Tuesday 30 September 2014

Battle report tomorrow?

Ok so I'm playing 40k against one of my friends tomorrow. He wants to try out a proxy army again to see how it plays again (he played it before, just wants to give it another go to make sure it's right for him)

He likes bigger games (in fantasy he loves playing 6k) so we're having a 2000 point battle tomorrow (I have more than enough space marines for him to proxy his forces) His chaos against my Grey Knights.

I just had a couple of questions

1) Would you guys be interested in seeing the battle report?

2) should this count on my tally with it being a game for someone to get a feel for their potential army?

I apreciate all responses and if you want to see it I'll get back to you tomorrow.

Until then.

The Roleplay Dwarf.

Sunday 28 September 2014

Grey Knights vs Space wolves

Ok so today was the day of the battle so I headed down to Leeds battle bunker (a local gaming club) with my Grey knights

The List:

(Yes most of these models are unpainted/unfinished I hope during the lifetime of this blog you'll come on a journey with me as my armies get painted)
HQ
Grey knight Grand master              185
Nemesis force halberd                        2
Curiass of sacrifice                           15
Melta bombs                                       5
                                                        207


Elites
5 Paladins                                        275
Apothecary                                        20
The nemesis banner                           35
1 daemon hammer                             10
3 halberds                                            6
                                                         346



Dedicated transport (Elites)
Land raider crusader                          250
Multi-melta                                          10
extra armour                                        10
                                                          270




Troops
10 man strike squad                          210
2x incinerators                                    10
1 nemesis daemon hammer                10
1 nemesis warding stave                      5
                                                         235

10 man strike squad                          210
2x incinerators                                    10
1 nemesis daemon hammer                10
1 nemesis warding stave                      5
                                                         235



Heavy support
Nemesis dreadknight                       130
Personal Teleporter                           30
Heavy psycannon                              35
Nemesis greatsword                           10
                                                         205



Total: 1498

Bits I'm especially proud of/details I like on the ones I have painted/part painted

The crusader is covered in prayers taken from the infantryman's uplifting primer.



As well as the forge-world razorback multi melta turret (which I think looks awesome as well as being less flimsy than the multi melta attachment you get) I have the forge-world Land raider doors on my land raider


I'm also proud of the effect I've got on my (unfinished) Dreadknights greatsword. (I don't own an airbrush)

The Plan:

As I've said before I on't make tailored lists so this is my standard 1.5k list too and the reasons I take each thing.

So my list started how it always starts 2 strike squads with 2 incinerators in each. The theory being these deepstrike in from turn 1 onward and either claim an objective or burn someone off them. I give them both hammers so they can deal with heavy armour if need be and the warding staves as being the front line deepstrikers they're the most likely to come under psychic assault.

Secondly I took my Grand Master and gave him the curiass of sacrifice to give him the feel no pain and it will not die and a halberd as standard.

He then needed a unit to roll with. enter the paladins with an apothecary, a standard that makes them fearless and +1 attack, halberds for the most part for their +1 str and a hammer to deal with the meatiest monstrous creatures/ heavy vehicles.

A unit of Paladins with a grand master draws fire like no-ones business so I took a Land raider crusader as a dedicated transport to get them to the front line in relative safety. it's also the only unit in my army I consider "anti-air" (I don't own any stormravens) the theory being: You throw enough twin linked assault cannon fire into the air and eventually something'll stick.

Lastly I took the nemesis dreadknight, The area saturation of the heavy psycannon helps against hordes and the greatsword is the bane of low initiative monstrous creatures. The main reason I take this though is to draw fire. It's never going to be as killy as the grand master and his paladins but it draws fire so it keeps some of the fire off my land raider.

That left me with 37 points so I took the Personal teleporter for the dreadknight and melta bombs for my grand master.

The Battle:

Scenario: Malestrom of war: the spoils of war (only listing the objectives that secure objective unless they get secured)

Warlord trait: Lore master (after re-roll)


Grand masters psychic powers: Prescience, forboding, Misfortune, Scriers gaze.

Grey knights to go first:

These re the only pictures I took during the game. the lighting seemed too dim to get any decent results and I didn't want to slow the game




We used the Urban combat mega mat the following battle report is the closest approximation I can get to the terrain using battle chronicler but I'm going to have a play with it and see what I can do.


Deployment

 R, R2, R3 = Rhino's
                                                                                     D = Dreadknight 
                                                                                                     LRC= Land raider crusader

For some reason the objectives don't stay marked (like I said going to have a play) but those are the objectives. As you can see from the pictures above that go with this the rhino's were in deep cover and my dreadknight was just in cover.

Turn 1




I draw my tactical objective cards. The only objective to be captured is 3 so I roll for my reserves and one of my strike squads turn up (The grey knight special force org allows you to roll for reserves from turn 1) and deep strikes almost exctly where I want it on objective 3. My dreadknight makes it's 30" shunt to face off against the rhino facing it's side armour (despite what the picture shows)  my land raider moves 6 towards the center of the table to support my strike squads.

The dreadknight casts sanctuary and then opens up with it heavy psycannon wrecking the rhino and landing me first blood. With nothing else that can damage the rhino's in range in line of sight I end my turn bagging a victory point for holding point 3 and an additional victory point for achieving another tactical objective for wiping out an entire unit (the rhino)

The space wolves draw tactical objective cards getting secure objective 3 and 6 (and hold your ground, I choose a tactical objective and he has to hold it for two consecutive turns to score it, I choose 3)

The space wolves move their rhino's towards my strike squad and disembark with two units of grey hunters and the other unit of grey hunter move to surround my dreadknight (smartly avoiding the area saturation shell).

The only power the space wolves get off is Tempest's wrath on my strike squad

 After the shooting at my strike squad I'm left with two members and the other grey hunter squad shaves all but one of the wounds off my dreadknight (only the 4+ save from sanctuary saved him)

end of turn space wolves claim no objective.

VP's: Grey knights: 3 Space Wolves 0

Turn 2



I draw more cards and draw secure objective 1 (Unfortunately I forgot to do this until after I moved so wasn't in position to secure objective 1 and do anything else)

My second set of reserves turn up and don't scatter an land into a position harass the grey hunters. I move my land raider to secure objective 6 and deploy my Paladins with grand master.

The dreadknight casts sanctuary again the rest of my psychic phase fails.

I start by burning the hell out of some grey hunters he loses some to it, my storm bolters soften him up more. the grand master and the paladins also shoot this squad to no effect. My dreadknight makes 6 shots at the other grey hunter squad killing 4 then charges.

Overwatch does nothing, the grand master tries to charge the grey hunter squad they just shot at (need a 12" to be in but I decide to go ballsy) overwatch does nothing but it doesn't matter I'm not in. The dreadknight kills 3 grey hunters but is then fisted to death. the grey hunters consolidate.

I claim a tactical objective for his claim objective 3 and claim objective 6

The Space wolf stormwolf transport appears by outflank, he moves his rhino to claim objective one. his grey hunter squad moves to claim objective 3 and his other squad moves up to rapid fire my strike squad (I show it slightly wrong here) the last grey hunter squad starts to move towards the action

No psychic powers manifest.

His Stormwolf glances and penerates my land raider resulting in a Crew stunned which is downgraded to crew shaken (thank the emperor for extra armour). his grey hunter squad in the ruins finishes off the remainer of my strike squad and the other grey hunter  squad rapid fires my other strike squad leaving me with 6 models.

End of space wolf turn he claims my claim objective 1

VP's: Grey Knights: 5 Space Wolves 1

Turn 3



(I got what's going on with grey hunter squad wrong here but it'll be right after this turn. stick with me :-P, still learning the tech)

I draw secure objective 6

I turn the land raider on the spot to face the stormwolf transport and hold objective 6, my paladins move up to assault the rhino as I suspect they won't be in range to assault and of the grey hunter squads and I have an objective to destroy a unit in close combat.

The paladins cast hammerhand

the Land raider stars it's snap shots at the Stormwolf transport he declares a jink. I start with the multimelta and to my absolute amazement get a 6, reality swiftly re-asserts itself as I roll a 1 for armour penetration. to my further shock I then roll 3 6's with my assault cannons (no extra scored with the re-roll and get 2 penetrating hits, his jink reduces this to 1 penetrating hit and results in crew shaken.

My strike squad shoots his grey hunters, killing one and then charge.

 I kill two of his grey hunters in combat and he kills 4 of my grey knights in return. I make my break test and fail it but roll a 1 on my initiative, And they shall know no fear stops me from being wiped out and holds me in combat with two models remaining.  I charge his rhino and my grand master rips it to pieces before anyone else gets a chance to do anything scoring me an extra victory point

End of turn I score victory point for holding objective 6

The space wolf player draws capture objective 5

The space wolf player starts by moving his stormwolf transport to the side of my landraider and deploys his bloodclaws and general behind my paladins. The grey hunter squad 1 moves towards objective 5 (shown on next turn forgot to put it in here) and grey hunter squad 3 begins it's econd trn holding objective 3.

 No successful psychic powers

the stormwolf transport blows up my land raider taking a bloodclaw with it and using power of the machine spirit kills a paladin with it's helfrost cannon. The grand master takes a wound to grey hunter shooting.

The blood claws charge, overwatch does nothing. my grand master kills 3 before they strike and my paladins kill 2 more (who get to strike back) he kills two paladins in return with frost axes and my thunder hammer kills one more. he passes his break test and we pile in. His grey hunters kill the last two from my strike squad who take one down with them.

end of turn, Hold the line achieved

VP's Grey knights: 7 Space wolves: 2

Turn 4




No movement phase,

Psychic phase I manage to get hammer hand off but am denied force.

No shooting phase

He challenges my grand master. Not wanting him to be left out of the combat I accept but due to the Armour of Russ. My Paladins kill 2  but the return strikes kills off the remainder of my paladins and bleeds a wound over onto my grand master. He attacks in his challenge dealing 1 unsaved wound but is them promptly finished off.

I have no forces remaining the space wolves therefor get a crushing defeat and his undefeated record stands.


Thoroughly enjoyable game though and Has given me some thoughts as to what I might change.

Until then

Roleplay dwarf


Thursday 25 September 2014

Warhammer

One of my biggest loves is wargaming. Granted I only play Warhammer fantasy and Warhammer 40k at the moment, but if I had the disposable income and knew people who played other ones (I know, among the possibility of other things, that deadzone is an option in our group but refer back to the disposable income point) I would try and play other systems.

Anyway as such I have attached to the side of this blog a win/loss/draw counter for my current armies. Anyone who knows me will know this isn't a brag thing, as I have a loosing streak longer than [Insert name of sports team that's relevant in your region, who consider a draw a good result, here] I jut wanted to add it out of interest.

It's not that I'm a BAD general, it's just that........ Well my dice hate me! Anyone who has played against me can attest to that and as an example, for those who haven't played against me, in my last 3 games my Grey knights Land raider cruisdaer's multi-melta has hit once in the 13 times it has shot........ and rolled a double 1 for penetration......

Ok it's not just the dice. Part of it IS me but that's because when I make an army I try and make it as fluffy as possible (for those not familiar with the terminology not literally covered in fluff..... though some of my space marines are starting to look a bit dusty.... Fluffy means sticks to the story,). As such I was really excited when the new dwarf book came out and as I read it I was like "Wow you can take longbeards as core now without the one per warrior unit restriction." Do I take them? No, well not at least in the points I tend to play. To me longbeards are rarer and more elite than warriors so I should always have more warriors on the table than longbeards. "Wow hammerers are so awesome now. 2 attacks each str 7 on the charge stick a runesmith in there, make those attacks armour piercing AWESOME!!!!!" Do I take them? Nope, yet again not in the points I take. They're an elite bodyguard for a dwarf lord since, I'm doing a Karak Kadrin army I take slayers and Ungrim Ironfist (the king of their hold)  because it makes more sense to the lore. So it's not that I can't recognize what the best units in a book are, it's that I choose not to take them.

In some gaming circles (especially when playing in store) these factors have led to me getting a loosing streak (most recent fantasy game was against someone using an end times army and I had a bloodthirster in each flank of my warriors......... that did not end well for me). But I still play because I enjoy the challenge and the game.

So I have a game this weekend against someone from my local games worskhop who's challenge read thusly: "After reading the new space wolf book I have decided to retire from the hobby as I could never lose with this book and it would be unfair of me to dominate the game in such a fashion. 
Anyone that disagrees can throw the gauntlet down here." He's had a few games since laying down that challenge and it has so far proved not to be an idle boast so naturally for laughs I accepted.

So tune back in this Sunday for a recount of what happened and the result of that game (I foreshadow me having to mark a loss in the Grey Knights column)

Until then

The Roleplay Dwarf 

Tuesday 23 September 2014

Creativity

So today I'm going to talk a bit about creativity.

The reason I'm doing this is last night when I made my first post I had so many ideas with what I could post today as a blog and yet when I woke up this morning all the ideas I had were either gone or seemed uninteresting.

I know that the roleplay experience can be a creative one but at times I have felt that roleplay has actually stifled my creativity, either because despite trying other things there's only one way to solve issues in character (usually involving violence) or that when putting puzzles and social intrigues into a game the party wanted a game that could be solved one way (involving violence).

I have three of examples of this. The first is a Dark Heresy game I was running. The party had been tasked by their Inquisitor to go into an underhive and find a missing Inquisitor, the problem being that the Inquisitor was a master of disguise and no-one was actually sure what he looked like. The party initially tried to resolve everything using violence. After killing off most of their leads Jonah finally took control of the party and did what was required to get the adventure back on track, getting a local to set up a meeting with a gang boss, finding out about the problems in the underhive, deputizing an entire gang and generally getting things done.

 My second example is a D&D 3.5 game I was running. I was trying to be descriptive a possible and know as much about the settlements they were visiting as possible (I'll put at the end of this blog an example of details I put into working on this). When the party reached the first settlement they went to and were prevented by guards from entering until they'd bound their weapons and agreed to follow the local laws. The guards suggested that they should get an adventuring writ that would allow them more autonomy and to enter cities without peace binding their weapons. One of the party members asked where they could get one and the guards told them the magistrates office to which the response i got was "Are we there then"....... No interest in the roleplay that was currently going on. no questions about what this settlement was like once they were in or what the people were like "Are we there then". I died a little on the inside and eventually started running a dungeon crawl for that party as they only seemed interested in kick in the door roleplay.

Final example. I was playing in a D&D 3.5 campaign and created an assimar bard, I made him without any weapons and no combat skills to be told about the GM that I couldn't run him like that and that I'd have to re-assign some of his skills and take weapons. when I had finished this no longer resembled the character I wanted to play so went out of my way to get him killed.

So there we go, anyone else have these kinds of problems? It of course isn't always like this otherwise I wouldn't roleplay but with all my ideas been gone from last night this is what came to my head.

Hopefully see you soon for another (more upbeat than this) post.

Until then.

The Roleplay Dwarf.



The example (I had done one of these for every settlement I thought they'd visit):


Valls small town, (constable is the lvl 5 warrior) plus duke
population 1300, community wealth 52,000


1 lvl 2 adept, 6 lvl 1 adept
1 lvl 2 aristrocrat, 6 lvl 1 aristrocrats
1 lvl 3 barbarian, 2 lvl 1 barbarians
1 lvl 6 bard, 2 lvl 3 bards, 4 lvl 1 bards
1 lvl 5 cleric, 2 lvl 3 clerics, 4 lvl 1 clerics
1 lvl 13 commoner, 2 lvl 7 commoners, 4 lvl 4 commoners, 8 lvl 2 commoners, 1125 lvl 1 commoner
1 lvl 3 druid, 2 lvl 1 druid
1 lvl 6 expert, 2 lvl 3 experts, 37 lvl 1 experts
1 lvl 1 fighter
1 lvl 2 monk, 2 lvl 1 monks
1 lvl 2 paladin, 2 lvl 1 paladin
1 lvl 1 ranger
1 lvl 2 rogue, 2 lvl 1 rogues
1 lvl 3 sorcerers, 2 lvl 1 sorcerers
1 lvl 5 warrior, 2 lvl 3 warriors, 62 lvl 1 warriors
1 lvl 4 wizard, 2 lvl 2 wizards, 4 lvl 1 wizards
Of these there are 13 full time guards with 4 on each gate, 65 militia 20 on active service in any given month, 8 patrol during the day and 12 during the night)




Monday 22 September 2014

Blog Intro



Ok, One of my friends does one of these and seems to have allot of fun with it and I've also been told by lots of people in the past I should blog. So after our awesome 6k 40k game this weekend which the pictures still haven't been uploaded for I thought. "Hell I should just do one myself and take responsibility" and it's got to be less effort than the thinking of a subject, filming and editing of Youtube videos I used to do.

So here I am, the role-play dwarf. as the title says I mainly intend to talk about role-play and other hobby stuff I enjoy.

The Dwarf part is because they're my favourite fantasy race and are what I play in both Warhammer fantasy and in the current D&D campaign I'm in.

So there's the introduction but it is late now so any more in depth will have to wait and I should hopefully be back tommorrow with another post.

Until then,

The Roleplay Dwarf.