Those Who Fight Monsters

As a result of The Decision, I now need to start posting about games of 40k Combat Patrol, from the magazine of the same name, that I've been playing with the long-suffering Kieron.

This is almost certainly the awkward crossover point. I've not made notes about what happened or taken photos of sufficient quality, but I've committed to posting about this sort of thing and now it's going to happen. Brace yourself. 

I used the marines against Kieron with the Tyranids for these. 

Scenario 14: Monster Hunt

Following a titanic battle, the only survivors are a Tyranid Prime and a Space Marine Captain. These warriors duel in the centre of the battlefield, fighting past their limits as a second wave of reinforcements rushes into the fray to support them.

As that exciting background text lays out, this scenario had the prime and captain already in contact in the middle of the table, reinforcements for each side in a more usual deployment zone.

We were fighting over objectives, so for all that the deployment was unusual, the game itself was pretty simple. 

Immediately, the two leaders fought each other, and were both killed - we weren't actually 100% sure on who should have counted as charging when this happened, but the result seemed fair enough.

The terminator librarian and Von Ryan's leapers both went for the objective on the objective on my right flank. I didn't actually take pictures of this part but the leapers were eventually brought down by the librarian and some crossfire from the Infernus Marines. 

For their part, the Infernus squad advanced on my left, and were pounced on by two broods of termagants.

Fortunately, that didn't seem to pose them any problems whatsoever, and the marines fought their way through and held the objective with no losses.

Despite being battered by barbgaunts, the librarian likewise suffered no damage, and so held his objective to the end.

This resulted in a strong victory for the marines, and confirmation of my tactical genius.

Onto the next game then...

Scenario 15: Alpha Strike

As yet another strange alien beast is sighted among their foes, the Space Marines prepare to launch an attack to purge the xenos corruption from the planet. But whatever malign intelligence guides the Tyranids seems to have anticipated such a move...

This scenario introduces the Parasite of Mortrex, and to make it seem effective appears to give the Tyranids a bit numerical advantage. This follows a general theme of pretty one-sided games in these scenarios, but clearly that didn't apply to scenario 14, since I won.

Things opened with the marines advancing towards the objectives on the right in a confident fashion.

On the left, the librarian was immediately the target of the psychophage, which scuttled towards him very quickly...

The Von Ryan's leapers pounced on the Infernus marines on the right, and although one leaper went down, the marines didn't last long.

The psychophage closed in on the librarian, and unceremoniously ate him in short order.

The captain now stood alone and faced off against the Von Ryan's leapers.

But with his comrades down, the captain was now surrounded...

And was cut down himself in short order.

So there you go. We won one each, and both times it wasn't particularly close at any point. 

We did also do another very short game, but I'll hold onto that for next time. Exciting stuff, eh?

40k Combat Patrol Delivery 6 - Character Study

I have made A Decision. Specifically, that it's becoming unmanageable to get all of the games played that go along with each of these posts and get the photos from them together and keep track of what actually happened. This has mainly happened because I've fallen behind the pace of deliveries, but I'd like to say in mitigation that the games can be hard to organise, and that they are getting slightly more complex as we go along. 

To deal with this problem, The Decision is that I'll post about painted models related to the deliveries of the magazine, but the games will be separate posts. There'll probably be an awkward crossover while I figure that out, but hopefully this allows me to get things under control, resolve the backlog, and bring harmony to the universe. 

Anyway, this delivery was one of the more interesting ones I think, as it gave me three characters to work on, all of which are nice models in their own right, and it also started a new faction. So let's have a look at those.

First off, probably my favourite model, a space marine Chaplain on a bike.

I had some fun working out colours for this - a couple of layers of logic applied. I wanted to nod to the Genesis chapter colours I'd already established, but those are very bright, and at the same time I also wanted to play into the very dark appearance that seems appropriate for someone going about in black armour with a skull helmet.

I resolved that by using darker versions of the colours I've already used - replacing yellow with bronze, and moving to Cloudburst Blue for the weapons. 

I used the same colour for the wax seals, so that it wasn't just a sea of black, and followed the codex rules to stick with the standard red for the shoulder with the chapter icon.

Really happy with how this turned out, but so far he's yet to grace the table in 5th edition which is where he'll be killed instantly.

Next, the Tyranids are represented by the/a Parasite of Mortrex. It's "the/a" because in 5th edition, this is a special character, but in the Combat Patrol magazine these are explicitly referred to as "parasites" plural. That certainly makes more sense, and is the justification I'll be using when I field her in 5th edition games.

Nothing much to say on the paint scheme here as it's followed the pattern of the other Tyranids. This one has been on the table in 5th edition, and was of course dead before it was able to act.

Finally, the Eldar (or Aeldari if you absolutely must) get started with a Farseer. I cheated a bit here- I was behind the schedule for deliveries so took the opportunity to try out the colour scheme on some guardians from the next set before I tackled this one. 

For when I need to remember this later and can't, the paints used here were:

White armour bits - Contrast Space Wolves Grey, then drybrushed Vallejo Sky Grey followed by Warpaints Matt White

Green armour bits/weapons - Speed Paint Orc Skin

Red armour bits/weapons - Speed Paint Slaughter Red

White fabric - Contrast Apothecary White over white basecoat

Green fabric - Speed Paint Absolution Green

Gold bits - Speed Paint Aztec Gold, then Nuln Oil

Wraithbone (blade on the spear, rubble on the base) - Contrast Aggaros Dunes, then drybrushed Vallejo Sky Grey followed by Warpaints Matt White

Lenses - Contrast Blood Angels Red

Spirit Stones - Contrast Blood Angels Red, white highlight, then Blood For The Blood God, then repeat the white highlight (little bit fiddly but I like the result!)

Not all of that applies to the guardians (coming later) but it was helpful to use them to nail down the basics.

Now that I'm not posting about the games at the same time, I don't really know how to finish, so for now I'll just sort of trail away to nothing here, as I have now done.

40k Combat Patrol Subscriber Extra - Eee, that's (a) champion

This is a very short post, but hey, it all counts!

In amongst the regular Combat Patrol magazine deliveries that I'm not entirely up to date with, there are also extra "free" gifts for subscribers. Usually these are things like paintbrushes, or a delightful mug, but there was also a model to paint in the form of a Space Marine Company Champion.

Weirdly, this came with no background, rules, or painting guide - just a single page with build instructions.

So, no mission to play, meaning it's paint and post, and I feel like I'm making some more progress!

In game for me, as I'm still mostly playing 5th edition, he's useless until I prepare the rest of a command squad... but he's done, and to be fair is quite a nice model.

So there you are. Onwards and upwards!