Turkey Day and Progress!

Howdy folks!  I hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving, and for those of you who could, I hope you enjoyed your time off and time with family (if you like that kind of thing-Family that is).  With my last posts of progress working with my plastic and super glue, I am now going back to the paint.  I was able to play a few games with my buddies AmateurDorn and TauChi in Maryland and NY, respectively, via VASSAL. I hope you all had a happy holiday, and enjoyed some time off.  Here are the updates!


Like I mentioned, with completion of my Plastic Wall of 12 tanks, I will go back to painting with my 15 Devastator Bolter Marines and 3 Sergeants.  This first "get back to painting" set consists of just the bolter filler models and Sgts, and I hope to paint them all up in one swoop and kick my painting speed up a notch.

Already base coated, eighteen more marines await the brush.

With these new marines coming into the ranks, and my assemble done, my progress chart now looks like this:

Now, I mentioned that I played a few games over the holiday, and my new best friend is VASSAL.  Now, this does not replace the tabletop in any way, but it allowed me to do some quality but kickin' with the other two authors on this blog, AmateurDorn and TauChi.  I played my current lists, all jumpers at 1k, 1.5k, and a mixed list with Sanguinary Guard and Devastators (made to 1k)...the Blood/Nipple Hammer list, here is the idea from Kirby's blog..

I really enjoy the fact that with this new edition, a Jumper Angels Sanguine army is alive and well!  Here is some summary and notes.  Pretty much all of my lists are adaptations or direct ripoffs from Kirby, at 3++

First Game:

1k Jumpers against the Honorable Imperial Fists.  Kill Points, Dawn of War
This was the first VASSAL game I played with AmateurDorn, just to get our feet wet and learn the tool.  AmateurDorn fielded his current army list of models he owns, Librarian Lavar, a speeder, rhino, dread, and tac squads.

As this was our first game together, I don't belive Dorn was prepared for the speed of the BA.  And frankly, neither was I.  I kept forgetting my power weapons, but was able to win deftly as I got every charge off and went right for the throat.  Victory to the Angels Sanguine.

Second Game:

1.5k Jumpers against the Honorable Imperial fists, this time mechanized.
This game was the second game I have played with a jumpers list on VASSAL.  The mission was DoW and C&C.  It was still a slugfest.  Dorn brought 3 predators, and 3 speeders, and 2 tac rhinos.

The larger points allowed me to bring a second VV squad, an Honor Guard (a third chalace) and a small 5 man assault on the side with a hand flamer.

Without getting into a full battle report, Dorn was playing with his Fist list focusing on the Marine power of shooting.  As this was only the second time he came across the Jumpers with the Chalice, and a Librarian with a blood lance, he was caught slighly off guard with his vehicle placement yet put up a good fight.  AmateurDorn also fielded Lysander with Sternguard and pretty much kept me away from the right flank-inches away from his objective,  as I was not in the mood to go up against the Emperor's fist and some fancy Bolter ammo.  I ended up jumping the objective with multiple unit remnants and through target saturation kept his Sternguard with Bolter Drill inneffective.

I won with my objective, and contesting Dorn's.  Sanguinius would be proud.

Third game:

Pitched battle, C&C.
I got with TauChi to help him setup VASSAL and we did a loose 1k with a slapped together Tau and my 1k Jumpers.  A quick game that was punctuated by the Angels wiping out TauChi's Kroot and Firewarriors in successive combats, and the Tau commander getting ganged up on by a full 10 man Assault.

Angels eradicate the dirty Xenos who fled on turn four.  Sanguine win.

Fourth Game:

AmateurDorn and I rematched at 1.5k points this time, and AmateurDorn learned a lot and it showed.  This time around Dorn fielded the 3 predators, and used Lysander with an Assault termie squad in a  land raider this time.  For me this time around I changed it up and played my Blood Nipple Hammer lsit with 3 packs of Missle devs, and a Sang Guard squad on top of the usual 2x10Assault with chalice's.  I wasn't happy with my deployment and Dorn took advantage and began to put Krak wounds on my devs with his devs for some dev on dev missle action.  My reserve rolls kept in the 1 and 2 neighborhood and saw my Nipples arriving a bit late.

It ended up that the termies started to go towards my objective to contest a little too late.  By then I bubble wrapped it with my devs and my 5 man Assault, preserving the win as I contested his objective and kept him off of mine.  had the game gotten to a 6th turn, things might have gotten hairy...Phew.

The Angels Sanguine won again.  Glory to the Emperor and Sanguinius!

Unfortunate fact:

With a jumpers list, Vehicle Explodes! results will happen with multiple assault squad meltas.  Be prepared to take those shrapnel hits.  It became the favorite joke for AmateurDorn as he will now field rhinos full of barrelled promethium from now on just for the sake of humor.

Here are some notes I learned in playing these games:
1.  Heroic Intervention - Always reserve the Vanguard Vets if you have them.
2.  Always Combat squad if you can, and if the mission is not KP.
3.  Don't forget your Red Thirst rolls!  Free FC is good, use it!  It will allow you to use that squad for sacrificial tarpit charging and allow you to move your chalice more freely.
4.  When I paint my special weapons, make sure to make the Blade Encarmine and All my Power Weapons stand out.  I can't keep forgetting them!
5.  Lightning Claws on my Sang Priests if I have the points.  Those FC WS5 attacks should not be wasted!  Just be sure you can only b2b with one enemy on the charge.  Having a power fist (on the Sgt), a lightning claw, and four more assault marines in one combat is yummy, let alone a full 10 man squad.

Bad memory warning:
The notes above, may have been off a bit as to sequence of games, and what the objectives were - blame the turkey - but overall I feel pretty good with the performance of the Angels Sanguine and look forward to more games with the Blog fellows, and my Tuesday matchups at Paladin!

Thanks for reading, I'm off to the painting table!