Several months of updates

End of year exam and other stresses resulted in my blog being very neglected. However during this period I continued gaming and painting which I intend to catch up with now.
In 4 or so weeks I'll be attending Gosford Shield. A 1250pt comp based event. So with this in mind I've been painting my wyches and fixing the details on my Craftworld's warhost - resulting in 2 items to be crossed off my paint schedule :)
Also in preparation for GS I've played a few practice games to try some lists out. Here is a batrep of Biel Tan vs Iron Warriors (using Lysander and codex marines).
My list:
Farseer w/ Doom (warlord train - don't remember/nothing useful)
6 Fire Dragons Wave Serpent
10 Dire Avengers, Exarch, Dual catapults, Blade storm Wave Serpent, Shuriken Cannon, TL Shuriken Cannon
10 Dire Avengers, Exarch, Dual catapults, Blade storm Wave Serpent, Shuriken Cannon, TL Shuriken Cannon
10 Dire Avengers, Exarch, Dual catapults, Blade storm Wave Serpent, Shuriken Cannon, TL Shuriken Cannon
6 Warp Spiders, Exarch, Dual Spinners

My opponents list was something like:
Lysander (Warlord trait - scoring unit)
Master of the Forge w/ Conversion Beamer
8 Sternguard w/ Drop pod
Dreadnought
10 Tactical marines w/ Rhino
10 Tactical marines w/ Rhino

Mission: Crusade (4 objectives represented by Eldar Warlocks) Deployment: Hammer and Anvil
Iron Warriors: Deployment
Master of the Forge takes a commanding view of the battlefield from atop the building. Both rhinos are deployed centrally with the dreadnought standing behind a tree.

Eldar: Deployment
I do my best to hide my Wave Serpents whilst my Warp Spiders are held in reserve to deep strike.


Iron Warriors: Turn 1
My opponent know's he has the advantage at long range shooting and decides to land his drop pod close to his own forces as to not isolate and leave them stranded on the wrong side of the board. Despite a cover save my Fire Dragon serpent takes a glancing hit. The Serpent's Energy Field is great.


Eldar: Turn 1
The Wave Serpents move out in a pincer formation across the battlefield.


The Warp Spiders land close to my opponents table edge and shoot the dreadnought in the rear armour destroying it. Whilst I thought this might be a 1:1 trade I deemed it a good trade as it netted me First Blood and removed a large shooty and CC threat to my army. The Spiders then teleported away trying to escape retaliation.


Iron Warriors: Turn 2
Knowing most of his small arms fire will be out of range/useless against my Wave Serpents he instead focuses on taking out the Spiders however two remained out of LOS and survived. Sadly the Exarch perished.


Eldar: Turn 2
My Warp Spiders decided it is better to live one day as a lion than a lifetime as a mouse and go for glory in an attempt to take out a rhino.


It took the combined fire-power of the Spiders and all my Wave Serpents but I finally managed to strip the vehicle of hull points (both rhino's may have been protected by smoke launchers?).


Iron Warriors: Turn 3
The Master of the Forge is unable to do much with his shooting attacks throughout the game due to the Wave Serpent's armour and Energy Fields. The Warp Spiders are killed in this round. My opponent knows that I can just sit back and whittle him away all day so advances with his rhino in hopes to get his melta gun in range.


Eldar: Turn 3
So I do the brave Eldar thing and back up to my cannons max range and take out the rhino.




Iron Warriors: Turn 4
The brave marines charge up the field. Slightly out of range to fire the melta.


The other squad moves to claim the objective.


Eldar: Turn 4
I move back and deploy onto the objectives and fire most everything into the advancing marine squad.


I deploy one of my Dire Avenger squads and attack the tactical squad who are claiming the objective, causing several casualties and causing the marines to fall back.


Iron Warriors: Turn 5
The lone marine regroups and reclaims the objective. The sternguard move into rapid fire range and blast the Dire Avengers with AP4 rounds. Lysander claims one objective daring any one to come and take it off him.




We stuffed up the rules a bit and my opponent conceded before I played out my turn 5. We both thought that my Wave Serpent's could score me line breaker, in addition to having a lot of shuriken cannons pointing at that lone tactical marine. Whilst writing this batrep with what I know now it seems like it might've been a good idea to continue playing till the end, however we didn't and I won 7-6 (line breaker winning me the game).
This was the first real time I've used my mechdar in 6th edition and I was fairly happy with how it performed. However finding out that my serpent's cannon contest objectives and later finding they can't even score me line breaker, has made me realise that my old army will suffer a lot because of this. Future lists I'll be looking to include small squads of Eldar Jetbikes just to score for me.
I've also been thinking Ill change the list slightly for Gosford Shield. I had decided to take my Wych Cult as my army however Anthony never got his Tau painted in time and I don't like people touching my CWE so I'll be lending him my Wych cult and taking Biel Tan. So whilst the Wych cult might be the better list my Biel Tan are much better painted so I'm thinking of taking some pretty models and hopefully getting a painting award!
So this is the list I'm currently planning to take.
Farseer, Doom, Runes of Warding
Striking Scorpions x 8, Exarch, Claw, Shadow Strike
Fire Dragons x 6, Wave Serpent, TL Shuriken Cannon
Dire Avengers x 9, Wave Serpent, TL Shuriken Cannon, Shuriken Cannon
Dire Avengers x 9, Wave Serpent, TL Shuriken Cannon, Shuriken Cannon
Dire Avengers x 9, Wave Serpent, TL Shuriken Cannon, Shuriken Cannon
Warp Spiders x 5, Exarch, Dual Spinners
TOTAL 1247
I have two more batreps to post and an update to my wych cult to post as well which I'll do later when it isnt 4am.

THE APOCALYPSE!!!

After being ditched earlier in the year - on the very day of our game - another friend Paul stepped up in his place so I could finally have a game with my entire collection. Thank you so much for doing this it was awesome!
We played 10,000 points a side.
5th edition.
Pitched battle.
6 Objectives which were cumulative scored at the end of the controlling players turn.
Any model may capture objectives with the exception of vehicles that are not currently transporting models.
Deployment was slightly different. The original plan was to bid for deployment as usual but bid a second number, this was for infiltrators. It didn't matter in the end as Paul just let me deploy first and didn't have any infiltrators.

Here's some photos I took. Some are a bit blurry sadly.

Here is my deployment with the infiltrators before I placed them.

These are my reserves and units inside transports.

Here is Paul's deployment. Not included is a squad of Nob Bikers on my right flank. Note: Paul left his Necron Pylon at home so we just used that piece of terrain with tubes in the top left corner as the pylon.

Looted Abrhams tank that is a skullhamma battle fortress

Here is my first turn movement. I really didn't destroy all that much. The Scorpion with aid from the two fire prisms took off 2 structure points from the Skullhamma. The Scorpion's blast also took out a Battle Wagon. I used the Strategic asset Blind Barrage in front of the pylon. The Cloudstrike Squadron took to the air. Night Spinner netted the Nob Bikers to prevent them turbo boosting.

Paul's first turn took off a structure point from the Scorpion and prevented the Fire Prism from firing.

Here the Pylon took out the command Falcon which was carrying Fuegan. Apparently being an Eternal Warrior doesn't save you from dying when you plummet 30,000 feet.

In my next turn I my Warp Spiders, Swooping Hawks, Shadow Spectres and Nightwing come in from reserves, I also deploy my dragons in front of the heaviest armour on the table.


Fearing an Apocalyptic Explosion my Wave Serpents all head for the short table edge. My Warp Spiders misshaped and were redeployed in my back lines 8ft away from where they were supposed to be! I also moved my Scorpion and Fire Prism up as I "feared being power fisted in the rear" (I suspected Snikrot would be coming in). Took me a moment why to realise why Paul was snickering when I said that.

In the end the Fire Dragons failed miserably and the Scorpion takes out the Skullhamma. We used the mini rule book as a crater as we were short on terrain this day.

In Paul's next turn some sneaky kommando's flank march near my home objective and between 4 burnas take out half of my Dark Reapers and most of the Dire Avenger squad that is there guarding.

Lootas in the middle building immobilise the Falcon while the MANz that were inside the Skullhamma roast 4 of the Fire Dragons leaving only the Exarch alive who challenges them to hand to hand combat.

Which he promptly loses.

These little gretchin took so much punishment, then proceeded to assault the Shadow Spectres, winning combat even! The Shadow Spectres survive with just one regular guy, the Exarch and Irillyth before leaving the combat via hit and run.

The Nob Bikers ride through two rounds of webbing before they manage to assault a Wave Serpent.

And of course wreck it and kill the squad inside.

Some crazy stuff happens in my next turn! The 3 Shadow Spectres decide to charge the Nobs. They win combat by one, Paul fails his leadership test and the Spectres kill them all in a Sweeping Advance...

The Warp Hunter, having had both its weapons blown off decides to ram the Pylon. Despite having holo-fields all it achieves is to wreck itself against the living metal construct.

Swooping Hawks move up to assault some looted wagons. I forgot Haywire wasn't that great in 5th ed. Manages to stop them both shooting for a turn at least!

Maugan Ra and jetbikes coming from reserves mess up one squad of kommandos however the other squad is mostly unmolested.

Paul's last reserves turn up.

Sneaky Snikrot!

15 deffkoptas!


Lots of shooting took out the Nob Bikers btw.

The last Nob Biker attempts to charge the Banshee Wave Serpent. A group of regular bikers shake the Fire Dragon serpent.

Lootas shoot the last Falcon in the back. Don't think they achieve much due to the Holo Fields.

All those Deffkoptas dropped a nasty weapon...

Look what it did!

A closer pic of the Storm Boyz. Or as a passer by commented "looks like they're carrying giant dildos on their backs. Donger 1 coming in for a landing!"

What happens when Ghazghull calls a WAAGH!

Kommandos multi-assault the Guardians and Dire Avengers.

Snikrot and warboss Teefreka assault two Guardian squads.

And of course kill the poor milita.

At least the Warp Spiders and Shining Spears do a lot better, drawing the combat. The Spears Exarch dies however so they cannot Hit and Run.

All while this is happening, Karandras is sitting in the middle of the board doing nothing.

Sadly we had to call it here at the bottom of turn three. Biel Tan was victorious due to the two Scorpion squads infiltrating onto the objectives. Paul was in a really good position to turn the game around now however! I swear he had more models on the table turn three than he did turn one. Thank you so much for the game Paul!

Things I learned: One Phoenix Lord on their own is pretty crap. Seven however are awesome! Ok well one did die before doing anything, another stayed in her transport all game and another watched the whole battle from the outskirts of some ruins. Still having solid units all over the battle that not only made their unit fearless but quite good in most situations was really handy. All together they cost 1560 points I believe, admittedly if I was looking to curb stomp someone and had the cash 4-5 lynx would be so much better, but I'm really happy I took them. I was hoping to blow the Skullhamma up with Fuegan's unit and have an Apocalyptic Explosion, wiping out everything in the area except Fuegan due to Eternal Warrior and have him be the only model standing within a 1-2 feet radius.
Also, perhaps it was because there was only 4 super heavies on the table but they didn't really seem that potent or game breaking. Took the Scorpion two turns of shooting to take out the Skullhamma and the Cobra was constantly firing at the Pylon but due to bad dice rolls didn't achieve anything. The Pylon took out a Falcon and Fuegan, and due to bad dice rolls only managed to shake the Nightwing.