DGG Battle report Eldar on Eldar

Enjoy !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSv0lA0iimg

The Voidhunters shadow corp prepare for war!

Gaelcon is around the corner and given it is one of the biggest events of the year I am looking forward to getting a few games in and hope to report out on the games after the weekend.

Anyway for now the list looks like this.

Eldar codex - Iyanden Supplement

HQ

1 spiritseer(psychic power - Battle )

Farseer (100) Bike (15) ( psychic powers 2* Divination, 1* Fate)

TROOPS

3 eldar JetBike

6 eldar JetBikes (102) 2* shuricannon

5* Wraithguard

Wave serpent  w scatter laser

5* Dire Avengers

Wave serpent w scatter laser

FAST

8 Warp spider

Crimson hunter  with exarch

HEAVY

3 * Warwalkers , 2* scatter Lasers, Scatter Starcannon , Scatter Starcannon

Wraithknight with Glaive (10)

Wraithknight

So this list is a little unconventional but I like how it looks on paper. I have never actually played a game with it which always makes a tournament a bit more of an adventure :)

Let me explain some of my logic.

farseer on Bike - it is very hard for me to look past the buffing powers of a farseer unfortunately in this tournament it is ruled that you must pick your powers before you start (- a stupid bloody rule if you ask me but whatever) -which reduces him a little in effectiveness. As such he is designed to try for fortune once or take Guide and then go twice on div and take precog if doesn't like the options. He will often be buffing the bikes/ warwalkers/ wraithknights

Spiritseer - the Iyanden power to battle focus is just awesomely useful for wraithguard and shooty wraithknights. 2 rolls on battle here as I hope for protect.  Spirit mark i have also become very fond of.

3 man jetbike - score and annoy
Dire Avengers - sit in their wave serpent until late game
6 man cannon squad - score act as a home for the farseer and harass
Wraithguard - in  a recent tournament these guys were rockstars. They make excellent home base crew and with S10 and potentially iyanden primaris these guys can really kick things hard if they get close. For 160 points they are bloody hard to remove.
Wave serpent * 2 - great utility vehicle very hard to shift with shields up and great for some light anti

Warwalkers - People get down on these guys all the time as being too fragile... if so you are using them wrong. A single piece of proper terrain that they can jump around with battle focus makes them incredibly powerful and hard to shift. Point for point still the best firepower at range in the game I think. 2* starcannons to help take wounds from some of the tougher MCs and the AP2 helps against light vehicles. Worth it for the loss of a couple of wounds.

Wraithknight  with Glaive. Now last tournament this guy had a scatter laser / starcannon too which were moderately useful but points better spent elsewhere.  The internet hates the glaive but I tell you what this is a big fast hard to kill unit and the reroll does make a difference in combat. He was my MVP in most games the last tournament to my great surprise. The 5+  invuln is also pretty damn awesome. I often run this guy straight down the opponents throat but sometimes use him as a free safety as well. Come near and I'll kick your ass!

Wraithknight with wraithcannon - great at taking out priority vehicle targets or hitting a character after the warpspiders clear the chaff! Can take out non combat geared units but won't beat them like his angrier brother.

Warpspiders - whats not to love? Aggressive, high volume firepower and very very fast. Love em.

Well I will report back on performance with a few photos next week!

Converted Warp Spiders painted

I got into a bit of a groove on my painting this weekend so managed to get a squad of warp spiders painted up :). No bases yet but I have a big lot of bases in the painting workflow

Let me know what you think. I'm delighted  to have some dynamic looking warp spiders (almost) ready for action with the void dragons! The Hoses from the pipe maker tool also came out awesome so all round dead happy myself with this lot.

You can see a couple of the weapon types here. The 2 or 3 vane look really ties them together

Scrollwork - not perfect but Ok

More scrollwork , probably my favourite

Target selected... engage. I painted alot of gems on these models, provides them a little more bling in person.

Warp spider conversions

I am not a fan of the warpspider models but I love warp spiders in my list.... time to get the conversion kit out. I also decided in this instance to go for a common look but different types of weapons.

The base of these models has been tried and tested for me with another unit. I think the DE scourge kit is one of the best kits that GW have ever produced, dynamic body poses, very lean eldar look, great heads,
The wings also are pretty awesome although I have only used them once so far (see my other conversion for Baharroth), I also think the bat wings might be making an appearance in my Tyranid army at some point but you can see that idea being fleshed out on on my other blog http://nidomnom.blogspot.ie/ after the new codex probably.

Back to the Spiders. The following is a list of parts that I used to make these models - you can tell I like mixing and matching right ?

Scourge kit: Legs, torsos, heads, arms
Guardian kit:  Legs, torsos, left and right arms,
Forge World  Corsair conversions kit , I use all of these, vanes, the elongated heads and the backpacks
New Wraithguard, D cannons (cut down cannon body and using the vanes.
Green stuff / forge planet pipe maker  - hose lines
Old Dark Eldar - Old Splinter cannons

The look I was going for on the weapons is to have a common thread of vanes on the weapons
You can see the 4 examples below that I built. Also note the Hoses that have been added to some of the models.

Fig 1

 This item is the old DE splinter cannon with the front of the D cannon (the piece just behind the "nozzle" ) I really like the look of this. The vanes really make the weapon look more threatening. This is also useful as "heavy" weapons should I ever need these to count as something else (like corsairs for example!)

fig 2

This is the simplest version. It is just a DE shredder but suits the model for sure

Fig 3

This gun is unusual as the weapon is underslung. The right arm is a control arm from the artillery kit, the main body is the center component of a wraithguard D cannon. The front of the weapon is also from the D cannon just paired back and with a  little spike from a tyranid bits box. This is probably my favourite item as it looks heavy and dangerous.

Fig 4

The last one here and this one is a little different, It is

This is the fully assembled squad immediately before spray painting and I am very happy with the outcome . I will update the blog with more photos of the models as they get painted and get on the table to shred some mon-keigh! 

Photos from golden throne

Some Gorgeous armies on Display!! 

Battle in full flow, I loved the colouring on the drop pods / marines

Not often that you see 3 GD slannesh and beautifully painted.

This was my pick before the tourney started for winner... it got tabled by Liz's Demons I was surprised!!

A nice tyranid conversion for an objective I presumed

Really nice conversions in the army overall and avery nice uniform colour scheme

You've seen these already but this gets you a look at the whole army board.

Liz's "Crab Weaver"

Liz's merman-ettes

Iron hands ho . Really nice display and iconography

Adam's work in progress eldar display board... I may have to copy this idea!!

Check out the saim hann dragons on each of the fliers Nice!!

Another conversion of Liz's - Ariel the herald of tzeentch!

Really nic colour scheme for Eldar I love the mottled grey look

Adam V Paul in semi final check out the Eldar Aegis

Game 4 Golden Throne - It's a knockout!

I am trying to remember every army that made it through to the knockout stages I think it was

SpaceMarines/Spacewolves  Reece
6 ravager DE Frankie
Fateweaver Demons Liz
Eldar with tau allies Adam
Suit heavy Tau  Paul
Chaos Mike

I'm missing one so apologies to that player but I think it was another Tau player with a beautiful green army.


I was looking forward to the mission as it was the scouring with DOW which my army is great at and was also hoping to finally play something that didn't have loads of AP3 or ignore cover or both.

So bad news in the draw on both fronts!!
The mission was changed for a long table edge 3 objectives mission (can't remember exactly why) . My list does not like long table edge missions so I was pretty disappointed by this especially as the game the previous day while very tactical was very much a stand off at range.
and I draw Tau again Boo. But Paul was another absoloute gentleman to play... so how did the game go? Read on....

Army
1 Ion riptide Intercept
3 Tetras
3* 8 firewarriors
2* 10 Kroot + hound
Commander helpful in a 3 man crisis bodyguard+ drones
Shadowsun with 2 man plasma unit
2 plasma unit
2 plasma unit
2*2 broadsides with 4 missile drones Intercept
Skyray

So tons of range, good outflankers / deepstrikers a very solid list ... gonna be tough!

Setup
firstly I am an idiot and forget that this is short table edge setup D'oh
I win the role for objectives and put one in an LOS building on the far right side   A
Paul puts his diagonally opposite in a building (near left side) B
I put my last one on the near right side behind a big high hill C

Powers: Pauls warlord gets no scatter deepstrike (great for this mission), my warlord gets nothing good again (redeploy)...he needs to get with the programme and roll well for once! Unfortunately my Spiritseer also flubs again enervate and conceal - both pretty useless against tau.

I win the turn to go first the baron saving me once again.
I take the near end of the table and my view is something like the image below red squares show where the objectives were.

I set up my Wraithguard and Wraithseer behind terrain out of range of  pretty much all guns. Statement being this objective is MINE :)
The warriors take the top level of the building with objective B and the Wraithknight backs them up.
The Hornets and walkers outflank and the spiders deepstrike.

Paul sets up all his broadsides out of LOS with some firewarrior buddies, the riptide and Skyray hangout around the LOS terrain as well.

Turn 1
First turn I shuffle around but nothing much. Paul steps his Riptide forward a little and boosts his tetras down the right flank. End of turn. ooh exciting

Turn 2
All of my reserves show up (this is bad this early) . My bikes all hide / stay back on my baseline the hornets, warwalkers outflank to shoot at the Tetras. The Warpspiders however have an awful time finding anywhere that is even moderately useful and moderately safe. In the end I have to deepstrike them in high risk locations . Fortunately for me the Broadsides SMS's only kill a handful and the riptides large blast scattered off. Whew.

It took the combined fire of the Warpspiders / Warwalkers and Hornets to kill the 3 tetras. Awful rolling but got there in the end (48 S6 Bs4 shots) So first blood for me. The other warp spiders scattered a bit too far and had a few pot shots at the side armour of the Skyray 1 pen, rolled a 1 damn would have been nice to destroy those missiles oh well! They do manage to jump away but only 2 make it behind a hill for safety

As expected Tau guns are pointed at the only unit in the Tau half of the table and blast all but the 2 hidey warpspiders away. A small squad of firewarriors comes on the board edge to try and kill the warpspiders but they have a charmed life.
Down my end of the table the Tau's reserve rolls are poor but the 2 kroot units and the 2 man crisis suit team turn up (shadowsun & the commander stay off) I'm not sure if that is good for me or not. Pauls kroot come on the left flank between the warriors, spiders , warwalkers and hornets.
The first kroot squad fluff killing warp spiders - revenge will be sweet! The plasma crisis do 4 pens on the warwalker squad killing 2 of them). the second kroot squad crowd around the crisis squad to prevent the charge of an angry nearby wraithknight.

Turn 3
With no reserves and little movement I am all of a sudden I am faced with a wall of kroot. The remaining war walker, kills a bunch of the first squad who break and run, this opens up the charge lane for the Wraithknight who looks pissed that his little buddies got blasted he subsequently flings them around like the little suits they are one of them does get off a double 6 to put a wound on him though git! The warpspiders showed the second squad how dakka works, then charged the remnants of both squads and wiped them out. This was actually a bit of a tough call as I was in charge range of both broadsides and I could have taken both of them out with some luck as they were very strung out. The kroot were scoring though so I went for them, but I regreted not taking the chance.  The warpspiders in the top corner also charge the little firewarrior squad (I forgot to shoot them) 1 dies from overwatch and the other falls over to a single wound.

The broadsides start to make the long walk into range of targets.
The skyray takes a few shots at the Wraithknight and does nothing. The crisis team drop in and shadowsun and her crisis team do the same... Shadowsun and crisis manage to kill both hornets and the warwalker (ouch). The commander and his squad do one better and kill the Wraithknight. Which he was anticipating and I certainly wasn't 12 shots needing 6's to wound, he did have monster hunter but he hit with everything and rolled 5 6's on his first batch of shooting. Damn it I had great plans for him!! The warpspiders are reduced to just a few models too by broadside fire.

Turn 4
As my left flank starts to collapse I start the wraithseer over to that side (should have done it last turn) with FNP up. My remaining warriors, and 2 bike squads prepare for the charge.. tau are crap in combat right??

I have no ranged shooting now aside from the wraithseer who puts his D cannon on the commanders head, it scatters away hugely though.

In the charge I lose 2 of 4 warriors in Overwatch. The bikes have chosen their angles well and can't really be overwatched with more than a handful of shots and they all make it into combat . The bikes /warriors who charge shadowsun do almost nothing. The Warriors are picked on and die but the bikes holdfast. In the other combat The bikes have chosen a great charge angle a crisis suit dies . I pass my saves.... the commander passes his leadership test on an 8.... oh that would have been awesome oh well.  He hits and runs out of combat.
The last unit of crisis suits lands in front of the wraithguard realising there really is nothing else for them to do.

The Tau commanders unit takes down the bikes and the last of the warpspiders with some help from the broadsides. The other broadside unit fires at the wraithseer  with snapshots does 2 wounds, I fail both and then fail both 4+ FNP. Colour me unimpressed with my dice!
In the combat shadowsun and the bikes fluff at each either with no wounds (hold fast my friends the wraithseer is coming!!

At the end of this turn Paul has one objective safely, I have one objective safely and neither of us have a chance of getting the last one unless my bike squad gets saved by the wraithseer. I have first blood, he has linebreaker and I have no chance of getting line breaker. So I think that makes for a tight game. The

Turn 5
My Wraithseer realises that the commander is closer than shadowsun and much more likely to make the charge as its 8 inches open versus 9 inches through cover . I dither a bit about whether to give him fleet or FNP(it would have been a no brainer if he had 4 wounds!!) I go with the latter. First though the DCannon gets another go , and scatters 6 inches (at least it kills a drone). I then face overwatch from the unit (1 crisis, commander and 3 drones. He does 2 wounds with the plasma (double double 6 -GRR) I then fail both of my 5 up invulns and fail both my FNP. Wow Epic fail. He had such a great chance of getting me warlord there via challenge or via killing everything else. I am disappoint.
The Wraithguard put a full volley of 10 wraithcannon into the 2 man crisis team (in cover) and kill...1.
WTF??? seriously annoying.  So I charge them, kill them and consolidate back to the objective.

Shadowsun and the bikes hold out for another turn of combat.

The Tau are now faced with the daunting task of closing in on the wraithguard unit. The commander, riptide (who has been very quiet in this game without markerlights) and broadsides start heading for them. Fire from the whole lot kills one Wraithguard. Shadowsun and the bikes beat on each other again ineffectually.

Its 1 objective each and 1 BP each so a Draw (not supposed to happen in a knockout!!)  roll for the game to go on and it does.

Turn 6
with nothing to lose I try a long shot... the baron leaves the wraithguard and gets himself in easy charge range of a strung out broadside unit. if I can hit and run or win combat it leaves me with a chance of linebreaker or even contesting his primary objective. Unfortunately he fails his 2+ rerollable shadowfield save at the second attempt from 4 overwatch hits. Boo bad Baron. The wraithguard kill the nearby riptide easily this time.

The rest of the tau army close in. My saving even with fortune up is pretty abysmal and I lose about 5 wraithguard and the spiritseer.
The Bikes and shadowsun combat finally breaks with my bikes getting run down and destroyed.

End of turn 6 and it's still a draw (even if I am getting pummeled) those who play me often know I have won games with 3 models on the table!! We roll the dice and the game ends.

Hmm a conundrum.

Someone needs to win but there are no rules for same. Now I know I am not going to be able to play the last round anyway (were I to win the next game) so I said to Paul that should it come down to a decision between the two of us that I'll let him go on. I'll say here again that he was an absolute pleasure to play, one of those games where we both know exactly what the other is doing so reminded each other of the odd thing the other person was forgetting.
So we go to the head ref Rob.

Rob makes the call to play another turn, apologizing profusely but it's really ok with me, he has to do something.

Turn 7
Last roll of the dice.
My last jetbike unit turboboosts once again around the objective. Nothing can really threaten it without alot of luck (big jetpack moves) and they are well hidden. Assuming I can slow down shadowsun and the commander.

Up steps Bel Ananth and his few remaining Wraithguard. The Wraithguard go to shoot and charge the commanders unit and Bel Ananth turns on his magic flamer and follows up with the charge.

The wraithguard hit and fail to wound. They then fail their 4" charge woo hoo.
Bel Ananth takes out his AP2 flamer and bathes shadowsun and co in corruscating flames and fail to wound (wounding on 3's).  He then charges gets hit by one plasma cannon and fails his 4+ reroll. even more awesome. I really don't know what I did to deserve this!!

So that gives Paul warlord and the win.

To wind it up shadowsun shoots at the bikes does a few hits, one fails the 3+ save. And knowing the battle is lost the unit breaks and runs off the board leaving the objective behind.

So at the end of tense game where the Tau hammer certainly met the wraithguard anvil I end up being wiped out with the last roll of the dice. Paul progresses to the next round. Where he faces Adams Eldar and Tau combo.

Rob comes down to me after the game and apologises again and gives me a few extra mini prizes like cutout (DE, Tau, Space marines, Chaos, Dark angels) objectives, an oval eldar microart base and  a 20 euro microart voucher. Which was very gentlemanly of him. I just missed out on a titan (2,3,4 place prize was a dreamforge titan) but that was a nice consolation prize.

For the obectives I gave the marines one to Jacek (game 2) and the Tau one to Paul (game 4). Alan from DGG got the DA objective and Peter the conquering ETC general gets the chaos one. Happy homes for all :)

So with that I got out the tissue paper and wrapped up my models. I spent a good while watching the semi finals and wandering the floors for photos.
Reece (marines / Space wolves) v Frankie (DE - 6 ravagers)  turned out to be very one sided. Reece played well but Frankie's dice were abysmal.

Paul (Tau) v Adam (Eldar Tau) looked to be a very balanced game and I watched alot of it before having to head for my flight. Adam took the game in the end but man did it look touch and go. The matchup with Adam would have been better for me as he had little to deal with the T8 monsters/ wraithguard so was a little bit disappointed I didn't get the shot !! But I have to say I was pretty happy with my I guess 5th to 8th place finish (given I drew technically I guess that gives me 5th :P )


Anyway next and final post on the tourney will just be a set of photos of some of the beautiful armies and display boards.

Ciao for now!

Congratulations to the ETC team Ireland 40k

5th at the ETC  with a tiny competitive player base... just too awesome for words

Golden Throne Game 3

Roll up Adam and his mighty Tau!

Adam and I have played twice - once when my tyranids thrashed his space marines and once when his new tau thrashed my old eldar. So this is the big decider... who will take the top spot in group 6 with 3 wins and progress to the knockout stages and who will be duking it out in the Repechage one day event on Sunday! This is 2 weekends ago now so Adam if you are watching... excuse the slight haziness  :)


Mission
Dawn of War, 5 objectives big guns never tire

Adam's list
Iridium Commander with plasma / melta warlord
2 bodyguards with plasma
Ethereal
3 Fire warrior squads
3 pathfinder squads
3 Riptides (burst cannon SMS, intercept, skyfire)
2 hammerheads with SMS and Ionheads.
Eldar Farseer (guide, presience and ignores cover)
2* 3 jetbikes
Aegis defense line

Warlord got, I think, no scatter deepstrike

(my warlord trait was stealth I think so woo hoo. stealth against 18 pathfinders... that'll be useful!! I also got no useful powers on the spiritseer - again!)


Setup
Good terrain with 1 building either side, lots of rubble and big manufactorum that blocks LOS in the middle.
Objectives were deployed as follows...
Objective A  far deployment zone left of center in rubble
Objective B Mid table left of center field beside manufactorum in open
Objective C Mid table near side of manufactorum in open
Objective D Near deployment zone far right side in rubble
Objective E Near deployment zone left side in a buidling

First turn is won for me by the Baron.. thanks mate and I choose to go first and setup first.
Adam deploys his Aegis on the far left corner
My warriors deploy on objective E on various levels of the building
My wraithknight, Hornets and a squad of  Warp spiders deploy on right side near objective D with good firelines
The Wraithguard, Wraithseer and walkers deploy in line with the Manufactorum. The walkers scout up so that they are just about touching the manufactorum walls. A squad of warp spiders follows up.
three squads of bikes go into reserve.

Adam castles his forces behind the Aegis 3 firewarriors and 3 pathfinders accompany the ethereal and farseer immediately behind it with objective A just in front of them. The Riptides / Hammerheads stay behind the building.

I have to say I was delighted with his setup as it meant I had only to look after 2 major fire lanes, either side of the manufactorum which meant a big blind spot too. I also had more easy to reach objectives than he did. That said the Seize roll comes up... and he rolls a 1 thankfully as I would have been annihaliated if I didn't make that blind spot

Turn 1
The wraithguard and wraithseer move into the blind spot with good run moves. Warp spider A jump past the manufactorum and snipe a few pathfinders who go to ground. they then fleet out of LOS behind a wall.
Warp spider B and the wraithknight jump over into the blind spot as well
The Warwalkers replicate their buddies and unload dakka into the pathfinders beside that first squad and kill 5 of them (then dance back behind cover), the one hornet in range fluffs it and fails to kill the last few so no first blood!

Adams forces shuffle forward with the riptides and hammerheads unloading SMS's on the "hidden" warp spiders A. I lose about 5 of them with solid saving. They also stay put which is useful. With some jumps 1 riptide jumps forward down the left flank and the others shuffle back the forward one has 1 wound as his novacharge failed him (it would be the last fail for a while)

Turn 2
The wraithguard close the gap to the Tau firewarrior lines one more and the wraithseer stays close enough to keep them covered with FNP. 1 bike squad turns up and hugs the right table edge where they are safe!
The wraithknight jumps onto objective C and puts a wound on the nearby Riptide. The Warwalkers jump out again hoping to finish him off and cause just 1 wound which Adam at least has the good grace to fail - I think their days are numbered!
The Hornets finish off the pathfinder unit for first blood (woo hoo the hornets achieve
The warpspider A unit lose 1 of their number to dangerous terrain and kill a couple of firewarriors before jumping back into terrain.

Adams riptides jump clear of their lines and the wounded one boosts to spin up his Cannon. He kills 2 of the Warwalkers with ease but the last one makes a save to stay in the game. The first Hammerhead kill one of the spiders but the last guy makes 2 saves.
The other hammerhead at BS 5 courtesy of  friendly pathfinders blasts a hornet to bits and one riptides take  a hull point off the other with their SMS (out of LOS). The other riptide with some firewarrior support and help from adams deepstriking warlord/ bodyguard obliterate the warriors in the ruined building.
The Ethereal calls for some extra shooting while backing away slightly to avoid the charge (clustering up a bit though) and the entire gunline open up on the wraithguard with many shots with boosted BS but fortuned Wraithguard are TOUGH . so they just weather the storm.

Turn 3
The baron and wraithguard think they can make the 6 inch charge this turn  but they fail and are left twisting in the breeze. Gah!! They are at least now contesting objective A... and the firewarriors look worried
The Warwalker decides to devote more power to his weapon systems and takes 2 wounds from the damaged Riptide. The Wraithknight finishes him off. 1 down 2 to go!! The 2 are closing though.
warpspider B hustles up behind the wraithseer by the manufactorum. 2 more bike squads roll on and they hustle over to the right flank out of trouble again. The wraithseer goes for a glory shot with the D cannon and adams hit dice means 6 wounds on the ethereal but he lucks out and passes all of his Look out sir rolls still 5 warriors and pathfinder isn't a bad result!

The 2 Riptides wreak revenge for their fallen brother. Taking 4 wounds from the wraithknight. The last man standing in Warp spider squad A hits the dirt. The wraithseer decides that Hammerhead SMS missiles are very dangerous and takes 2 wounds, fails 2 saves and then fails both FNP rolls..Grrr! one hammerhead is ploughing towards objective E as he is scoring.
The commanders plasma immobilise the annoying war walker.
The firewarriors hustle back a little more and volley fire on the wraithguard again this time managing to mangle one of the constructs with pulse fire and one small squad sees off the 2nd hornet. Both of his bike squads come on in the corner behind the Aegis.

Mid game and the game is in the balance. I feel I have a slight edge in positioning but the tau are getting an upper hand in the firepower stakes for sure. Quite a bloody game so far and looking to get worse!

Turn 4
Ok so time for the baron and co to get to work. They do an admirable job and smash the remnants of a firewarrior squad and a pathfinder unit aside. The aegis is starting to look a little unmanned! They also get to watch as Adams hit dice helps out the wraithseer once again this time sucking the ethereal to his doom and taking more of the squad with him.
The Wraithseer blasts one of the commanders bodyguards aside but the warwalker fluffs his shooting aside from 1 wound on a Riptide. The warpspiders bide their time as a free safety should anything come to tackle the blind spot. My bikes move into position to threaten Objectives B C and D

1 hammerhead moves onto the objective and takes a wound off the Wraithknight. the second hammerhead moves towards midfield.
The commander tries again to blast the warwalker apart but this time the invuln save does it's work and he survives

Turn 5 
Squeaky bum time as always with bikes on the board in objective games!
The Wraithknight takes 2 wounds off the nearest riptide leaving him on just one. The Warpspiders jump out between a hammerhead and a Riptide.The Wraithseer opens up with his Dcannon which hits again but only glances. The warpspider choose to finish it off and then jump back onto objective C.
The wraithguard smash aside the last defense at the aegis they then move onto objective A with the consolidation move. The Baron goes off hunting the last pathfinder squad and associated farseer nearby kills a couple but they stay put.
The 3* 3 bikes decide that objective D is the key so cluster around it to make it impossible for Adam's bikes to take it.
At the end of my turn I hold objective A (wraithguard), D(bikes) and C(Wraithknight). The warpspiders surround objective B and Adam has objective E due to the surviving Hammerhead.
But it's adams time to shine now...

The commander and co finally kill the remaining immobilised warwalker
The Riptides lay into the warpspiders and Nova charge to super jump.
One riptide jumps up to contest objective C
The bikes split up and one manages to contest D ... apparently I didn't protect that properly!
The other lands on objective A to contest.

End of turn and Adam has contested 3 objectives, one is neutral and he is holding 1..... I have Line breaker as does he and First blood to me... So Adam in winning position.


The dice rolls high and bounces.....


bringing up a 5.

I live to fight turn 6...




Turn 6
The wraithguard take vengence on the bike squad for their temerity of denying them their target. The Baron recharges the pathfinder squad again (he hit and run last time) killing 2 again but they pass leadership again
A bike squad flies towards the heavily damaged Riptide and puts a shuriken blade right in the eye socket so it crumples to the ground. The remaining warpspiders put some dakka into the undamaged riptide who takes 3 wounds. (good rending).
The wraithknight and other bikes kill the 3 bikes defending objective E
No bikes to contest this turn Adam!! what now?? I am holding A D and C again

Adams riptide powers up his nova but damages himself for the first time in lots of turns... ready for another big jump, to try even up the objectives again The commander kills the wraithknight, the riptide kills two bikes  and then super jumps to contest but only rolls 6"  1,1, 2, 2.  so falls way short ( he would have needed about an 18" jump so it was a big ask but disappointing result.  The bikes also pass their test to add insult to injury. The baron kills 2 more pathfinders but they pass again.

With that the game ends.

The undamaged hammerhead takes objective E and Linebreaker
The wraithguard take A, The bikes take D and C and the warpspiders hang out at B
The Baron takes linebreaker for me and I get first blood

Final result 11 - 4 to me but it felt a hell of a lot closer than that.


Thanks to Adam for an awesome game which was just cracking fun all the way through!
With that I moved on to the knock out rounds and up next was another Tau list... but more on that Anon.

happy hunting :)

Golden throne Game 2

With the first fun game behind me I got to meet Jacek another fine gentleman. Jacek likes AP3 alot....

His list was an angels of death list with Blood angels and dark Angels It was something like this...

Drop pod 5 man squad meltagun
Drop pod 5 man squad meltagun

Drop pod 10 man squad 2 meltaguns

Drop pod 10 man squad 2 meltaguns
Drop pod 5 sang guard

4* Helios platform missiles
4* Helios platform

2* devestator squads missile launchers

1* plasma cannon devestators

2 librarians with presience.

Landing pad

Setup Long table edge, Kill points

First big roll of the game I get protect on the shadowseer . I get exited and forget to change out enervate for conceal Doh... forgetting about those plasma cannons who care less for a 2+ save.

Turn 1 

I win first turn and give it to Jacek this leaves  me with the table end with the big LOS blocking building. He gets 2 buildings and the landing pad at his end. He sets the landing pad up about 12 inches into his deployment zone and the BA devs/DA devs and all 3 helios setup around it with his warlord and other librarian nearby to cause annoyance with their prescience! 

I setup very deep myself leaving Jacek's army out of range turn 1 and hiding a good portion of my army.

the warwalkers, hornets, bikes and 1 warp spider unit go in reserve.  

Jacek takes a long look at the board and says hmm you are a good player aren't you? Smiling. He then decides that his drop pods have to drop deep in his own zone as putting them into my forces will just mean they will be eliminated.  I respond by telling him I now know I'm playing a good player too as dropping in would have been suicide.

Protect fails to go off which is very disappointing as I was planning on walking up the middle... instead I have to retrench to stay out of range of that ferocious amount of AP3

Turn 2 

With still few units to fire at no real damage is done. One dev squad rumbles forward and plinks at the wraithknight to no effect and the plasma devs run forward to try getting into range (but bring an LOS unit into play). the remaining droppods arrive and cluster together on the right flank... one scatters quite a long way forward.

Realising that this game is going to be cagey and that first blood may even win it I roll my reserves.

The hornets and bike squads hide and  the  warwalkers go for broke at the limit of their range to try and kill a drop pod. Warpspiders dropping in my own zone scatter 11 inches and are left fractionally off the board.... they then roll a 2 and are placed right in front of my opponents army.

the Helios open up with a thunderous fury and kill 7 of the 8 (about average but could easily have gone the wrong way). Whew!!!

The wraithguard move forward with Protect up and stay out of line of sight of the plasma cannons.

The Warwalkers wreck the Drop pod as expected and then scoot back behind the building (bar one who promptly gets a scatter laser blown off by the devestators) . This is pretty game defining and means that in his next turn Jacek is going to have to come for me.

Turn 3

Jacek's marines start hoofing it up the board and everything he has unloads at the wraithguard killing a solitary one (2+ rerolls are awesome) He then charges them and although I was expecting a win it turns into a slap fight as the Blood angels make 4 FNP rolls. 

In my turn the slap fight continues with no deaths. The wraithknight and warwalkers (dancing once again) kill a few marines from the 2 10 man squads.

Turn 4

Again with most of my army  out of range and 2 other squad of marines joins the fight in the center. 

Again this is a slap fight with no deaths. this time however I am in a position to hit and run. leaving his units in the open. 

In my turn I kill the sang guard so no more feel no pain for nearby units which subsequently get gunned down / reduced to a handful of models. The Wraithknight does fail a 5 inch charge to finish them off.

Turn 5

In a last ditch effort Jacek fires everything at the wraithguard unit and does eventually manage to kill the baron (1 for look out sir, 1 for save and 1 for reroll save -nice work dumbass!!) He then follows up with a charge but loses the combat as there are so few marines left. 

At this point with my end of the table secure and with my Wraithguard ready to run rampant in his lines + a decent lead in kill points Jacek decides to shake on it.

Summary:

Very cagey game which just about went my way, one of those games where getting ahead early gave you a huge advantage, further emphasised by the point from first blood. Jacek was a smart player and made the right calls but the dice fell my way. Also playing long table edge with tons of intercept with a foot and deepstriking list is a royal pain in the ass. 

MVP's this game would have to be the warwalkers again as they got me that early lead. The Spiritseer and his 2+ generated save was pretty awesome too though as it allowed me to threaten the angels lines.

So 2 games and 2 wins - pretty happy with that as again this was a tough matchup. Next round I get to play Trip Riptide Tau against Adam, who I trounced once with Nids on marines and he trounced me once with eldar on new tau.... how will the decider roll 

Golden throne gt Intro and game 1

With very little planning and less play testing I rocked up to the golden throne tournament in pleasanton California.

The venue was the Alameda county fairgrounds ... Quite a spacious hall with lots of tables. 32 gaming tables and 32 more between each so that everyone has a place to put their stuff. Very nice touch.

The event was managed by rob who did an awesome job!

The basics of the event were as follows...
2000 points
Double force org
Allies and fortifications
Forge world approved allowed
No forge world army lists
Book missions

64 players broken into 8 groups
3 games each day
Win all 3 games day 1 to go into knockout day
Day 2 for everyone else was a reppachage tournament

I had never played in anything like it but was actually very impressed. It made every game nailbiting.

First off my list.
Wraithseer
Spiritseer

Bel Ananth of Mymeara

9 Wraithguard

3* 3 jetbikes

2* Hornets

2*8 warp spiders

Wraithknight

Baron Sathonyx

10 kabalites with splinter cannon.

Overall I was comfortable that this army could put up against most things pretty well. the only things I was really afraid of were lots and lots of Ap 3 especially with ignore cover.

In my first game I was drawn against Keno - who is very familiar with this army as he actually painted most of it!! 

Keno was playing with a Slaanesh noise marine army (Ap3 and ignores cover blastmasters!) His army was a work in progress using sanguinary guard as the basis for his noise marines and lots of gold and purple base colours.  On the plus side eldar do Hate slaanesh :)

He has grand plans for how this will end up and I am sure it will be spectacular.

Kenos army was something like

Slaanesh lord on bike

3*10 blastmaster units

1* 5 man blastmaster unit

Vendetta with company command

Guard platoon with lascannons

3* lascannon sabre platforms

Aegis defence with comms relay.

Heldrake * 2 with baleflamers

Mission was Vanguard strike 3 objectives

Setup.
Nothing interesting with my powers, conceal and enervate both pretty much useless
I setup with my warwalkers skirting the big LOS blocker in the middle. and the wraithguard and wraithlord slightly left of center. Warpspiders both deepstrike and the hornets do too.

Turn 1
I go first in night fight conditions the warwalkers jump out and fleet back behind the terrain killing a few noise marines including one blastmaster in the process. The wraithguard power forward 11" with fortune up and spread out... the baron leads the way. The wraithlord plinks one of the sabre platform and the wraithseer kills another. the last one breaks and runs away (ld7) for first blood. Good start!

Keno's blastmasters and lascannons respond by targetting the wraithknight (loses 2 wounds) and kill 1 wraithguard. Everything stays pretty much hunkered down and readies their weapons.

Turn 2
In reserves my bikes stay off (due to Keno's master of the fleet) and one of the warpspiders jumps in on the right flank close to a 5 man squad. They manage to kill another blastmaster and 2 marines from the squad. They then jump behind a wall to save retaliation.
The Wraithguard power forward again and are now standing about 5" from the enemy lines - looking menacing. The wraithseer follows them firing his D cannon as he goes. A rent in space time opens catching the Chaos lord and his closest aides killing them. Great job wraithseer!  This takes the counter punch capability from the chaos infantry and gains warlord!
The Warwalkers do the dance of doom again and kill 6 marines including 2 blast masters.... you might even think I was targetting them

everyones favourite time of the game... when the reserves get rolled for Hell turkeys....

They both arrive thanks to the comms relay as does the vendetta. The vendetta kills a few warriors on the left flank (sitting on my home objective. The right flank turkey kills 7 of the 8 warpspiders but the remaining one looks very focused....  The left flank turkey kills 2 wraithguard. The Blastmasters take 2 more wounds of the Wraithknight.

Turn 3
the second warp spider squad arrives behind the right flank turkey and the hornets hove in on the rear of the vendetta.
The wraithguard and wraithknight charge the guard blob clearing the platoon from the objective. The warwalkers work around the hill to get behind the other turkey they open up and the twinlinking of the starcannons proves very useful as it pens and kills the Helldrake.

The warpspiders including the survivor focus on the right flank Helldrake and do exactly nothing (for some reason my warpspiders just don't like shooting at aircraft and damn the statistics - no hits at all!) The Hornets have slightly better luck vector putting 2 glances on the vendetta.


Keno is on the ropes but hes is not done yet. the turkey blasts the wraithguard squad killing 4 and the remaining noise marines train all fire on the wraithguard and the warpspiders killing most of them. He also tries a very aggressive drop with the flamer toting platoon command to try and clear my Kabalite warriors from the objective but scatter too far away to do damage.



Turn 4.
The wraithknight charges a 6 man squad of  noise marines and takes 2 krak grenades to the face. while killing only one - the wraithknight is left on one wound. The wraithguard decide to try for the left hand objective but roll a 2 on difficult terrain so charge a remnant squad of marines and the master of the fleet. Killing them instead.

The hornets and the kabalites open up on the platoon command killing them to a man.

The hornets take down the vendetta and the warwalkers (Heading into MVP territory for sure) manage to put 2 glances on the surviving helldrake... the warpspiders manage a solitary hit to take it down ... at least someone seems to have learned how to point their gun skywards! They then jump back on the right flank objective to contest.

Keno's remaining undamagedsquad takes umbrage at their temerity and blasts them into oblivion. A lone remining blastmaster also tries to kill the wraithknight but fails to wound for the first time. (Keno showed a very amusing ability to scatter every single time but just scatter 4" so hitting anyway)


Turn 5
In turn 5 the wraithseer and wraithknight clean up the remnants around the aegis area to claim linebreaker and the wraithguard head back to the objective.
The warwalkers again do their merry little dance and blast 5 marines from the remaining squad, being fearless they stay where they are.

The last remaining blastmaster tries again to kill the wraithknight but scatters away for the first time.

With only a sole remaining troop and the wraithknight and the wraithseer closing in angrily keno decides to call it at that.

MVP - The wraithseer just loses out here as his FNP, linebreaker and warlord were a massive contribution

A win for this odd hodgepodge of a list which I am pretty happy with and a tremendously fun game with a gentleman of a player. I roll on to round 2 where Jacek and his Helios await... find out how that goes on the next blog post :)

Golden throne GT: a test run

I am currently visiting the bay area in california and as I am here next weekend two I decided I would sign up for the Golden Throne tournament. So I brought my toys with me transatlantic once again (I don't know if there is many armies out there with more airmiles than mine).  I dropped up to my good friends at Frontline gaming to see if I could get a game in with anyone who was about.

So first a few things about the tournament. It is 2000 points double force org and allows forgeworld 40k approved. So writing a list is a litle convoluted as you just have sooooo many options to choose from.
I am also expecting some horrendous cheese at this but given I will unlikely be able to play through all 7 games (I have to hop on a flight to San Diego on Sunday evening) it doesn't really matter to me.

I'll bring a good list and just hope to have some fun.

So after rocking up to frontline gaming Frankie said he would fancy a game himself.

Being a proud cheesemonger of chaos he decided to bring just about my worst match up and most peoples worst nightmares.... 6  helldrakes in one list!! supported by 4 cultists, Abbaddon (warlord) 3 oblits and a chaos lord on a bike (for abaddon slingshot) and a comms relay.

My list is
Bel Ananth (mymeara farseer who is expensive but comes with fortune as a default)
Wraithseer with D-cannon (forgeworld also)
Spiritseer
9 Wraithguard
3* 3 bike squads
3 warwalkers (scatterlaser / starcannon mix)
2 Hornets with shurikens)
Wraithknight
2* 8 warpspiders
Baron sathonyx
10 DE warriors with splinter cannon
Ravager with disintegrators

so a list that can generally deal with either ignore cover or mass ap 3... however both together is not cool. baleflamers and vector strikes are not my friend!! It is also quite a mixed bag of units but heh that means lots of tools.


Pregame:
I win sides and first turn and it is not night fight.
Spiritseer powers are a bit lame so switch to conceal  and keep enervate (-1S)
My warlord trait was deepstrike in 6 is no scatter ... don't remember Frankies but is abaddons standard one.
Mision is 3 objectives Vanguard strike.
I set up my wraithguard unit and IC's in the middle - wraithseer and wraithknight on left flank, ravager in building in the corner and warriors in a 3 layered building. - spread out my little friends!

frankie sets up with 1 unit of cultists and the oblits/ abaddon / bike lord in the center.

First turn
Ravager, wraithknight and wraithseer target abaddon and co. Good saving from Frankie means only 1 oblit dies (to the D-cannon), 1 wound to abaddon. Hmm not so good.
I also move up in the center. Putting abaddon in charge range at about 16 inches (he has the bike lord so this isn't far) I am hoping that he either fails the charge or I challenge out either the lord / abaddon and lose a few wraithguard but then slingshot onto the comms relay.

Frankie does indeed charge with Abaddon and co.
I put another wound on an obliterator on the way in and frankie rolls just 4" which is just enough to both keep him in and enough to keep my spiritseer out of combat BOOOO. So the baron has to accept the challenge of the lord (putting 1 wound on him) and abaddon gets to go all smashy on the wraithguard killing 5  and the spiritseer (first blood) eek!.
On the plus side the tactic isn't a complete fail as I hit and run to beside the comms relay as planned and abaddon and co. are in the open in front of my army.

Turn 2
reserves 1 warpsider comes in (the other came in too but had a mishap back to reserves), The hornets and 2 bike squads.

Warpspider 1 deepstrikes in beside bel ananth and they open up on abaddon... killing 1 wounded oblit, the hornets add their fire and do 1 wound to the other oblit. The wraithcannon hits and wounds abaddon but he makes his invuln, the Dcannon scatters off .
The dissie ravager then steps up.. does 8 hits and then rolls....1 wound...  BAH!
At least abaddon has the good grace to take that 1 wound to the face. So after all that shooting I did 3 wounds - nice work guys! I'm sure Abaddon is bemused by the woefully arranged fire power!

Bel ananth, the baron and the remaining 4 wraithguard charge the cultists killing them... so at least no rerolls for the 6 helldrakes.

In the chaos turn 4 helldrakes turn up and 2 cultist units (who head for the comms relay area). 3 of the drakes vector strike the wraithguard killing the troops but the 2 characters survive. 13 wounds rolled up so good saving by the baron / bel ananth. Frankies vector strikes were hot the entire game as well.
The helldrakes then flame the warpspiders 3 times killing them all ( 1 uses demon forge and takes a wound) and the final flamer is put on bel ananth and the baron doing 2 wounds.  Unfortunately the baron fails his rerollable 2+ but heh he made about 10 saves this turn so not terrible.

Abaddon and his bike lord buddy decide they can take on the wraithseer who flames them on the way in putting another wound on the lord. The wraithseer challenges out abaddon and proceeds to cleave him in two with his wraithspear.  Warlord earned. The lord on a bike stays in combat but looks very nervous...

Turn 3.
Warpspiders 2 show up and deep strike in beside bel ananth who joins them. They do 1 hull point to the nearest helldrake in the rear. The last bike squad and the warwalkers also show up. The warwalkers do a few hits but no hull points and the hornets fail to hit at all.
In other shooting the wraithknight penetrates a helldrake but rolls a 1 for a stun (at least he failed his ignore stun roll)
The ravager hides behind a building as he has no targets.
In combat the wraithseer rips the chaos lord in half easily and moves off towards the comms relay.

Chaos turn - the 2 remaining helldrakes and last cultist unit turn up and vector / flame warpspider 2 to death.
The stunned heldrake vector strikes the warriors and kills 3. The remaining heldrakes each head for a bike squad. all 3 demon forge and kill all 9 bikes... uh oh looking light on troops now.
Bel ananth is still alive after all the warpspiders get killed around him.. charmed life! he then gets charged by the cultists and in the ensuing challenge nothing happens. Fortunately Bel Ananth is surrounded so the other 2 units can't charge him as well.


Turn 4.
The wraithknight and wraithseer head for the cultists  (getting behind the helldrakes) . the Ravager gets rear arc on another helldrake as do the Hornets. Both Hornets, the 3 warwalkers and the ravager put 1 hull point on the heldrakes between them. The wraithknight also gets another pen. but once again rolls a 1.
The Wraithseer carries on down the middle and kills a few cultists with his d cannon. Bel ananth and the cultists slug it out again this time bel ananth kills him so an open space allows for another charge.
The wraithseer also makes a charge and kills a unit of culitsts.

Chaos turn 4.

The warriors get vector striked into oblivion - I am now officially troopless.
The  warwalkers  are also killed off as 4 of the helldrakes leave the table.
A second squad charges bel ananth but he challenges again killing that champion.


Turn 5
Wraithseer kills off another cultist squad and  Bel Ananth survives another round of combat with the last remaining unit of cultists. The

2 remaining heldrakes leave the table and all 4 returning ones vector strike and flame the wraithknight... they do just 5 wounds so he stays alive. Chaos only have 6 troop models left at this point and all of them are in combat away from objectives.


The turn ends and the dice roll throws up a 1!!

The eldar actually manage to claim a victory as I have Warlord and linebreaker versus first blood for Frankie.

Good fun game against a fun player in the end but I really have no great desire to play 6 heldrakes again next weekend!

Iyanden Supplement first battle report. Menenshamesh

I was actually pretty pleased with the Iyanden supplement overall. The fluff was great, good imagery and some solid rules. I would have loved to have seen a force org change for wraithlords but you can't have everything!

The themed missions looked like alot of fun so I challenged a good friend and solid adherent to the Demon Tzeentch to a Battle for the world spirit of Menenshamesh.

First off both players brought lists that were fully in the spirit of the mission.

Iyanden warhost 2000 pts.
Wraithseer (Warlord)
5 shadow council
10 wraithguard Dcannons
5 wraithblades (axes)
5 wraithguard D scythes
Wraithlord
Crimson Hunter
2 wraithknights

My opponent played a full Tzeentch list.
Fateweaver
2 tzeentch demon princes
3 squads of 9 screamers
3 full squads of horrors
2 squads of 3 flamers
2 tzeentch soul grinders


The world spirit was set up in the middle of my deployment zone and I had to keep my shadow council members within 6" of the center to try and clear the taint. So tzeentch knew where I would be.
I set up with the everything towards the center except for the wraithknights who were flanking.
With 2 soulgrinders and presience available I knew I would likely lose a ton of wraithguard first turn.

But capricious fate stepped in and I stole the initiative :)

The wraithknight and wraithseer stepped up to the challenge and between them killed one soul grinder (and a few screamers) But the real winner in this turn was the world spirit who both A) was cleansed of 1 of its 6 points of corruption and B) caused the planet itself to crush the other soulgrinder in the blink of an eye.

The demons all rushed forward their sweep attacks clearing out most of the wraithblade squad. The spiritseer barely survived taking 1 wound but looking out the rest.  The warpstorm table (which had a reroll to encourage a tzeentch related impact) did nothing. The reroll caused the impact to me to be lessened which was a general feature of the game. The spirit was not healed in this player turn

Turn 2
The wounded spiritseer was renewed and the nearest screamer squad was enervated (-1 S) so both wraithlord and wraithseer stepped up to smash them into oblivion (the seer and lord can't be wounded and would be  instant killing the screamers.  I decided to shoot a d cannon at them first and it scattered 12" onto my wraithlord, rolled a 6 to wound and thereby instant killed him Capricious fate thou art a fickle thing!
The wraithseer killed a few of the screamers.
the wraithguard unit managed to kill a good few of the second screamer squad
The Dscythe squad managed to do 16 wounds including 4 instant deaths to the 3rd flamer squad but the saving was super so only 3 died (just enough for me to fail a charge - damn you tzeentch!)

The worldspirit was healed but didn't crush any unit this turn.

The demons wrath unfolded with the flying monsters coming in  and unleashing psychic shrieks and balefires. they also dropped a portal glyph. this reduced the wraithblades to 1 (charged by , the d scythes and killed 2 spiritseers. leaving me with just 3 in the wraithguard squad.  It would now be considerably harder to heal the world spirit. the wraithseer did kill off the 1st screamer unit.
The wraithknight
On the plus side the remaining wraithguard were protected (+1 armour save) and had a 4 or 5 up deny the wych.

Turn 3  the crimson hunter turns up and lays into a demon prince. bringing him down to one wound but failing to kill him.
The leftside wraitknight shot, hit and killed the Lord of change (S10 instant death)
The right wraithknight shot, hit and took the last wound from the other demon prince.
The wraithguard wiped out the second screamer squad. and the wraithseer charged the 3rd screamer squad who had just killed the last wraithblade. He killed 3 of them but they rolled a double 1 on their leadership test to return... damn them!
But the world spirit was watching and although not healed this turn (only 1 spiritseer was close enough) it did kill the screamers (this was definitely the right thing to do in the spirit of the game but killing the last remaining demon prince would have been alot smarter!)

the demon prince flew over close to the wraithguard and the crimson hunter took some ineffectual shooting from the horrors.

Turn 4. Everything shoots at the demon prince and the wraithseer starts to run towards him also. but prince jukes and jives to avoid all of my shooting (last turn awesome 6 rolling meant no 6's this turn booo)
I did manage to get a second spiritseer close to the world spirit and rolled well leaving it with just 2 Corruption points. World spirit didn't kill anything.

Demon prince charges the wraithguard. taking 2 hits on the way in but he saves one and the other isn't instant death for him. This pulls the spiritseers away from the world spirit.

And tzeentch with just a demon prince and a few horrors left wins the game. The help from the wraithseer and nearby wraithknight was just too slow in coming!!

Tzeentch that master planner takes the game :)


====
Overall this was a fantastic game, it changed the playstyles of both armies, was a tonne of fun and could have gone either way right up to the end. The Battle for menenshamesh is certainly one that should be played in the best possible spirit but if so you should have a really great time playing it. I certainly did

Thanks to John Stowe for an awesome game... I want my world back dammit :)

I look forward to lining up the other missions in the book v chaos pirates and tyranids in particular (that T10 2+ invuln tyrant needs to go down!!)

Stay tuned!

Running wraithblades

Wraithblades are pretty cool models. I'm personally delighted that we now have plastic wraithguard... It opens up the potential for some easy converting.

With that in mind I looked to repose some of my wraithblades purchases into running poses. 

The below images are of some  of the leg repositions I did. They are simple if imperfect.

Fig 1 and fig 2 show the angles of the cuts I made on the first conversion.

By taking the 3 pieces rotating the middle piece through 180 deg and cleaning the faces slightly I ended up with a leg with much more bend in it. 

Once this was glued together I attached it to the hip joint at a running angle

By drilling and pinning the front leg so that the toes were touching the ground i got the look i was working for as you can see in fig 3.

Fig 3 shows a second type of cut i did on another leg . this type of cut requires a little more posiioning and possibly pinning. Worked well too.

Fig1

Fig 2

Fig3

Wraithknight wraithcannon conversions

Damn I hate when you accidentally delete something... but here it goes again... Wraithcannon conversion attempt number 2 :)

I love the wraithknight model but it's pose was a bit static so I wanted to reorient the pose so it was a bit more dynamic. As a result there was a need to change how the model carried it's weapons. Now given that I was also never a big fan of the 2 weapon pose on smaller eldar tightens (those massively long guns look cumbersome) I decided to go for a double barelled look.

I achieved the end state that I wanted in the following way.

first step was to decide that I was going to add the double barrel to the left arm as the model is leaning back away from it ... looking like he is firing from the hip on the move.

I roughed the below together with some bluetack. as a design - bluetack is your superfriend when doing hefty conversions I find.

So starting components for this was to add the mounting block on the lower arm (this is designed to hold the "targeter" weapon for the sun cannon I think) that gave me a very flat even surface to work from.

I then took the 2 weapon bodies and clipped / sanded away the rib for mounting on the arm. I then aligned both blocks together and pinned them for some extra rigidity. Spend the time here to make sure they are perfectly aligned. Putting the long barrels in the square sockets helps get this spot on but note that the barrels themselves sit slightly different in the the 2 mounting blocks so be careful... I had to slightly cut the blocks to make them match perfectly and I think it was a sprue based difference ... only slight but enough to throw you off. 

On each of the blocks you can see a little dimple where the vambrace components are designed to sit. I attached the mounting block directly over the "outside" cannon body. I just thought this offset look worked better.  You can see the alignment I chose in fig 1 below. 

Fig 1 the assembled weapon mount

You can also see in Fig 1  that I still managed to mount the vambraces. One side fits as nomal and the bottom of the outside vambrace is also fine. The top side outer vambrace had to be cut to fit slightly but it glued to the mounting block / arm perfectly when clipped back at the right angles.

Fig 2 and Fig 3 below show the fully assembled arm on the

Fig 2

Fig 3 underside of complete cannon

Fig 4 below shows the 2 cannon barrels. I left these removable as allows me to swap in the Suncannon if needs be. To do that effectively and to ensure better alignment on the barrels you can just about see that the vanes are glued together between the 2 barrels. You can achieve this pretty easily as one vane set on each barrel  aligns to a horizontal plane (you will need to rotate a few times in the square hole to get the alignment spot on. Then Ijust slightly clippe both the tips of the inner and outer vane. Glued them together and used an activator to get a good strong bond. This gives much better rigidity and makes it easy to swap out the barrels.

Fig 3 Cannon barrels

Ultimately I was left with an orientation as below. I love the look and am really looking forward to adding some finishing touches to the models design and orientation including pinned arm swaps and pennants. 

Thats it for now folks but would love to hear your comments.

Expect to see this guy on the table for a battle report soon.

Heading set for wraithgate 2-7-alpha to Menshaimesh