Battle of the Blogs Report

As I mentioned in my last post, I played John over at Plastic Legions this weekend. Art was kind enough to provide the space to play.

In our first game, I used a new 300 point list from the one I played last time. The major changes being that fact that I bought a thrall and bought Gift of Chaos instead of Doombolt. So basically I had one full 9 man unit of Sons and a 4 demon strong screamer unit.

He had three Ultra Marine tactical squads. The thing that worried me the most was his plasma guns in two of the units.

Honestly, we didn't take any notes, so I don't have much to give in the way of details. Basically, he wiped out my screamers before they could take out anything. I failed all three gift of chaos rolls I attempted to make. Most of the game came down to working out the combat result of close-combat between my one Thousand Sons unit and two of his tactical units.

Fortunately, the dice favored me and I managed to wipe out one of his squads. It was more expensive than my unit of screamers, so I won by about 50 VPs. Not bad for a 300 pt game.

In the second game, John allied with Art's Demon hunter army. John had the same list as before and Art brought along two Chimeras of storm troopers, and DH dreadnought, and a unit of Grey Knight Terminators.

My list was a little odd as it was basically everything that I owned that could be put down on the table. Basically everything that was glued to a base. My list was something like:

HQ
Lord on Disc, Bolt of Change, personal icon, and Demonic Aura.

Troops
9 sons, AC with Gift of Chaos and a Thrall in a Rhino

5 Flamers/ 4 Horrors (unit 1)

5 Flamers/ 4 Horrors (Unit 2)

Fast Attack
5 Screamers

Heavy
Defiler w/ CWF and Mutated Hull


An odd Army list to be sure. It weighed in at about 1,100 Pts.

Again, no one was taking notes, but it went down something like this. We rolled up Recon on the scenario chart. My first turn was really lucky and I immobilized Art's lead Chimera with my Defiler.

Amazingly, on my second turn one unit of flamers/horrors and my screamers showed up. This was good in the fact that I had a lot of stuff coming in early, but bad in the fact that the only Icon on the board was my Lord's personal icon. Both units showed up on target. The terrain that my lord was hiding in got very crowded.

My lord was taking a lot of shots from Art's Dreadnought, so I dropped him back behind a ruined building. The problem being that the next turn my final unit of demons showed up and very nearly scattered off the board.

The first unit of Flamers did a lot of damage to the Ultra Marines, but the screamers where mostly ineffective. They quickly got wiped out, but thanks to the Grey Knight Dreadnought's demonic infestation, they were quickly back.

The Defiler did little after the first turn besides kill a couple of Ultra Marines with it's Reaper Autocannon.

The luckiest part of my game was the fact that Art's Grey Knight Terminators never showed up. He rolled 1s for their deep strike rolls turns 3, 4, and 5.

We called the game at turn 5 since I had taken out quite a bit of their stuff an had lost almost nothing. Plus, if the terminators did show up on turn 6, they couldn't do anything but shoot.

So in the end I racked up two victories for the Thousand Sons in one day. They certainly weren't pretty as I spent a lot of time just remembering the rules specific to my army.

Here are a couple of pictures I snapped at the end of the battle to make this a little more exciting.


No,there were no Space wolves in the battle. John and Art let my use my SW Rhino as a stand in. I know, Thousand Sons in a Space Wolves Rhino... Terrible.


I award Troop of the match to these guys... for never showing up. Seriously, if they had shown up in a timely manner, I'd have been screwed.


That's not camera blur, it's demonic instability.


Thanks to John for two good games and thanks to Art for providing his awesome terrain and board.

Big Thousand Sons Update

I've actaully been sitting on these pictures for a little while. As you can see, my first squad of Thousand Sons is complete appart from basing. I plan to do that this weekend.

Below are some close shots of my thousand sons aspiring champion.





I'm not a big fan of decals so I freehand painted both the Thousand Sons badge and this symbol of Tzeentch.







In other news, this weekend I plan to take on Old Coast from Plastic Legions! That's right, it's a battle of the blogs! Which Blog will triumph!

Report to follow...

Slow Escalation Campaign Rules

A lot of people have been asking me about these, so I figured I'd post them here. Below are the rules for the campaign I'll be taking part in next month. These come courtesy of Nick Barren, so if you like them, show your appreciating by visiting his website and buying some stuff.

Slow Escalation Campaign Rules
Below are the required limitations for playing a slow escalation campaign. These will help allow for more balanced games. Play all games on 4' x 4' boards (Note: We're also experimenting with some 3'x3' and 2'x4' boards on really small games).

Starting Forces:
- 300 Point scouting forces. Troops, Elites, and Fast Attack ONLY
- Vehicles with a combined armor score of 32 or less.
- No models with more than 2 wounds.
- No Invulnerable saves.
- No ordnance weapons.
- Forces may halve minimum squad sizes.
- No 2+ saves.

Escalation Modifications:
400 Points: Models with 3 wounds or less allowed. Vehicles with a combined armor score of 33 or less allowed.

550 Points: HQ Allowed. 2+ Saves Allowed. No more halved squads allowed. Vehicles with a combined armor score of 34 or less allowed.

750 Points: Heavy Support allowed. Vehicles with a combined armor score of 35 or less allowed. HQ Required.

1000 Points: Models with more than 3 wounds allowed. All vehicles armor values allowed. Ordnance weapons allowed. Invulnerable saves allowed.

Note: When a force exceeds an Escalation threshold, it now operates under those rules. The lesser forces they fight, however, do not.

Fleeing the Table
You may voluntarily cut your losses and flee the battle if it is going poorly. You may only do so after you’ve sustained 50% of your total models in casualties.

Accumulating Points
Earn D6 points for every 50 points of your earned Victory Points rounded down. Earn 2D6 points for winning the battle. Earn D6 points for a draw.

Maximum Disparity
To prevent a continually victorious army from becoming invincibly large a maximum disparity will be established based upon the points bracket the campaign is in. This will also force the escalation of even those armies that continuously lose.

-750 points - Maximum disparity 25 points
750-1000 points - Maximum disparity 50 points
1000+ points - Maximum disparity 100 points

Ask and You Shall Receive

Per the request from Old Coast (see comments two post down).

Bonus post!

Since yesterday's post was so text-heavy, I figured I'd make it up to you and post some pictures today. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures to share at the moment. My friend Art sent me these pictures yesterday, so I figured I'll share them with you all.

Here is a nice "aerial" shot of Art's cityfight board(or Cities of Death board if you wan to be new-school about it).


Art's Armored Company. I think the best part of this picture is the Imperial Eagle that is stenciled on the board.


more Cities of Death buildings and a couple of Vehicles from his Sisters of Battle Army.


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Don't fear good citizens! I have been working on my Thousand Sons Army. In fact, I spray primed my unit of screamers last night. Thrilling, I know.

I will be posting pictures next week, I promise!

First Blood!

Or should I say, "First Dust" since Thousand sons technically don't have blood.

Sorry, what I mean to say is that I played my first game with my thousand sons this week. I'm in an escalation campaign that will be starting in a couple weeks. We're going to be starting at 300 pts and earning more points as the weeks go on. Since I'm not sure how well the sons do at such low points cost, I wanted to get a practice game in.

For this low points cost, were allowed to halve the minimum squad requirement. This means I can take demon packs as small as two models. I ended up taking a full unit of Sons and a unit of four screamers. The Aspiring Champion had Doom Bolt, Demonic Strength, and Demonic Visage.

I played against my friend Eric who is starting a Space Marine Army. He had two Tactical squads, both with plasma guns and one assault squad with jump packs.

I won first turn, but figured since I'm going nowhere fast, I'll just let him go first and let him come to me. I gave him the first turn and he just moved his two tactical squads forward.

My first turn was great. I rolled a 5 for my Slow and Purposeful roll and moved into range of his closest tactical squad. I opened up with all bolters and the Doom Bolt. He failed four of his saves and fell back.

I was feeling pretty good at that point, but the rest of the game he saved against all my shooting and charged my by turn three. My screamers didn't show up until turn four and at that point they couldn't be much help.

Turn six ended with him still having one scoring unit but me having more wounds on the board. Since this was a practice game and we didn't have a scenario, we just called it a draw.

It was definitely a learning experience. I'm thinking that I need to write several lists depending who my opponent is. I think until I can afford two units, I'm going to buy myself a familiar for my Aspiring Champion and invest more points into another power. That way, he can be a lot more versatile on the field.

The campaign starts in two weeks, so I'll be sure to post results of my first battle soon after.