The Horror of Mental Onslaught and the Perils of Overextending Your Thrust

Once upon an imaginary time two armies of aliens set about destroying each other. The resulting carnage was observed by Imperial surveillance servitors and the results were broadcast to the masses to emphasize the superiority of humanity. The resulting document has since made it's way into the Tactica Imperia pamphlet entitled 'how to kill an alien'. 

The Deliverance of Skorlax

Patriarch Glurcastes was troubled, his long planned insurrection was imminent but several seemingly unrelated chances put the plans into turmoil. Firstly, was the unprecedented comet that had bathed Skorlax in poisonous radioactivity that wiped out 97% of the human populace here. The alien genes of his family had protected them from the worst depredations of the comet but rendered his hybrid children sterile. The only hope to propagate his line was with the dozen or so pure-strain genestealers that remained. Then came the invaders, first Aeldari, shortly followed by Orks - who gave battle on one of the larger urbanizations on Skorlax. As the Aeldari fought and defeated the Orks more and more green-skins made planet-fall to do battle. When vast numbers had dropped onto the surface of Skorlax, the Aeldari disappeared. Knowing that a large force of Orks on the planet would ruin any attempt to contact the star children, Glurcastes sent out the telepathic summons to all his kin. Leave the mines and eradicate the invaders!

The first Battle of Skorlax was an  attempt by the Seer Council of Ulthwe to entice (sub)Waargh Tonkwappa into a large scale ground invasion. To deal with a threat that directly affected Ulthwe holdings. That threat (as is evident by the blurb above) is Genestealers, in the form of The Cult Of The Four Armed Emperor. I had recently purchased the new Codex and Dylan obligingly gave me a game. As the Ork Codex was new also both of us would have little idea of what to expect. What would be a given though, is that there would be plenty of close combat!

A Short Battle Report (that is in fact quite long).

The Orks of Waargh Gitsmasha were moving inexorably towards Scargill but one smaller group (sub)Waargh Tonkwappa and it's ramshackle fleet lost its way due to 'Cheep Navigshunal Gubbinz' and arrived in an unremarkable system with a single habitable planet. Without pause a couple of shuttles were crash landed on the planet's surface to start resupplying the fleet. After shooting up the forest and burning a few trees down, the main Ork force advanced on a large seemingly abandoned human settlement. As the first bikes roared in, seemingly from nowhere, a large force of Aeldari appeared in full battle array. Warboss Tonkwappa bellowed his orders "Roight ladz! Da pansies want a scrap, lets give it to 'em!". 

A Fighter Bommer, Grotz, Stormboyz, Deff Dread, Big Mek and Lootas are in sight, as well as some boyz and bikers. My Guardians, D Cannon and Wave Serpent filled with Asurmen, a Warlock and Dire Avengers lurk in plain view. The Fighter Bommer is a loverly model, nicely painted but I failed to take any more pictures of it for some reason. Next game......

Big Mek's Throzbog's Thermonuclear Morkanaut

Big Mek Throzbog and the rest of Warboss Bluddakka landed on the asteroid containing the human garrison. Not goin' to be much of a scrap as ders only a few 'umies der. Still he mused, since he'd upgradid the engine in da Morkanaut he was eager to give it a lash. As the Orks surrounded the garrison he grabbed Throzbog and warned him "Dis is my show, Throzbog. Don't try annyfink funny, just stay at the back wiv da Lootas an let me and the boyz get stuck in!". "OR ELSE!". Slightly annoyed he just nodded and said "annyfink yoo say boss.". Seemingly calm, a menacing glint in Throzbog's eyes was the only indication of displeasure. With the roar of "Waarrgh Bluddakka!!" the Ork force attacked the beleagered outpost.


Myself and Dylan played the second battle in the Scargill Cleansing, blurb is here. The only difference to the last post is Dylan decided that the Sustained Assault rules were a bit unfavorable to the Astra Militarum force. 2000 points of Orks vs 1000 of Astra Militarum (plus a Bastion) was the forces. If the Bastion was destroyed it was an Ork win otherwise humanity wins the day. A rather interesting result of the game was the winner gains D3+1 command points to be used in a future game to represent intelligence gained /destroyed during the engagement.

Scenario Two of 'The Scargill Cleansing'

Dylan's next scenario for The Scargill Cleansing is hot off the press! The game is due to be played on Thursday, following the worldwide cards with hearts buying bonanza.

‘The Scargil Cleansing’

Hold Out

“Oi, get off your arses you lazy useless gitz, there is a bunch o umies dat what won’t stop trying to tell der bosses wot we iz up to.  Now I is gonna take all you lazy grubz and stomp em good n’proppa. Getz runnin youz gitz……”

“Incoming vox transmission from HQ sir” called specialist Brandt.  Major Schmidt looked up from the piles of data slates and report cubes, his eyes red from lack of sleep and constant screen use. “A large Ork force has been spotted moving at speed to our location Sir”, “it looks like they know we are here”. Schmidt cursed and turned away from the piles of reports, Woolstrop and his force should have crushed the Orks already. “Sgt, sound the alarm. Ready the men for action, and prepare to hold at all costs” He knew many of the men would not see another day.

A small Krablokistan force is holding an important surveillance tower in a remote area, data gathered here is being used to prepare the Scargil sector for the coming Ork invasion, Hold this position at all costs.

·         Orks are the attacker and will use the Sustained Assault rule.

·         Defenders army should be no more than 1000pts (Cannot use the extra 500 if won last mission)

·         The attacker can have up to 2000pts.

·         The Defenders deployment zone extends out in a 10” circle from the centre of the table.

·         Use a bastion model as the relay control hub, use the rules as in Chapter Approved.

·         If, at the end of turn five the Attacker has destroyed the relay they score D6+1 Victory Points, if however the Defender still holds the relay he wins the game.

The winner of this battle will be able to exploit the data gathered/destroyed to their advantage in one battle of their choice.  At the start of any battle, before the first turn, declare that you will use this advantage. Immediately add D3+1 Command Points to your total. This advantage can only be used once.

As you can see an interesting scenario that adds some more flavour to the campaign.

Baptism Of Promethium

Farg Woolstrop reread the report. It didn't make very salubrious reading. Waargh Gitsmasha (another of these xenos despots that seem to spring up twice a lunar cycle) had grown tired of fighting itself and had started migrating into the Scargill Sector - named after the planet and system of the same name. Due to the Krablokistan 47th's proximity to the sector a rapid redeployment was underway. Hemmerdale was Mitigated and the previous misunderstandings between both Ultramarine, Crimson Fists chapters and the Convent Of The Vengeful Scold were ironed out. The first blows of the conflict had begun so an advance force was sent to bolster an Imperial research base on the planet of  Spasitor. The vanguard of Waargh Gitsmasha had landed and were currently dismantling the base and using the occupants for target practice, additional rations and Mothbear baiting. The majority of the fleet moved on towards Scargill but a Pacification Class troop carrier - named The Erstwhile - detoured to Spasitor to dispatch the advance Ork force.  

The Scargill Cleansing Act I

Welcome to part one of our 40K campaign between my Astra Militarum force of the Krablokistan 47th regiment vs Dylan's Orks of Waargh Gitsmasha. The battle is 1500 points of battle forged goodness with all the whistles and bangs that accompany that. The mission is No Mercy so in addition to the usual victory points each unit destroyed also scores a VP as well. The initial preamble about the campaign is to be found here. I set up the terrain before Dylan arrived and he got to choose whichever table end to deploy in. I always find that an fair system as it makes the person placing terrain try to make the table as balanced as possible.

The Armies

The battle represents the first encounter of Waargh Gitsmasha's advance force attack on the first Imperial planet en route to the prosperous mining planet of Scargill. The Imperial force that landed on Spasitor is pictured below.
They included;
Farg Woolstrop, company commander.
Gilprect Von Staab, second in command.
Shilum Drool, astropath.
Four infantry squads.
A special weapons squad (flamers).
Veteran squad.
Ratling Squad. 
Two Leman Russ.
Hellhound.
Two heavy weapons squads (mortars and heavy bolters).
Ten roughriders.
The force I put together was a fairly low power level that I thought might be fun to play. I took roughriders as even though they no longer exist in the 'official' codex, I have 20 in various states of assembly and thought as they're not the most overpowered unit in the army they might be a bit of fun. The picture below contains all the models I used for this soire. 

Standard battlefield deployment, otherwise known as the armoured square formation.

An Ork, Alien Proctologist, Chaos Thug, and Other Miscellaneous Models

New Camera, New Models

Hello again. Just a quick update of some finished (and some 98% finished) models. The new 40K is high on my agenda but I've finished some Necromunda/Inquisimunda type models. I have recently purchased a new camera so my experimenting with them could lead to some varied results. On with the show.

The Rusty Ork

This an  old space Ork Freebooter from the dawn of time. A Bad Mek or something like that. He was coming up to his 18th birthday on the painting table so I took pity on him and this is the result. I'm not ecstatic about his skin tone but as I'm not really a big Ork painting it'll do.

Ork Bad Mek Lost Gubbinz

 

More Painted Fings

My Productivity Is Reaching Epic Proportions! 

Weirdly my painting is matching my gaming so I'm still Inquisimundaing the hell out of my model collection.

Scavvys

I have finished five Scavvys for my scabrous horde. Old Tomb Dogger, the previous ganger leader will shortly be making way for the new improved Scavvy gang leader, one that is not married to his sister! These Scavvy sculpts are really nice, with lots of dirty rags hanging off their weapons and what not.

Scabby Topknot

Some more paint.

Well I've finally gotten round to photographing some recently (and some not so recently) painted figures.

Dobbin McBludgeon

Here is my first offering, a Goliath horse-headed mutant. I loved making this one and will be a stalwart in my mutant army. All I did really was removed his angry Goliath head and give him an equine equivalent. I have about a dozen other mutant conversions on the go which I'll post when the mood takes me. For now I'll name him Dobbin McBludgeon.



Phaelps



My second figure is my Redeptionist Leader for Necromunda. It was originally intended to be entered into a painting competition over on Eastern Fringe Forums about 2 years ago, but then I always seem to drift in and out of enthusiasm for figures. Still it came out nice so I'm pretty pleased with it. I think I'll name him Phaelps in honour of the incredibly mental pastor in the Westboro Baptist Church and his equally offensive flock.



Whitescar

Next is my beastman conversion. It is a Black Tree Design crossbow armed beastman that I removed part of his right arm and replaced it with an Orlock plastic autogun and some milliput to tidy it all up.I painted a white scar down his face but it looks a bit like a chalk mark. oh well back to the drawing board.

Ay Psighker

Here's an old imperial sanctioned psyker that i particularly like. He has a variety of roles in 40K games Imperial Psyker, Genestealer Magus, Chaos Magos, or even Tefal-headed mutant with a gun and backscratcher type implement.

Boss Gitbag

Although I have never painted enough Orks to form an army I have a few painted up as they are just fantastically fun to paint. Here is Boss Gitbag a Blood Axe warboss with a currently very small warband that I hope to expand soon(ish).

Doc Badchop

Lastly Doc Badchop is an Ork Painboy that came out not too bad and I loved painting. the trousers were a bit of a mistake but i then decided that they looked a bit tye-dyed and so I left them.

Well thats all I'm putting up today. I have some Pit Slaves very nearly complete so hopefully I'll get them up soon. Apologies for my crap names especially the ones actually painted on the bases, that was a phase that I went through, that I seem to be well over now. Also sorry for the rather arbitrary nature of the capitalisation on the names of fictional things from the warhammer universe.