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

Wraithknight conversion and assembly

Having purchased a wraithknight I was super keen to get stuck in. As everyone knows this is a huge (and expensive ) model so doing conversion work on it is a little daunting but I love converting so....
I tried to do 2 things.

1. Repose the legs to a more dramatic pose ( decide on a juke or sidestep look)

2. To double barrel the wraithcannon as with a fast moving look the 2 big cannons looked clumsy

A 3rd goal of weapon swaps I have not achieved yet but bare with me. So let's start with the legs in this post

One leg is heavy and strong enough for support. I assembled and pinned that leg as designed to keep it simple and added 2 pins to ensure no rotation around an axis

In terms of advice on how to approach a leg conversion.... Firstly attach the hip connector to the upper leg not the pelvis.  I would then suggest cutting off the block at the top of the leg hip joint and then gluing that square strongly in the square hole in the pelvis. This can then be easily drilled and pinned.

This first stage allows the rotation you need to position the upper leg as you want.

The second step is positioning the knee joint. The knee piece itself has plastic pins. You can cut the lower pin off and this allows some rotation on the lower leg. If you want to go for a dramatic leg bend then you will need to trim the top of the leg back somewhat. Just use plenty of blue tack to get your positioning right before commiting the scalpal!

Once positioned just glue it up the way that you want. Given that I have positioned my right leg just off the ground i may pin that too but likely just a single pin. This also means the right leg provides some stability to the model but I was very termpted to go a little higher (I still might as I haven't glued the pinned leg yet!)

Once your legs are right spend time on the torso angles. Not a lot of flexibility here but just keep it simple and use the limited forward back and side to side rotation you do have.

Photos below give you a good idea of the work in progress.

Comments welcome :)