Painting Update: Wave Serpent

I did some more work on my latest Wave Serpent tonight.  I painted the fins with the yellow, giving a bascoat of Iyanden Darksun and then a couple coats of Sunburst Yellow.  It’s still a lengthy process painting the yellow, but it’s a lot better than going straight from black to yellow.  I also painted the gems with gunmetal silver, and did some of the highlighting on the turret.  Finally, I put some transfers on the side of the tank.  I’ve been meaning to do something similar with my other tanks, but never did.  I’d love to try my hand at more freehand designs, but I think that will wait until the Falcon.

Battle Report: Eldar vs. Marines 1300pts

The Corsairs of the Alaitoc Craftworld burst onto the field of battle driving their grav tanks straight down the throat of the Ulatramarine tank line.  This would be a kill or be killed engagement fought over the deserted remains of a blasted out building.

Eldar forces:
Farseer, Doom, Fortune, Runes of Warding
10 Dire Avengers, Exarch with Dual Catapults and Bladestorm
Wave Serpent with Spirit Stones and Bright Lances
10 Dire Avengers, Exarch with Dual Catapults and Bladestorm
Wave Serpent with Spirit Stones and Bright Lances
6 Fire Dragons, Exarch with Flamer and Crack Shot
Wave Serpent with Spirit Stones and Scatter Lasers
3 War Walkers with Scatter Lasers

Ultramarine forces:
2 Predators with linked Lascannons and side bolters
2 Razorbacks with lascannons
2 Razorbacks with heavy bolters
Vindicator
2 Tactical Marine squads with Lascannons and flamers
1 tactical marine squad with a flamer
1 Sternguard squad

The battle was annihilation with spearhead deployment.  We rolled off, I won and decided to take the first turn.  I deployed my tanks behind a hill with the jetbikes right behind them.  The Walkers were kept in reserve for outflanking.  The Marines bunched up all the tanks in the corner with the marines standing partially on a small hill.

The marines tried to steal the initiative, but failed.  The Farseer Fortuned his Serpent and both Lance Serpents moved to get a clear shot on the Predators.  The Dragon’s Serpent and the jetbikes boosted up behind the next hill.  The Lances fell short of their target and that was it.  On the Marine’s turn, they managed to take out 3 jetbikes with Lascannon fire, but the bike held their ground.

On turn two, the Walkers would not enter the fray.  Again the Farseer Fortuned his Serpent and since fortune favors the bold, he drove straight up the center.  The other Lance Serpent jumped up behind the small hill that was vacated when the Dragon Serpent and jetbikes moved behind the building.  Nothing could shoot because of the speed.  Nothing moved on the Marine’s turn, and everything that could fired at the Farseer’s Serpent.  Only one lascannon shot managed to connect, but it only resulted in a shaken crew.

The Walkers continued to hang outside the battle for yet another turn, while the Farseer cast Fortune on the Serpent again.  His Serpent jumped to the other side of the building, and the other Lance Serpent backed up a bit to get a clear shot, but would fail to hit anything all game.  The jetbikes and the Dragon Serpent popped out from behind the building.  The Serpent took out two marines with its scatter laser, while the jetbike failed to even score a single hit against the forward Predator.  The jetbikes then jumped back into cover of the building.

This was the scene after the Marines’ movement on turn three.  The Farseer’s Serpent was staring down the barrels of six lascannons, but through a combination of poor rolls by the Marines and good cover saves, the Serpent survived unscathed.  The Vindicator’s blast scatter back, nearly hitting its own troops.

Deciding it was their time to shine, the Walkers walked in onto the field near all the action and dumped their fire into the full tactical squad, killing two.  The Avenger disembarked and with a flurry of shuriken fire wiped out the other squad of Marines.  One of the Wave Serpents’ lances managed to shake a predator, but the jetbikes couldn’t make the damage any worse.  The Dragon Serpent moved back behind the building and was able to shake the other Predator with its scatter laser.  The shaken Predators rumbled forward, while the Razorbacks and lone marine were finally able to connect with the Farseer’s Serpent, immobilizing it.  The Vindicator fired on the Dragon Serpent, but again the blast scattered off target.  The heavy bolters were able to destroy one Walker and shake another one.

Since the Avengers were reloading, they took cover in their downed Wave Serpent.  The other two Serpents moved toward the Predators and the Fire Dragons jumped out to unleash their firepower against them.  They were able to take one of them out, and the operational Walker was able to get a good shot and destroyed the Predator.  The Farseer’s Serpent was able to stun the Sternguard’s Razorback.  The jetbikes failed to scratch anything, leaving the possibility of the Vindicator causing plenty of damage.  The Marines fired their lascannons on the Walkers, but only managed to destroy one of the guns.  The Sterguard disembarked, but even with all their options, they didn’t have any good targets.  The Vindicator fired on the Fire Dragons, but the operator must have been drinking last night, because the blast scattered yet again.

The die was rolled to see if we’d go to turn six, but it was not to be.

Final score:  Eldar 3, Ultramarines 0

The Eldar were able to corner the Marines and caused all kind of problems for the slower tanks.  Bad rolls plagued both sides, but in the end the Eldar came out victorious.

Painting Update: Wave Serpent

I worked on the third Wave Serpent for my army tonight.  I gave it a few coats of the brighter blue color and then did the camouflage pattern.  I use a small piece of sponge to do the camo, and it works really well.  I usually go back and to a bit of stippling in the tighter spots that I can’t get with the sponge.  Then I went back and filled in the lines and started painting the gems with the silver.  I added a bit of detail to the driver, but there’s still plenty more to do.

Eldar Falcon First Coat

The Eldar Falcon grav tank that I had order on eBay showed up today, so I decided to give it some attention.  It was already assembled when I bought it, so it needed some care.  I disassembled the turret and added some magnets for the guns and to hold the turret in place.  I then painted the bottom with black, and then drybrushed it with gunmetal.  The top was given a basecoat of dark blue that I like to apply before the light blue main color.

There’s still plenty of work to do, but it’s a start.

Painting: Serpent Lines

First a short history…

The first Wave Serpent I painted turned out pretty well, but then when I started painting my second one, I decided to try something a little bit different and really highlight the recessed lines running across the body.  I did this with a very light blue, and it turned out great.  The only problem was that now my first Serpent didn’t look nearly as good in comparison.  So tonight I decided to work on fixing that and painted all the lines.  It took me a little longer than anticipated, but I was also slightly distracted by watching Heroes and Castle.  Here are the before and after pictures.

Before:

As you can see, it just seems to be lacking something.  It’s just a little to monochrome.

After:

With the highlighting the lines are much more defined and it really makes the effect pop.  Sure it now takes a bit longer to finish a tank, but the effect is definitely worth it.

Now I just need to go back and do the same for my War Walkers.

Corsair Fleet vs the Blue Menace (1300 points)

The Corsairs of the Alaitoc Craftworld were again destined to meet the scurge of the Ultramarines.  As the tanks rolled into battle, the Eldar knew it would be a challenging day.  Luckily the Corsairs were prepared for this situation.

Eldar:
Farseer with Doom
10 Dire Avenger, Exarch with dual shuriken catapults and bladestorm
Wave Serpent with Spirit Stones and EML
10 Dire Avenger, Exarch with dual shuriken catapults and bladestorm
Wave Serpent with Spirit Stones and EML
5 Fire Dragons
Wave Serpent with Spirit Stones and EML
6 Jetbikes with 2 Shuriken Cannons
3 War Walkers with Scatter Lasers

Ultramarines:
3 Tactical Squads two with Lascannons, and one with heavy bolter
Space Marine Captain
4 Razorbacks, 2 with Lascannons, 2 with Heavy Bolters
2 Predators with Lascannon turret and bolter sponsons
1 Vindicator

There was some question of whether he could buy 4 Razorbacks seeing as he only had 3 tactical squads, but since we lacked time I let it go as is.

We rolled for the game and came up with annihilation first, we weren’t too keen on that, so we rerolled and got Capture and Control.  For deployment it was going to be a Pitched Battle.  I lost the roll-off and had to deploy first.  The picture below shows the deployment, with my tanks all together, screened by the jetbikes.  The Walkers were trying to get behind the cover of the hill.  His tanks were setup in a nice line covering the Vindicator.  Two razobacks and two combat squads were held by his objective.

The Ultramarines ended up stealing the initiative and proceeded to move the tank line forward.  The lascannons failed to affect the Serpents and the Vidicator couldn’t quite reach the jetbikes.  The heavy bolter razorbacks did successfully take out one of the walkers, though.  The Eldar moved up behind the hills to get out of site.  The Dragon Serpent moved flat out while the two Avenger Serpents were able to fire their missiles.  Shooting was generally ineffective, though and only one of the lascannon razobacks lost its weapon.

On the second turn, another walker fell to heavy bolter fire, and three of the jetbikes succumbed to the Vindicator’s blast.  The lascannons continued to fail to have an effect.  The serpents moved up, and the Dragons were unloaded.  They made short work of one of the Predators with their melta guns, though one of them was lost in the resulting blast.  The missiles from the Serpents ended up taking out the other Predator and the Vindicator.  The remaining Walker was able to down one of the marines hiding in the woods.

Turn three started with one of the lascannons taking out the guns on the Dragon Serpent.  The marines jumped out of the Razorback, but they were unable to do any damage.  The heavy bolters were able to take out one of the jetbikes and one of the weapons on the remaining walker.  The Serpent with the Farseer headed back to the Eldar objective to cut off the approaching marines.  The other Avenger Serpent moved up and unloaded its cargo.  The Dragons moved up to shoot at the razorback and were successful in destroying it.  The Avengers unleashed a storm of shurikens and reduced the marines to one man, who ran but stayed on the board.  The Walker only managed to shake one of the heavy bolter Razorback.

The remaining Razorback moved up, and the marines got out and finished off the jetbikes.  One of the lascannons in the woods was able to destroy the Avenger Serpent and three Avengers fell to heavy bolter fire.  They did end up falling back for a few.  The other lascannon was able to remove the last weapon from the Walker.  The Avengers then regrouped, and moved toward the remaining Dragon Serpent.  The Dragons got back on board, and lacking any weapons, it proceeded to ram the Captain’s Razorback at full speed.  In the process the marine in the way was forced to fall back, but didn’t go far.  The Razorback did not survive the collision, while the Serpent was only shaken.  The Farseer’s squad took out all but one of the marines near their objectives.

On turn 5, the marines were unable to stop the Serpent advancing on their objective.  The one marine near the Eldar objective got back on his Razoback and moved up onto the hill.  The Farseer’s squad moved onto the Eldar objective, and the Dragon Serpent forced itself onto the marine objective, the Dragons hopping out and killing one marine.  The six Avengers moved toward the objective and finished off the straggling marine and the Razorback on the hill was immobilized by the only armed Serpent.  The weaponless walker moved toward the razorback, hoping for a charge.

The game went to turn six, and again the marines were unable to damage the Serpent, though they did take out the Dragons.  Two of the advancing Avengers fell to heavy bolter fire.  The one marine near the Eldar objective made a run to contest, the ended up getting doomed and falling to a deluge of shuriken fire.  One of the squads in the trees was reduced to a lone lascannoneer by the other Avenger squad.  The Walker did make it into assault with the Razorback, but failed to make an impact.

The game ended on turn six with the Eldar holding their objective and contesting the marine objective.  All but one of the marine tanks had been destroyed and two of the squads had been wiped out.  The Eldar had lost the Dragons, jetbikes, a Serpent and two walkers.

Victory to the Eldar.

The game went well, with a few good streaks of rolling a few less than great turns.  The jetbikes underperformed and really should have been kept to the edge of the battle.  The War Walkers were far too vulnerable, and would have been better used outflankning from reserves.  Losing one on the first turn and another the next turn really limited their effectiveness.  I was able to support the Dragons well with the Serpents and so they were able to do a lot of damage.  The Farseer didn’t really add anything to the battle, doom just wasn’t as effective against a mostly mechanized army.

1300 Points Eldar vs. Ultramarines

Playing against my friend’s Ultramarines against, this time we bumped the point level up to 1300 in preparation for the tournament next month.

Eldar:
Farseer with Doom
10 Dire Avengers, Exarch 2 Shuriken Catapults and Bladestorm
Wave Serpent with Missile Launcher and Spirit Stones
10 Dire Avengers, Exarch with power weapon, shimmer shield and defend
6 Guardian Jetbikes with 2 Shuriken Cannons
6 Fire Dragons, Exarch with fire pike
Wave Serpent with Shuriken Cannons and Spirit Stones
8 Striking Scorpions
3 War Walkers with Scatter Lasers

Ultramarines:
5 Marines with plasma cannon
Razorback with Heavy Bolter
5 Marines with Plasma cannon
Razorback with Lascannon
Predator with autocannon and lascannon sponsons
Vindicator
10 Assault Marines
5 Marines with Lascannon
5 Marines with Lascannon
5 Terminators with Storm Bolters and Power Fists

We rolled for the game and deployment and ended up with Seize Ground and table quarters.  The objectives were lined up along the center of the board.  I went first and deployed in my corner with the Serpents behind a hill.  The power weapon avengers and the Scorpions setup behind another hill closer to the enemy.  The Ultramarines setup with the tanks all in a line.  The Predator sat up on a hill and never moved for the whole game.  One squad of marines with a lascannon set up behind  a razorback and the other was behind a hill in cover.

I went first and moved the serpents on top of the hill.  The jetbikes sped over to the scorpions and avengers.  The shuriken cannon serpent got a lucky hit on the heavy bolter Razorback and destroyed it.  The Walkers took out one squad of marines behind the tank.  The missile launcher didn’t dent the Vindicator.  On the Ultramarine turn, the Vinidcator didn’t hit too well and only took out one jetbike.  The marines got lucky, though and immobilized both of the serpents.  The assault marines got close but couldn’t make it to the Scorpions.

The Vindicator had turned its side to the Wave Sperents and paid for it with another luck shot from the Shuriken Cannons.  The Avengers and Scorpions shot up the Assault Marines, but were too far away too assault.  The other razorback died to the jetbikes.  The predator withstood a salvo of shots with no effect.  The Avengers and the Fire Dragons got out of their downed Serpents , but weren’t able to do much.  The assault marines managed to get into combat with both the Scorpions and the Avengers and took out the Scorpions completely while only losing one of their own.  The Predator took down all of the Dragons except the Exarch.

From this point on, it was pretty uneventful.  The Eldar were cleaning up, while the Marines didn’t do much.  The Predator got immobilised one turn and then on the final turn it finally took enough shots to wreck it.  The assault marines and the dire avengers duked it out for the rest of the game and finally on the fifth turn the Dire Avengers finished the marines off.  The one thing the Eldar didn’t expect, though, were the Terminators.  They scared the jetbikes away from the objective, and then the marines that hadn’t done anything all game except wiff with their lascannon ran down on to their objective.  The game ended on turn 5 with the Eldar holding one and the marines holding the other.

End result: Tie

Warhammer 40K 1000pt Tournament Report

A friend of mine and I participated in a Warhammer 40k tournament yesterday.  I was playing my Eldar, and him his Space Marines.  There were 16 people total at the tournament, and the make-up of the armies was 1 Eldar, 1 Orc, 1 Chaos Space Marines, 1 Chaos Demons, 1 Tyranids, 3 Tau, and the rest Space Marines.

The list I was playing:
Farseer with Doom, Guide and Spirit Stones
6 Rangers
10 Dire Avengers, Exarch with dual Suriken Cannons and Bladestorm
Wave Serpent with Spirit Stones and twin linked Shuriken Cannons
6 Harlequins (4 with kisses), Shadowseer with Kiss, Troupe Master with power sword
3 War Walkers with Scatter Lasers
2 War Walkers with Eldar Missile Launchers

My first game was against one of the Tau players.  He had a full squad of Fire Warriors, a Devilfish with Fire Warriors, a Hammerhead with a railgun, 2 squads of Crisis Suits that were decked out in different weapons on each for wound allocation, and then a Crisis Suit Commander.  The game was Seize Ground with 5 markers and table quarters for deployment.  I placed 3 markers right in the center in a triangle, and he placed 2 behind a hill near his deployment area.  I went first and deployed everything except my Rangers in my corner behind a hill.  He did pretty much the same.  I during infiltration I decided I didn’t want my Rangers exposed to that much firepower and did not stick them in the trees, instead held them on my side of the board.  His Kroot took up residence on a marker in some tree in the middle of the board.  His railgun took out my two EML walkers, but never got a good shot on my Serpent.  The Scatter laser walkers killed the Kroot after they left the forest to shoot my Harlequins.  The remaining Harlies blew their run roll and ended up 7 inches away from the Suits and proceeded to die.  My opponent forgot to unload his squad of Warriors onto the objective, and my Serpent, which had been dodging shots all game mad a turn 5 grab for the center objectives.  The Avengers unloaded, and then failed to run as well, ending up 4″ away from one of the markers.  The game ended on turn 5 with him holding 2 and myself 1.  Overall it was a mistake to go first, and some poor rolls and decisions throughout.

The second game was against a Space Marine player whom I had played once before.  His list was 2 Rhinos with Tactical Squads, a heavy weapons squad and a large assault squad.  It was table quarters again (on the same table for me), but this time with the scenario being annihilation.  He went first and all his stuff was deployed at the forward edge of his deployment with the heavy weapons in cover, one rhino facing down the long edge and the other rhino and the assault squad coming down the short edge.  My Serpent and Walkers deployed deep in my corner behind a hill.  The Harlies were toward the center behind the group of trees in the middle.  The Rangers infiltrated into those trees.  I did not steal the initiative and he charged all of his stuff towards me.  I moved the Serpent flat out to meet his assault marines and the rhino.   My missile launchers took care of the other Rhino, and my scatter lasers shrunk the heavy squad by a little.  His next turn was costly.  He moved the assault marines towards the Rangers and here he got a bit confused.  He said he was going to shoot the “snipers” (Rangers) and proceeded to use a flame template that got one Ranger and one Harly since they were close together.  He forgot to shoot the rest of his guns, though.  Then he wanted to assault the Harlies, but you have to assault what you shoot at, and because the Rangers were in difficult terrain, his marines were stranded.  On my turn, I Guided the Harlies, unloaded the Avengers, Doomed his Assault marines and proceeded to destroy them in shooting and assault.  The Serpent got a lucky shot on his Rhino and blew it up.  Though it did die to the marines’ melta gun.  The rest of the game was spent mopping up.

I knew the next game would be tough.  I was playing one of the cheesier armies.  He was playing Space Marines with a Land Raiders containing a major Command Squad (the whole thing totalled 580 points), and then a tactical squad on foot and a 5 man squad in a Razorback.  The game was Capture and Control with 12″ deployment.  I went second again and he deployed his tactical marines in combat squads, one towards the center, near a building with the Land Raider.  The other was deployed on the far side of the board.  His Razorback was deployed sitting on his marker.  Knowing I had nothing that could touch a Land Raider, I decided to reserve everything and outflanking with my Walkers and Rangers.  His first two turns were spent positioning and moving one combat squad towards my objective.  On my turn 2, everything except the Walkers showed up.  The Rangers came in on the right side of the board, and I got them behind a wall.  The Serpent and the Harlies hugged the right side and moved as fast as they could towards his objective.  On his turn he started heading my way and emptying his Razorback, but didn’t do any damage.  Turn 3 saw my EML Walkers show up on the right.  These came in right behind the Razorback and with the help of the Serpent, they destroyed the gun and immobilized it.  The Avengers got out and bladestormed the marines, killing them all.  My Avengers were later run off the table by the Command Squad without doing much more.  The other Walkers came on and spent the game wiping out his tactical marines.  The Wave Serpent moved to contest my objective, but it didn’t matter as at the end of the game, the only things left on the table were my Serpent, 2 Walkers, his Land Raider and the husk of the Razorback, leaving us with a draw.  It was a great game against a very fun opponent.

The last game of the day was against Tyranids.  It was a lit with lots of Gaunts, Genestealers, 6 Warriors, 2 Hive Tyrants and a Carniflex.  It was annihilation with Dawn of War deployment.  Again I went second and he started with a squad of gaunts, his genestealers and a hive tyrant right in the middle.  I stuck my Serpent off in the far left corner.  On his turn, he didn’t have much to do, so everything came on and ran towards my side.  I brought my EML walkers in on the far left to shoot at his Carniflex and the other Tyrant.  The Scatter Laser walkers and rangers came in on the right side.  I brought the Harlequins up the center to take on his closest Tyrant.  The Serpent turbo boosted to the center of the board.  I rolled well for night fighting and the scatter laser walkers took out all but 4 genestealers.  The harlequins again were lollygagging and didn’t run well enough to get into assault.  They got charged and did some damage, but not enough.  The genestealers got a very lucky hit on the serpent and destroyed it.  The Avengers came back and wiped out the genestealers in a combination of shooting and assault, but were later cut down by the warriors and the tyrant.  My scatter laser walkers killed most of the rest of the gaunts, leaving only 3 alive, but were having less luck taking down the multi-wound monsters.  The EML walkers were dodging blasts all game, but were never worse than shaken, which was the only thing keeping the game close.  It ended up going to turn 7 and he was able to get out of range of the scatter lasers for the last two.  So it ended up with him getting 4 kill points, and I only got 2.

Overall the torunament was a lot of fun.  Some of my units performed very well, and others didn’t do their jobs.  I had fun, though and learned a lot.  I also got a lot of compliments on my army, so that was nice.  I ended up taking 11th overall, and my friend took 14th.  The guy with the land raider took 4th, and the guy in first was playing a Ravenwing Space Marine army.