rules

Happy new year to everybody! I hope everybody has a fun 2014 with many victories.

One of my new years resolutions for this year is to be less slack about my blogging - the initial goal is one post a week. So I'll get myself off to a good start by posting this.

Orks. in. Spaacccceeeeeeee!

On boxing day I went round to Mark's place for a game of Battlefleet Gothic. Mark was using his Orks (with the latest revisions of the fleet list) and I was trying out the Space Marine fleet list for the first time. Mark's blog covers the events of the battle pretty well, so I'm just going to post my pictures;

My fleet deployed in the center

"Ork battleship and carriers approaching to starboard sir!"

Overall situation.

My (temporarily) disabled capital ships move off, while the escorts provide cover

Escorts successfully cross the T against the Ork carriers, while the two battleships engage in a broadside duel.

Endgame. My battle-barge and strike cruisers picking off the Ork escort ships

This was a fun game, with some hilarious swings of luck for and against both sides. The marine list was interesting. Having armour 6+ all round makes it very tough (at least against gunnery) but I don't think it can dish out as much firepower as the Chaos fleet that I'm used to. Still, I think I'll use it for at least a couple more games to get a better feel for it.

Darkness Awakening

My first painting project for 2014 will be my old Dark Elf army for Warhammer Fantasy Battle. I used to play quite a bit of Warhammer back in 7th edition, and I'm a fan of the rules (although not so much a fan of GW). A couple of friends have been playing some WHFB (8th edition) lately, so I figured it was worth pulling the Dark Elves out of the cupboard and seeing what needs to be done to get it presentable. After a bit of reading to refresh my memory and familiarise myself with what has changed, here is what I'm considering for an initial 1200 point army;

• Supreme Sorceress, level 4 with 50 points of magic items
• Regiment of 24 Warriors with spears and full command
• Regiment of 12 Warriors with crossbows and musician
• Regiment of 12 Warriors with crossbows and musician
• Regiment of 18 Witch-Elves with full command
• War-Hydra

A lot of this is already painted, and the standard is actually better than I thought it was. The major thing I'm disappointed with is the basing - it looks like I got bored and just painted the bases brown! So re-doing all the basing is the first step, then the second step will be finishing off the Witch-Elf unit. Witch-Elves are actually quite a bit of effort to paint because each one is quite distinct, and they also have lots of mixed areas of clothes/skin/jewelery that is quite fiddly to do well. Still, one model at a time and I'll work my way through them.

Battlefleet Gothic - Red versus Blue

This afternoon I played my first game of Battlefleet Gothic in a long time. Much too long apparently, since I had completely forgotten the rules and got an embarrassing number of things wrong.

The battle was 1500 points, using the BFG-R fleet lists. Mark was using an Eldar Craftworld force (using the Dark Realm Kraytonian fleet range), while I was running Chaos (using Ground Zero Games models from their NSL range). We both had very similar fleets – a battleship/heavy cruiser, four cruisers, and two squadrons of escorts each.

We decided to play a Fleet Engagement mission. After a little confusion about how the deployment zones were determined, we ended up with Mark deploying up to 60cm on, with at least one unit in each third of the table. My fleet deployed in a up to 30cm on, with all ships having to be within 45cm of the center of my table edge. Naively, I had this idea that Mark being forces to spread his deployment along his whole table edge would give me an advantage, since my fleet started out massed together. It didn’t quite work out that way.

Turn one, Mark's cruisers charge my destroyer squadron

Center and left of my deployment

Mark got first turn. At this point we rolled, and determining that the sun was coming from his table edge. This meant that the Eldar would be at their fastest moving along the length of the board, mid-speed when moving towards my table edge, and slowest when moving back towards their own table edge. Mark’s cruisers to my right pounced on my destroyer squadron, destroying three of the four ships. In the center his heavy cruiser moved into range of my battleship, inflicting heavy damage but not quite crippling it. My return fire likewise almost but not quite crippled the Eldar ship.

My battleship faces off with the Eldar heavy cruiser

Turns two and three were a confused brawl, with every ship on the table packed into a 30cm radius. In the end Mark’s fleet came out best off. They had crippled my battleship and two cruisers, and I had only managed to cripple one cruiser. More importantly they had somehow ended up behind my fleet, severly limiting my options and ability to return fire. On turn four Mark finished off three cruisers and a battleship, and I conceded. 

This is the first time I have played the Eldar under the BFG-R list, and they are definitely a big improvment on the original rulebook lists. My only concern is because all their weapons are very short ranged I can see many games against Eldar turning into rugby-scrums. But overall first impression, I like the BFG-R list and will try and arrange a few more games against them.