Harlequin Autarch Jetbike...sorted!

Managed to crank out the bouncy Autarch's jetbike finally. Needs to be sealed and have the eyes and gems glossed, but I am content with it. Now I just need to find some way to bling up the shining spear rider that I'm going to use as the Autarch...to the bits box!

Side Project

So did someone order a crap ton of missiles to the face?

I will throw in 4 more for free!

So this is a little side project I am working on. I've been thinking about beefing up my Tau contingent from a small allied detachment to a competitive army that I will be taking an allied force of space marines. Sorry no taudar for this kid. This is one of the three missile broadsides that with their drones will be shelling out a total of 36 missiles per turn! And after some trickery and/or ass-hattery depending on how you look at it they will be twin-linked and ignoring cover. That's what I lovingly call a missile shit-storm sandwich for my opponent! Not too shabby!  More to come....

Shhhh...Snikrot will now go from terrorizing my painting station to terrorizing the enemy

So funny story about this guy.  Clear back in '10 I picked this model up because he is badass (both model and fluffwise) for something different to paint. I started working on him and decided that since no one else at Mind Games had an Ork army at the time I would use this guy as an excuse to start one. While I built and painted a fairly robust Kan wall/Speed Freak army, Snikrot just never quite got finished. With the Kill Team rules, your army can be led by a Kommando Nob and he makes Kommandos troop choices so since I have a big unit of FW Kommandos I figured it was a good an excuse as any to finally try and crank him out. With the exception of some blood on the blades, gloss on the opticals and some grass on the base I declare Snikrot complete.

     

Fluff vs Nonfluff...a battle report

Behold! A battle report! My regular nemesis Clint and the local shop owner Matt went on a hunting trip for wolves and while they were unable to blast one of those magnificent bastards, they did come up with an interesting fluff-tastic 2k list. It is essentially a marine battle company, shit tons of power armor marines with little else. Judging by the pics and my memory from the game (and Clint can correct me where I’m wrong), his list is:

Captain, artificer armor, relic blade, storm shield

Command squad, various diverse weapons

6 full tactical squads, various weapons

2 full assault squads, one in a pod and the other with jump packs

2 full devastator squads, heavy bolters and missiles

They may look a lot like Dark Angels, but really they are Imperial Fists (today, anyways). I was skeptical of this list and aimed to sort it out the next time we fought. My usual list is Demon with several MC, but it seemed a bit unfair since it would be very rock to his paper so I opted to use a goofy Iron Hands/Eldar list I had been tinkering with. Essentially it is a bunch of bikes with heavy support and two cruise missiles disguised as characters on bikes, a Chapter master and Harlequin Autarch. Add in a Terminator Inquisitor for prescience and servo skull shenanigans and my list looked like this:

Chapter master, bike, power fist, Pimp Cape Eternal (because honestly, a power fist and a storm shield on a bike would look stupid as hell)

5 bikes, double melta x2

Rifledread x2

Thunderfire cannon x2

Storm Talon, skyhammer missile x2

5 Tactical marines, melta gun, HB razor

5 Devastators, lascannons

Autarch, lance, bike, mantle

3 jetbikes x2

5 warp spiders

Inquisitor Terminator, 3x skulls, prescience

Skyshield landing pad

Mission: 12 inch deploy, Fast Attack scores. Clint wins the roll off and chooses to set up first. Objectives are liberally sprinkled over the board. In hindsight, I should have placed all of mine as far back as possible. Durr.

He deploys his Heavy Bolter Devs on a huge hill overlooking everything and the missile Devs in the middle forest. He spreads the rest of his squads out, many of them combat squadding.

 I deploy the landing pad with the Inquisitor, both rifledreads and the lascannon Devs shielded with the Thunderfire cannons underneath. Both cruise missiles hide out there as well while the puny Tac squad in the Razorback park in fortified trees covering an objective on my left side. Everything else is in reserve, and I roll to seize out of habit but wouldn’t have taken it had I gotten it.

Slow Ass Foot Slogging Bolterama Army (SAFSBA), turn 1.

His turn is spent mostly moving his bolter guys forward and the drop pod deposits the Assault squad into the ruins in the center right. Shooting is uneventful with the exception of a missile launcher from a tactical squad one shotting a dread and a lascannon from another one shotting the other. Oh lordy. Force field malfunction on the landing pad apparently. Oh and the heavy bolter devs knock a hull point off the Razorback, thus completing the ‘fail all 4+ saves on vehicles’ trifecta. Typical, lol.

Janky Ass Marine Eldar Army (JAMEA), turn 1.

Chapter Master Pimp Cape eyes the HB devs on the hill as an absurdly juicy target for his orbital bombardment (really it was redonk, all the heavy bolters and a couple bolter guys to boot) and asks the Inquisitor for some prescience love. Naturally despite the twin linking, it flies off course and kills two bolter devs. The missile devs in the trees fair considerably worse as both Thunderfire cannons hit dead on and massacre them almost to a man (hooray barrage!). The Autarch launches himself into one of the assault marine combat squads and murderizes all five of them. This is rather unfortunate, I would have preferred to H&R out and get into his backfield, but instead he consolidates back. Lascannon devs, finding no proper targets opt to fire at the heavy bolter devs across the way and kill a couple bolter guys. They pass their leadership.

SAFSBA, turn 2.

Power armored guys trundle forward some more, finding no one obligingly deployed forward for them to bolter drill at. Strange, lol. His leaping assault marines jump as close as they can to the Razorback and the Captain with his command squad heads towards the Autarch. His shooting manages to kill off the Razorback with a long ranged plasma gun shot (fortified cover my ass, I also lose a bolter marine in the explosion) and the storm bolter on the kills a lascannon dev on the platform. The rest of his army unloads on Chapter Master Pimp Cape and manages to put a single wound on him. The leaping assault marines find themselves needing a 12 on 3 dice/2 lowest to charge the unpinned tac squad in the trees cunningly hiding at the ass end of the vehicle crater, so they opt out of giving me some free overwatch shots and stand around in the open holding their Charles Dickenses. El Capitan charges the Autarch who challenges. They both whiff their attacks and the Harlequin gaily bounds past several power armored lads into the marines’ backfield.

JAMEA, turn 2.

I get one Stormtalon and one bike squad from the marine reserves and the Autarch uses his fancy powers to keep the jetbikes off. The Warp Spiders drop into the open on my right, the bikes drive on in front of the bouncy ass marines, and the Talon in front of the heavy bolter devs on the hill. The inquisitor attempts to prescience a Thunderfire cannon and rolls an 11 (which, in hindsight makes sense as he didn’t technically have LOS to it. Oops). Ole Pimp Cape heads towards El Capitan in an attempt to slay the warlord and Harlie vrooms over to the shell shocked remnants of the missile devs. The Talon shreds and pins a tactical squad in the open while the lascannon devs continue to overcompensate against the heavy bolter devs. My bikes do no wounds to the ass marines right in front of them, but it doesn’t matter as the thunder cannons unleash hell on power armored guys and wreck a bunch of them. Spiders spin some tac marines into soup and leap back behind the wall on the right. Close combat sees the warlord fight draw with no wounds done while the Autarch kills another marine sergeant. Pimp Cape regenerates a wound, much to Clint’s chagrin.

SAFSBA, turn 3.

Third verse, same as the first! Power armored guys move forward, consolidating on objectives and loosing random bolter rounds along the way. The assault marines on the left decide to walk and use their jump packs to get a hammer o’ wrath attack against the bikes while the assault marines on the other side slog through the ruins towards the Spiders. The storm bolter from the drop pod continues its reign of terror and kills the sergeant and another lascannon from the dev squad while the inquisitor catches a krak missile with his face, promptly rolling a one on his armor save. Splat. A rather disgraceful debut for him, lol. The devs do decide to stick round and pass their morale check, so that’s somethin’. Everything on his left side shoots at the puny tac squad in the crater who promptly go to ground (can’t be too proud) and save everything. The assault phase sees El Capitan putting a wound on Pimp Cape only to succumb to a power fist slap in the mouth. The command squad escapes and Pimp Cape consolidates into the open while the Autarch ignominiously takes 2 wounds and fails to hit and run out of combat. The terrain on my left flank is apparently made of molasses as the jumping ass marines fail to make a 5 inch charge despite having the jump pack re roll (snake eyes followed by a 4) and, to add insult to injury, also lose a guy to overwatch. Success!

JAMEA, turn 3.

I get no reserves this turn. With a mighty snigger, I move my bikes forward to sort out those upstart assault marines and Pimp Cape sallies forth looking for a combat squad to punish. The Talon moves forward and plinks off a couple tac marines sitting on an objective in the ruins. Both Thunderfire cannons deviate with varying degrees of awfulness, one missing fairly spectacularly while the other has one of those happy accidents that drops onto another full tac marine squad after missing the command squad and does a ton of wounds. The remaining lascannons finally win the dev battle and force the last HB to flee but not quite off the board. Spiders walk into range of the assault marines and liquefy a couple of them, running back into position afterwards (they’re hanging out here waiting for an endgame jump on the objective in the far right corner). The Autarch shivs a couple more marines but has an utterly embarrassing hit and run that fails to take him anywhere safe so I assume he will get thumped next turn. Pimp Cape whups a couple more marines leaving a trail of bodies on his way to the marine backfield. My bikes charge the assault marines and do no wounds and lose a bike in return. They promptly fail their leadership, escape and run off the board. OH THE HUMANITY! I hang my head in shame at the incompetence of my minions.

SAFSBA, turn 4.

As advertised, backfield tactical marines head towards the Autarch to finish him off before he can crush one more squad under his stilettoed heel. The command squad heads towards the Techmarines to silence their murderous guns and the assault marines leap over the trees to assault my gone to ground tac squad in the crater. The walking assault marines decide that discretion is the better part of valor and head towards an objective instead of trying to tangle with Warp Spiders that they will never in a million years catch. The command squad’s grav gun crushes one of the Thunderfire cannons leaving its Techmarine standing around looking like a lost puppy. Marines charge the Autarch and kill him off but my tac marines appear to be very motivated to retain control of their crater and manage to fight their way to a draw.

JAMEA, turn 4.

My last Talon, marine bikes and both jetbike squads arrive from reserve. At this point barring some crazy chain of events I feel pretty good about winning this game. The jetbikes hide behind some LOS blocks and the bikes plug the hole under the landing pad. The second Talon follows the same flight path as the first. Spiders chase after the foot slogging ass marines, the enraged Techmarine heads towards the command squad for some plasma/flamer vengeance and Pimp Cape continues his bloody rampage. The Thunderfire cannon kills the entire command squad save the grav gun, so the bikes decide to turbo boost towards the center. The talons rake various marine squads with heavy anti infantry fire. The cripple fight over the crater continues unabated with no end in sight.

SAFSBA, turn 5.

Two shattered remnants of tactical combat squads saunter over to cover the 4 VP objective in the center. The plasma cannon from the squad in the trees on my left and the grav gunner from the command squad manage to kill a couple of my marine bikes but they pass their morale. The multi melta from a combat squad falls to the Chapter Master while my tac marines manage to kill an assault marine in the epic battle for the crater but they hold.

JAMEA, turn 5.

At this point, of the objectives on the table, Clint controls a 4 pointer (with two separate squads), both 3 pointers (with one squad each with a devastator backing up one), and both 2 pointers (one with a single marine, one with a combat squad) while I contest the 1 pointer in the failopalooza crater assault. We both have linebreaker and wash on slay warlord/first blood. Time to get to work.  I send the Warp Spiders on a mission to iron out first the rest of the assault marines (since they’re worth a point) and the second Talon to try and wipe out the the combat squad on the 2 pointer in the upper right. One jetbike squad heads into the ruins to claim the other 2 held by the singleton marine and the other moves forward to shoot at the marines in the open on the 4 and hopefully jump over to contest the 3 pointer behind the wall. The Caped Crusader drives into the trees to contest the 3 pointer. The first Talon decides to hover to shoot at the lone ranger marine while staying out of LOS of the remaining lascannon. The lascannon devs try to shoot at, well, anybody but since they are deployed so far back they can’t see over the walls of the furled landing pad. Groan. Considering a) they can’t see anyone, b) it doesn’t matter in the slightest if they die and c) my guys don’t make landing pad force field saves anyways, the last two guys unfurl the pad. I commence shooting and just about everything that can go the way I planned it does. The last Thunderfire cannon decides to take a blind shot at the tac marines behind the wall on the 3 pointer. Naturally he scores a direct hit and wrecks several of them, lol. The other Techmarine punks the grav gun guy from the command squad.  The jetbikes and marine bikes clear off the 4 pointer but the jetbike jump doesn’t take them quite far enough to contest the 3 pointer. The zooming Talon kills enough marines off the 2 pointer in the back to chase them off the board and the hovering Talon turns the last man standing into the last puddle of gore pooling. The Spiders finish off the walking assault marines and jump towards the objective. The second jetbike squad zips over to claim the 2 pointer previously occupied by the puddle of gore. The scrum in the corner continues with no winner. If the game were to end now, I would control the 4, both 2s and contest one of the 3s and the 1 while Clint would control a 3. We roll and the game….continues.

Turn 6, all inclusive. Nothing much happens of note other than some random shooting and close combat that changes nothing. The game ends, I win 12 (8 from objectives, 2 from killing fast attacks, linebreaker and slay the warlord) to 5 (3 from objectives, linebreaker and first blood). Acceptable.

Post game thoughts:

Things I think I think about Clint's army:

-Bolters just aren't that great of a gun, even when taken in droves and rerolling 1's. 

-Hordes of power armor on foot are just too slow and get in each other's way while trying to get anywhere to claim/contest objectives. 

-ATSKNF is such an amazing rule, it means that you have to wipe marine squads out entirely to keep them from being an objective claiming threat, so the battle company has that going for it.

-It looks pretty impressive when deployed on the table, so it checks that 'fluffy army' box.

-I submit that this list has some potential as long as you are willing to jettison a bit of fluff to get some transports/support units.

Things I think I think about my army: 

-I like both the cruise missile characters a lot, but the Autarch is a lot trickier to use than I had initially anticipated. 

-It would probably be better to use White Scar tactics than Iron Hands, but it is just absurdly satisfying to make a 6+ FNP save every now and again. 

-Warp Spiders continue to be the single most fun unit for me to use, they are just wicked fast, can dole out heaps and heaps of wounds and can waggle their private parts at the enemy and jump back out of sight with no retribution. I don't even hate the ancient models.

-I'm pretty sure I will never, ever take a Skyshield Landing Pad ever again. WORST 75 POINTS SPENT EVAR.

Next up we will probably be doing some Kill Team games using the free rules found here: http://heralds-of-ruin.blogspot.com/p/kill-team-rules.html , so stay tuned for more moments of me fucking up :p