The Final Battle at the Vraburgh Urban Sprawl a Big Game event.

Greetings readers.

I have been working on a custom scenario for this years Big Game. It a culmination of the map campaign zone battle between the forces of Slaanesh and the Night Lords vs. the Marines Errant and the Flesh Tearers. This final battle will take place at the Vraburgh Urban Sprawl Hive.

The Set Up

The Citizens of the Vraburgh Urban Sprawl have been without power for months now, rations are slim, and a call for aid has been largely unheard. The Hive's sound system has been blasting terrible screams and strange heavy metal music for some time now. Shadows move in the darkness and strange multi-colored flashes of light are a common occurrence driving the populace into hiding and bringing many of the people to the brink of insanity.

What the populace doesn't know is their call for aid has been answered by the some of the Emperor's finest. The Marines Errant and Flesh Tearers. Will their incursion be enough to save the Hive's populace from the terrors sure to be bestowed upon them by the forces of Chaos?

The Mission

The objective of the game will be to capture/secure civilian models. Each civilian model is worth 1 victory point. The side who acquires the most VP's will be considered the victor. 

Civilian Model Rules

Civilian models will be placed inside the city terrain portion of the board. They will be spread around fairly so neither side has an advantage. (Civ's) cannot be shot at in the shooting phase and can only be acquired in the assault phase by moving within 1 inch of a Civ model. A player may collect as many Civ models as they like but most maintain unit coherency at all times. A player may assault both an enemy unit and Civ models in the same charge, but one model may only collect one Civ per charge phase. 

For example: A unit of 7 Noise Marines charges  5 Flesh Tearers and 2 Civ models, 5 Noise Marines use attacks against Flesh Tearers while 2 collect Civ's. 

Civilian models will only move in the movement phase if a model with the key word (Chaos) comes within 6 inches of them. In which case they will move directly away from the model with the keyword (Chaos) 6 inches. Civ's who reach a board edge will be considered "huddled masses" and stop their movement. The are considered too terrified to move and are cowering in the fetal position!

The 6 inch Civ move can be stopped by a model with the (Imperial) keyword. If a fleeing Civ movement takes them within 6 inches of a model (Imperial) it will immediately stop as it is receiving instructions from the relief force.

Civ models will be removed from the table and counted as a VP only in the player's morale phase after any morale tests have been taken. And by models that moved within 1 inch in the assault phase. Any Civ's contacted by a model via a consolidation move after a victory in assault must wait until their next player turn to collect the VP. Being within 1 inch of a Civ model does not protect the (Chaos/Imperial) model from being shot at in the shooting phase.

Example: The Marines Errant unit wipes out a unit of Night Lords in the assault phase, they then consolidate into 3 Civ's. These Civ's cannot be collected until the end Errant next morale phase. ie. the Errant models within 1 inch must now wait a full turn before collecting these VPs.

One (Chaos/Imperial) model may only collect one Civ model per turn.

Game Turns

The winner of the map zone results (currently 21 Chaos 3 Imperial) will go first. So a game turn consists of Chaos/Civilian movement /Imperial/Civilian movement.

More to come as we test this out a bit and discuss point size and deployment zones ect...

Comments, Questions, Nasty Statements??

Ming the Merciless

Ming the Merciless kept hidden his psychic abilities for many years. It was only after the Night Haunter's death that the lords, who now ruled the warbands of the Night Lords, embraced the Sorcerer as a key member of each warband. Everyone searching for those among the legion who are gifted with their father's "sight".

Librarians, of course, existed in the legion but they were never well respected until many years after the Heresy. Upon the Primarch's death, the Night Lords were finally forced into the Eye of Terror to join their fellow Traitor legions. There they saw the truth of the galaxy.

If you were going to battle against the powers of the warp, you had to have solders who knew about the Ruinous Powers and could wield their own. To hold his own against the others within the Eye of Terror, Vigo quickly promoted Ming to second in command. They had fought together for along time, and Vigo knew of Ming's special talents. With the shackles of disapproval cast from his neck, Ming delved into the mysteries of the warp. And now thousands of years later, he is the Master Sorcerer of the Sons of Night.

Corruption 

Ming never had formal Librarian training, so he had to learn as quickly as he could in desperate, early days within the Eye of Terror. Deep in his meditations, Ming found a voice willing to help him. What he did not know at the time was that the voice belonged to an agent of Tzeentch. Thus began Ming's slow corruption by the whispers of the Lord of Change. At present, Ming believes no one knows of his support for Tzeentch. And he hopes that Vigo remains unaware.

Appearance 

Ming wears standard power armor wielding a Force Sword with a Plasma Pistol at his hip. Like several of his brothers in the Sons of Night, Ming wears a robe over his power armor. This harkens back to the Night Lords hatred for the Dark Angels based around the Thramas Crusade. In a further mocking of the Loyalists, Ming wears Purity seals made of skin taken from his victims claimed on the battle field.

Secret motivations

It is Ming who persuaded Vigo to allow Obliterators, Forgefiends, and Defilers into the army. He hopes to slowly change the beliefs of the Night Lords as they concern to the gifts of the Chaos gods. He also wants to expand the number of Sorcerers in the warband.

Ave Dominus Nox

Vigo the Carpathian

Vigo the Carpathian

The Night Lords warband known as "The Sons of Night" (translated from Nostromin) is lead by a Chaos Lord known as Vigo the Carpathian.

Vigo's lineage can be traced back to the 8th legion's 11th company, known as "the blood feet".
In the days of Curze, he was the leader of a Terror Squad. After the death of his Primarch, Vigo followed his company into the Eye of Terror. There they settled on a small planet along with Crom of the World Eaters and Voltan of the Emperor's Children. The three joined forces to defend their new home against the raiders and pillagers of the other traitor legions.

Over the next 10,000 years the Sons of Night grew larger in size with a swell of other Night Lords war bands who approved of how Vigo adhered to the ways of their father and generally shunned the whispers of the chaos gods.

The victory at Cadia by the forces of Abaddon the Despoiler opened up warp rifts all around the galaxy. Vigo choose this time to explore the Eastern fringes, once home to the secret bases their Primarch had decreed built to conduct the Thramas crusade back in the times of the Horus Heresy. He and his warband discovered one hidden in an asteroid belt not far from Tsagualsa, the ancient fortress were Curze was killed. It is believed that it is from their hidden base in the eastern edges of the galaxy that the Sons of Night now conduct their terror missions.

Appearance and Wargear

Vigo the Carpathian wears a Terminator Suit taken as a prize from a Grey Knight captain. He also sports an impressive trophy rack displaying many of his favorite victims. The Claws of the Black Hunt are the favored instruments of war for the chaos lord. A specialized set of Lightning Claws crafted by his Dark Mechanicum allies.

Allies and Enemies

The Sons of Night have ties with the Iron Warriors, Word Bearers and Abaddon's Black Legion. The Sisters of Battle are a favorite target for their terror strikes along with the Marines Errant.

next... Ming the Merciless

The state of my hobby and gaming future...

Death from above.

First things first, my latest creation. I finished my Xiphon Interceptor, well not the pilot yet, but it's mostly done. It fits well into the Terror Assault and well into my 40K warband as I don't like flying dragons in 40K.

For about the last two years I've been pretty focused on building, painting and playing the 30K legion. There's a lot to like about Horus Heresy. The game has a balance to it because all the legions have access to the same units for the most part. And the wide range of marine variations makes for a lot of fun. I found it a welcome refuge during the height of 7th ed. formation hell.

Then comes 8th edition.

I can say after playing several games now, I really enjoy the direction they have taken the game. I'm still making my way through the missions but so far there is a lot to like. I've come around to the removal of armor and templates. No templates means a quicker shooting phase, plus the scatter die was always an inexact science. And I feel like the removal of armor has in a way, further balanced the overall game. Instead of a weapon being anti-armor or anti-infantry, because all units in the game are measured off the same basics (a toughness and a save) a weapon can deal a wound to both.

GW also introduced two features to the game that I really like. Mortal Wounds and Command Points. It seems to me so far, that mortal wounds are the great equalizer, no matter how badass a unit is, most have no save (save the occasional ability that allows something to ignore a mortal wound on a +5 or +6) against mortal wounds. +2 armor saves and +3 invulnerable saves were once a bane of my existence, no longer!

And who hasn't had a close game come down to one dice roll? I can think of plenty of games were a failed charge or to bad hit roll on a big gun cost me victory. The Command Point system seems a lovely addition to the game of 40K that could at the very least reduce the chance of defeat because of the dice gods lack of support. If the game got simpler in rules with 8th edition, a bit of the flavor of each army has been removed, then that is helped by stratagems. The new Chaos codex has several interesting little tactics or abilities added in by stratagems. More decisions for a player is a very good thing and adding flavor to race or faction only adds to the uniqueness of your gaming experience. Do I use Command Points when I sense an important roll or do I use them to enact stratagems? As I said those kinds of choices are good for the game.

This brings me to the split of 30K and 40K, with Horus Heresy staying (for a time) in 7th. I have to say, I don't want to play 7th edition right now. My heart is firmly with 8th so that's where I will sit. One element I missed while playing the legion was time. I play games largely against my fellow D-Company members, and most of their armies exist in the framework of the 40K world. I could not have a running story for my army because it wasn't in the same time frame of many of my friends. With 8th, I now turn back to my 40K Night Lords warband and can play games to expand the story of my army in the 40K D-Company universe. I basically had to put that element of enjoyment on hold while playing the 8th legion. Konrad Curze would never have met the Marines Errant of course.

The D-Company campaign is about ready to go, if you care to follow it, here is the link to our map.

http://ultrasmurf.net/mayhem/

Our campaign leads up to this years Big Game.

I'm very excited for this, I love the idea of prolonged battles and I'm a sucker for maps and story. So to kick things off for my faction, my next few posts on the blog will be to introduce my 40K Night Lords warband and it's main characters. Each post will have the story and some background of each named character I currently use. After some bios expect the story line as to why we head towards the planet on the map. Then some reports of battles fought of course.

So that is the direction my blog and hobby will go, the 8th legion sleeps... until Horus Heresy converts to 8th, maybe....we'll see.

Ave Dominus Nox.

8th edition games

Antaries returns.

The drop of 8th edition brought out the Craftworld Antaries. It had been about 2 years since I had played the Eldar in a game. I figured a new edition of the game would be a good time for them to return.

There are several radically different changes GW has made to the game. For the first time since 3rd edition, the stats of units have changed a lot. Armor values gone, different movement rates, no templates, there are a bunch of changes to the game.

I've played 3 games so far, in the first, I really struggled with the new rules. I made plenty of game mistakes. I took the Craftworld Elder out for a spin against Derling's marines.


Both of us were 8th edition virgins so a 60 power game took us about 5 hours to play. That said, it's going to take practice to have a grasp on the new unit stats. Derling took the game, it was close but I made too many tactical errors to overcome.

3 Penitent engines prove too much for the Avatar.

My second game was a 2v2. Derling's marines teamed up with Christine's Ministorum to face Boroth's Chaos marines and my Eldar. In this game our forces were overwhelmed and defeated in sound fashion. The highlight of the game for me was to see a squad of 10 Guardian defenders take out a 5 man Primaris Marine squad in close combat.

Defenders handle themselves well.

My third game saw the Antaries take on forces of the Inquisition. Ben brought his army over to Joe's were we tangled while Joe and Steve played on the next table over. I used the same army list that I used in the 4 player game (still at 60 power) and this time it fared much better as we called the game after 4 turns with a solid Eldar victory.

The Avatar proves it is a strong play for the Eldar.

There is a lot to like about 8th edition. I like the armor save modifiers instead of an AP value, the Psychic phase is much more streamlined, the Battle forged rules make it easy to construct an army. I'm happy 7th edition formations are gone. 8th edition seems much less restrictive.

But there are things I think need improvement. the terrain and cover rules, no more fire archs, for flyers especially, and I miss templates.

Of course, I'll gave it more games to really get a feel for these new rules.

Big Game 2017

New models ready for battle!

D-Company's annual Big Game has come and gone again...

This year was broken down into games against individuals and teams as opposed to one large slug fest. I have grown to like this format as it allowed me to play 4 games over the weekend against 6 different people.

My first game was 2500pts vs. Orks, then I played 3000pts. vs. AD Mech and Iron Hands (40K). Then a team game 2500pts. per player vs. Iron Hands (30K) and Death Wing. Finally, another team game at 2000pts. per player.

The Orks defend their tires in game 1.

Game 2 vs. Ad mech

Night Lords advance on the Iron Hands in game 3.

Curze waits for the cowards to exit the Mastodon.

I consumed too many beverages and forgot to take pictures of game 4. But I can assure you it was just as much fun as the other 3 games. I loved playing against a Mastodon, though I could not kill it. The Quad Mortars and Leviathan performed very well for me all weekend. I'm certain I will enjoy fielding both units in future games. That's it for now....

Ave Dominus Nox.

Command Squad and Praetor

Happy 2017,
First post of the new year! I've been busy getting the Night Lords ready for D-Company's Big Game 2017. I've played a couple games, won one and lost one. Santa was kind, giving me a Leviathan Dread for Christmas, that is soaking in a bowl of soap and water...

I've gotten some decent hobby work done. I present my Night Lords command squad. To the left here we have Praetor Baltar. He is mainly, the model that comes with the Betrayal at Calth box, though I added a Paragon Blade and Sevatar's extra head. It's too cool not to use somewhere.

I still struggle with faces. But, I continue to work on techniques. Anyone who has good advice, I'd love to hear it.

My command Squad!

4 of them total.

They are armed with 2 Combi-Plasma, one has 2 Lightning Claws, and the Standard Bearer has a Plasma Blaster and a Thunder Hammer. I decided to give them skulls for heads to make them standout among other Terminators in the army. I also purchased the Primus Medicae in Cataphractii I'd love to add to the group but I doubt I'll get it done by February. That said, it's nice to have an option in HQ now, besides Sevatar. The Command Squad can either deep strike or take a Land Raider. Which makes them pretty flexible tactically and that is always good. Well, that's it for now.

Ave Dominus Nox.