Battlefleet Heresy- The Descent of Angels

Over the last couple months I've been working away at a new fleet for Battlefleet Gothic using the Battlefleet Heresy fleet lists (although this fleet is also mostly legal as a Chaos fleet as well). I'm playing them as Dark Angels, my favourite Legion, and they're at a stage now where they're almost entirely completed. 

As for the breakdown of what I own, I'll explain it now. The Desolator is because the Battlefleet Heresy document bases the Invincible Reason flagship off of a Desolator so that's what I built, while the Repulsive Grand Cruisers are because I'm a huge fan of the aesthetic and rules of that ship and having 2 represents the strength of the Dark Angels in their technology. 

Otherwise it's 2 sets of 2 cruisers- 2 Strike Cruisers and 2 Devastation Cruisers. This is where my ideas of the Hexagrammaton blending into the fleet elements comes in as the Devastations are absolutely a part of the Stormwing and thus built around launching boarding actions through their carrier ships and the Strike Cruisers are built for Ravenwing styles of swift engagement. Everything else in the fleet (other than the Invincible Reason as the Legion flagship) then is part of the Dreadwing, as they are my favourite of the Wings. 

My fleet list is as follows, obviously themed around being a Legion fleet with the above choices

Astartes Master of the Fleet
-1 Reroll

Desolator Class Battleship
- Space Marines

Repulsive Class Grand Cruiser
-Space Marines

Repulsive Class Grand Cruiser
-Space Marines

Devastation Class Cruiser
-Space Marines

Devastation Class Cruiser
-Space Marines

Astartes Strike Cruiser
-2 Bombardment Cannons

Soldiers of Fortune Part 2- 3rd Edition Releases

In what is possibly one of the latest follow-ups I have ever done, today I'll be talking about the 3rd edition releases for Soldiers of Fortune. These tie in with their older stuff and above all add their objective deck to the game with a few new choice options. 

Deathstroke

Deathstroke has a lot of text on his card so this will be a bit of a long one, but he does a lot. He's normally a fairly standard Free Agent (Unknown, Rival Batman) but can choose to become a Leader for SoF through the Contractor rule which then also adds Assassin 2 to all your Veterans (most of the crew). He is Assassin 3 and Veteran himself as well, meaning he plays very nicely with not only the SoF deck but also any other deck while being a great beater. Exploit the Weakness is a rule unique to him and makes it so whenever any friendly model with Assassin makes an attack within 8" (which includes himself) the enemy Effort Limit is reduced by 1. This is really good because it reduces how much they can shut you down and then increases your damage output at the same time. Technically it also affects Dodge too which is really nice with the high powered guns SoF have access to. Defensively Willpower 8 and Endurance 9 with his Defense of 5 means he takes a beating like a champ, while also having Kevlar Vest to reduce damage, Stealth to restrict when he's seen and Martial Artist to ignore Outnumber. He is also quite fast with 10" movement and Acrobat, but he also makes a free move at the start of the game from Scout. His 60mm base is awkward for placement, but he can semi-reliably get into most spots to do what he wants to do. On that note, what he wants to do is kill enemy models and he does that very well. Attack 5 and Reinforced Gloves on the card don't appear to do anything with his Weapon Master, but he also has Arsenal to attach 2 weapon upgrades after deployment so he can tailor his loadout to the enemy crew. His weapon upgrades are for 2 slots, Back and Hands, and he can take one of each. For the Back there is the Combat Bo and Modified Assault Gun options, while Hands have the Hunting Knives, Bastard Sword and Automatic Guns as options. 

Hunting Knives give Combo:Hunting Knives and the Hunting Knives profile. They're blood/stun with Sharp and Overwhelming meaning they're hard to block but not all that great in general, and compared to the Bastard Sword even Combo doesn't really make up for the difference. 

Bastard Sword gives Devastating Blow and the sword itself, which is 2 blood with Sharp and Devastating for some insane melee damage. He rolls 7 dice, 5 of which are at +1 to hit and the other 2 at 2+ with rerolls if you choose to use Devastating Blow (3+ otherwise which is still amazing) so he can quite easily destroy most things he touches. 

Automatic Guns are fairly self-explanatory with their profile, but they have RoF4 instead of the usual RoF3 (cause there's 2 of them). It also gives Instinctive Shooting which is a bit wasted on these but is absolutely brutal on the beam from his Bo Staff so that is the one interaction I would take the guns in.

Modified Assault Gun is an amazing gun profile and in most cases this is the Back option I'm taking. It gives Good Aim but also a 2 blood, RoF and Ammo 3 gun with Medium Range, Assault and Red Dot so it's great for shooting before you can get into range for combat or just to mow down low defence models from afar. 

Combat Bo is my favourite from a theme point of view but it suffers compared to other options. The Bo itself is his most consistently hitting weapon with Handy and it also has Reach, but it only does double stun so the Bastard Sword is often a better option just because it puts things down and they don't get back up. It also gives Electric Storm (situational, but still not great) and a one use Energy Beam weapon that's Short Range, Beam and Devastating with 3 blood damage on it. This shot alone can kill most things (9 blood if all 3 dice hit, but then it also has Bleed 2 for a potential 13 blood total if you double crit) but it still isn't a huge gain over just taking the Assault Gun.

Objective

Deathstroke's objective is a huge 4VP Violence objective that you have to remove the highest cost enemy model as a casualty to score. The downside is the model that scores it then also has to be removed from play, so if possible score it with your harder hitting henchmen (chainsaw prisoner, any SoF gun) or just finish them off with someone to score the VP instead of losing a big hitter mid-game. This is where the Bo for Deathstroke comes in handy because he can KO things easier than most and then cheap goons can finish them off while they're on the ground. 

Thomas Wayne Batman

Batman in a Soldiers of Fortune crew? This is from City of Bane in Tom King's Batman run, and the rules here are very similar to the older Batman crew version. It's the exact same statline but on a 40mm base, and with Instinctive Shooting replaced by Precise Blow (which is really nice on this Batman). His base profile comes with an Amazon's Sword for a 2 blood melee attack with Magic and Sharp, meaning he can choose to either KO or flat out kill models in combat (something he's pretty good at doing given his stats) but he can replace it with his guns for $300 Funding. This option gives him Rapid Fire as well which is probably slightly weaker than Precise Blow in most cases, as the guns have Assault at RoF4 so cancelling the -1 to hit and also rerolling the Strength Die is huge. Blood/Stun damage on the guns means he's less reliably killing or KOing things, and they're short ranged (although Light!) but he puts out good damage regardless with them and I personally prefer them over the sword. 

In general Batman is a pretty costly Sidekick and doesn't bring his own objective so he cuts into the effectiveness of the crew unless he's the Boss. As a Boss he has an interesting place though and fits well into the SoF stable even though he might not be the standout best of them. 

Reinforcement Pack- Malicia and Infiltrate Op

These 2 are high cost Henchmen but both are very good. I wouldn't always take both because of their high cost, but in crews with the cheaper Leaders (DKR Bane, Scarecrow and Arkham Knight) they're easy additions because of their effectiveness. It's also important to note that neither have Elite tags on them so they can both be slotted in without any specific options having to be taken otherwise. They're also both Veteran which while being standard in SoF has a few synergies with other things (Bird and Deathstroke mainly)

Malicia is really just a tank and hard to put down. She's a stun damage beater with Reinforced Gloves, and although she's attack 3 she has easy access to Venom and Titan to buff her up a lot more and put out the hurt (she comes with a Venom to start as well). Her defences aren't fantastic but Medium Armour and Venom Enrage for Invulnerability more than make up for that, as well as the fact she exists in the same faction as the Militia Medic. She won't be going down without a concentrated effort (or Anti-Tank weaponry) and this is a big positive for her. I personally would use Malicia to hunt runners and Henchmen that are more likely to score VP because she is good enough to KO most henchmen fairly reliably and can also move 16" in a turn with Audacity. If she doesn't need to hit then she can just use that movement to put markers out herself, and the board control she has is very good

Infiltrate Op is hands down the most useful model in SoF. She brings the "Hidden Radio package" I love so much, but is also insanely tough to put down and has a ton of other tricks to play around with at the same time. I've already noted the Hidden/Radio combo for ridiculously easy marker dropping wherever you want on the table, but she is also Defence 5 with Master of Stealth so not an easy model to take out in any regard. Hacking plays into the marker game as well making her role clearly defined, plus she has a pretty great gun in the Light Assault Carbine if she needs to scare off threats. Assault and Red Dot are a great combo, and a RoF4 gun with Medium Range is always nice even if the damage is only a single blood. It chips away at enemies well enough, and with 3 ammo she can shoot most of the game for just $300. Always take Infiltrate Op, she's amazing. 

SoF Plots

The 4 Plots for SoF are mostly based around having models and/or Suspects in specific parts of the board, and 2/4 trigger off of Menace objectives. The 2 Menace plots require you to have either more models within 4" of suspects than your opponent (easily doable with the movement, damage and Hacking available in SoF) for the benefit of a free piece of equipment immediately put on one model or your opponent has to have 2 or less models within 4" of your deployment zone which enables you to reduce a single enemy attack roll by one dice each turn. Secure Supplies (the first one mentioned) is far and away the better option here and I would tend to leave Threat Control at home because it really isn't hard to play around if an opponent wants to deny it. Their other 2 plots are Triangulation, needing Control objectives and to have 3 Suspects fit under an explosive template at the end of a round, and Enhanced Soldiers needing Violence objectives and more enemy models damaged or removed as casualty than yours. Both are relatively easy to achieve and play into SoF pretty well, and their bonuses are great too. Triangulation lets you move a friendly Veteran when an enemy moves into 4" of one of your Suspects once per turn, while Enhanced Soldiers can add the Overdrive objective into your hand for free at the end of every turn, which is really great for the potential it can give (free Doses or just points). I would take Triangulation and Secure Supplies (and make sure the deck is built towards them) and try and fit Enhanced Soldiers as well if the deck allows it but take generic Plots otherwise to reach 4. 

SoF Objectives

SoF objectives can loosely be described as board control in a way most other crews can't. Their Control objectives are all excellent as are the Violence (Triangulation and Enhanced Soldiers go with these nicely) and while the Threat objectives are less numerous they're also quite good. I would start a SoF deck with Cyber Attack, Global Offensive, Black Ops, Ground War, Domination and Search and Destroy as the core, plus adding in whatever else to taste. Flanking and Stake Your Claim both fit very nicely as do Catch a Bullet and They Must Know Pain (and if you notice this is almost exactly 20 cards listed, that's intentional- it's how I would run most SoF crew decks outside of Scarecrow just by changing out the last 2 options). 

On the Table- Ten Thunders and Rebels

 Hi all! It's been quite a while and I thought I'd jump back in with what I've been working on and using in games over the last couple of months. 

My first big project was a lot of basing for Malifaux to finish off keywords I had half done before. Many of these I showed off before in my various posts on Malifaux and I now have Bandit, Mercenary, Plague, Obliteration, Freikorps, Tormented, Last Blossom and most recently Wastrel completed. Over the last few weeks I've also painted and been working out the Honeypot keyword in my games which has been great fun as I play around with Ten Thunders a lot more. I'm working now on finishing painting the Foundry I own for a 4th Thunders crew and the Infamous keyword to round out my Outcasts (and get a 2nd Bayou crew) while I wait for Void Hunters and to see the Explorer's Society in full which I'm very excited for. 

I've also been working on getting my Rebels done for Star Wars Legion and other than bases, they are now finished awaiting Lando and Mandalorians in the future. I only need to paint R2D2 and C3PO to finish the lists I have to try and then I'll be moving onto Republic. 

Bushido as a Beginner- Shadow Wind Clan, 2nd Wave

Hi all! Another step of Bushido as a Beginner where I haven't actually played a game yet, but damned if I'm not going to be prepared when I do! My local game store The Combat Company got in a Bushido restock recently so I picked up a bunch more stuff for my ninjas. In fact, I picked up every option they have apart from Karapan and Dudiko who were both still out of stock! 

When the models came I was pretty eager in getting them together, but I had run out of glue so had to restock before I could get into assembly. Once this was done however, I tried to knock them out as quickly as I possibly could so they could join the rest of the bunch. I've now got them all painted up and ready to go, so here they are! 

With that the next step on my path to gaming is done, and I just need to wait for an opportunity to start playing! Hopefully I will be able to demo it to my gaming group soon enough, but in the meantime everything I own is painted so that's a plus. I'm aiming to get some terrain done soon to let me use the KKZ cards, so that will be the next update.

On the Table- Battlefleet Heresy, Necromunda, Avengers

Hi again all! Thought I'd put up another hobby post with what I've been working on lately and talk about how I've been hobbying. 

A couple weeks ago I finished up my Delaque gang for Necromunda. I haven't played it yet, but I'm hoping to set some things up once I can make it to a local club meet and give these guys a try. I really love the sneaky cloaked aesthetics of the gang and their fluff as information brokers and spies, so I had to pick them up (and add some Forge World weapons to them as well). 

More recently I've been working on a Battlefleet Heresy fleet for the Dark Angels. The Dark Angels have always been my favourite Legion, they're what I have for 40k as well (updates on that soon) and before I sold them off I had them for 30k as well. With the rules online and a few people locally building up fleets, I decided to expand into a 2nd BFG fleet and build up the Dark Angels. I've got my hands on a metal Desolator and have converted it up by removing Chaos stars and adding Dark Angel symbols (thanks 40k bitz!) to act as the Invincible Reason as my flagship, and am now waiting on the rest of the fleet before I start painting. The different playstyle alone is something I'm looking forward to compared to Eldar, and there's going to be a lot of gaming to be had once I get the fleet up and ready. 

My latest paint project has been the old Knight Models set of Avengers, plus the Hulk. While these are a fully playable list for the Marvel/DCU game they're mainly being painted to sit on my shelf and finish off my Marvel collection. 

That's been my last month of hobby, next up is more Bushido!

Warcry- Gloomspite Gits

My second post for Warcry continuing off my Untamed Beasts, today I'm talking about my Gloomspite Gits. This one is a bit different because I'll be talking about my own warband and talking a bit less about specific options, focusing instead on building a warband out of the Zarbag's Gits box from Warhammer Underworlds. I might not have the most super competitive list but it's something I've enjoyed playing and it still stands up in my games so I'm sticking with it. 

Faction Abilities

Backstabbing Mob as a generic double is ok but not really amazing, adding 1 to strength and attacks if you have another model within 1" of the fighter using the ability. It's very positioning dependent though and in most cases I'm not a huge fan. 

Barbed Net is a double for a 45 point model, and it's excellent. 3" range and on a 3+ to stop models moving or disengaging is amazing, especially if they aren't in range to attack anything to begin with. 

Boing! Boing! Boing! is the first triple on the list and is used by all Squig mounted models (but not the Squigs themselves). Similar to Pounce in the Untamed Beasts, it lets you allocate damage equal to the ability when you move within 1" of an enemy model. I like this a lot and use it often as a way to get out extra damage to whittle things down that little bit more. 

Stab 'Em Good is a leader triple, and a pretty good one at that. It adds 1 attack to every attack made by friendly models made within 6", provided those attacks are less than 3" range. Being goblins they won't be enabling huge amounts of damage in most cases, but what it does affect will be able to put out some hurt and it's basically an Onslaught bubble for just one extra dice. 

Go Dat Way! is a triple for the Squig Herder only, and it lets you make a friendly Beast within 4" take a move action. Good way to speed up your Squigs but that's about it- it is on a 45 point model though so it isn't really taking away from the rest of the list by existing, just adds an option should you choose it. 

Sneaky Stab as a quad is excellent, and can change even the most diminutive goblin fighter into a damaging powerhouse. It gives a bonus move and then a bonus attack, but also adds the value of the ability to damage allocated provided the target is within 1". This puts even regular goblins at great levels of damage, but the higher strength ones will almost certainly tear through whatever they touch when this is active (and then have 2 more actions to have more output). 

Boingrot Boss is my favourite leader option as even though he is the most expensive at 265 points, he is super tanky and is very hard hitting. Move 8 with Fly makes them quick, and 24 wounds at toughness 5 makes them hard to kill. Range 2 is great for threat range as well (and hitting without being able to be hit) at 2/5 damage with strength 5 and 4 dice you can deal out a lot of damage, which is only made worse by adding any of the abilities that affect the Boss. 

Cave Squig are the "tanky" options that you aren't paying a super high premium for. Toughness 4 and 15 wounds is pretty average but in Gits is high, and their damage output is really good. Strength 5 lets you wound things pretty damn easily in most cases, and 4 dice at 2/4 damage does the job quickly enough. They won't be tearing down champions super quickly, but pair them with a Herder and they work. 

Squig Herder and Stabba with Barbed Net are both really cheap and have good abilities unique to them, but are also both very weak profiles. Toughness 3, move 4 and 8 wounds means they are middling speed but really fragile, and their melee profile is the weakest in the entire game. They do make up for it in their abilities and just being cheap enough to fill out lists and take objectives, so I am a fan of taking one of each (although an extra net is good, it's not financially smart)

Shootas have the same profile as the 2 mentioned previously, but trade access to abilities for a bow and are 20 points more. The bow makes up for the bad profile as it lets you plink away damage a bit more while you can keep yourself safe (screening with goblins is doable too) 

Ally Options

To top up this warband using Zarbag's Gits and to use Zarbag himself, I play with an ally option from the Monsters and Mercenaries book. 

Fungoid Cave-Shaman and Loonboss are both 140 points with the same statline, they just have different abilities and weapons. Move 4 and toughness 4 is pretty standard fare in Gits, but their 20 wounds is very good for the cost. The Loonboss has 2" range and 4 strength 4 attacks with 2/4 damage which isn't quite Squig level but it's good regardless, while the Shaman is a purely ranged model and throws out 2 strength 3 dice doing 3/6 damage at 3-7" range. The Shaman has far more obvious weaknesses here as it can't attack in melee and is low strength and attacks, but it can still put out 12 damage on a double crit which is impressive. As for abilities, the Loonboss can add an absurd amount of melee attacks to every model within 6" of itself depending on the value of the ability, but it's on a quad and thus expensive and competing with Sneaky Stab (although in most cases the extra dice will be flat out better because it's a bubble). Anything over a 3+ is insane value on even the lowly Stabba, and exponentially better on good damaging models. As for the Shaman, it has a damage aura of 3" on a triple, which does a single damage point on a 3-4 and on a 5+ damage equal to the ability. If you're able to use this he isn't able to shoot, and as such is struggling so I would skip it and just use him as a shooting piece. In general the Loonboss is the far stronger option, but as Zarbag is actually a Shaman in the fluff I have been trying to make that work as well. 

With these my usual list is covered, but the Gits have a few more options to note.

Boingrot Bounder- almost an identical profile to the boss, just lacking the leader runemark and a few less stats. 4 attacks becomes 3 and 24 wounds is down to 18, but loses 45 points (a net) in the process. In all they're good options but for non-leaders on Squigs I would lean towards the Hoppers for cheaper. 

Squig Hopper and Boss are up there for some of the best objective grabbers in the game, but they've got a really steep points cost because of it. Move 10 with Fly so they can get anywhere on the table in 1 activation, toughness 4 and 16 wounds (22 on the Boss) makes for a tough fighter to threaten objectives. Their fighting is pretty good too with strength 5 and 2/4 damage, the Boss having 5 attacks and the regular ones 4. In all for 200/250 points they're both good options but I would never take more than 2 (one of which is a Boss)

Stabba, Pokin' Spear and Moonclan Boss- all 3 of these have very similar profiles, with toughness 4, movement 4 and 8 wounds (being the leader, the Boss gets 16). Both 70 point options are strength 3, with the spear having extra range and the regular Stabba having 3 dice instead of 2. The spear is slightly better despite the lower output IMO because the range can be very important with how fragile they are, and they have 1 higher damage on a crit. The Boss is ok but I would almost always lose a model and take a boss on a Squig because the versatility it gives is far higher. 

Game Day! Battlefleet Gothic- Eldar Corsairs vs Ultramarines

Hi all! Got out of the house today for a couple games of Battlefleet Gothic, getting back into my Eldar Corsair fleet. Played 2 games both using the Cruiser Clash scenario but with full rosters, first at 1000 points and then 1500. These won't be full battle reports but I'll try and say as much as possible what happens 

My fleet is fully 3d printed as should be somewhat obvious given the stepping on them (which I am a fan of for Eldar because it looks like Holofield blurring). The scheme is inspired by Craftworld Mymeara's blue/green look. I have a Void Stalker Battleship, 2 Eclipse Cruisers, a Solaris Light Cruiser, 2 Hellebore and 4 Hemlock Escorts. Also not pictured is a Shadow Cruiser as an extra option, but that doesn't go into the 1500 point list with the rest. 

First game I deployed behind the planet and used it to hide for a few turns moving back and forth doing hit and run attacks against the marines. One crippled strike cruiser from the first wave but after that dice got worse and I had to start running. I lost a few ships before disengaging though and ended up losing because I couldn't manage to damage enough. 

The second game was 1500 points, and it went a lot more badly. I made some mistakes with my early movement (the conga line you can see above) so I got trapped by the marines and very quickly disintegrated. I went on some suicidal attack runs to take out as much as I could (turns out crippled and braced ships don't do too much, who would've thought?) and in the end only a Hellebore managed to escape unscathed. 

All in all it was good to play again, it's been about a year since I last played BFG, and I'm remembering a lot of the tricks with Eldar. Also putting together a 30k Dark Angels fleet soon so I'm looking forward to that as well, should be a big difference in both aesthetic and playstyle.