Shiny new Ultra Dice for the Dice God!

If you have ever played a game against me you know that I am often subject to the fickle whims of the dice gods, from failing sure thing armor saves for my captain' artificer armor rolling fives ones on five dice, to pulling off improbable first turn tank kills rolling three sixes in a row, because I had nothing better to shoot at. The dice laugh at my good generalship, or make my opponent wonder why they bothered showing up in an almost equal measure, but there is nothing wrong with trying to curry a little favor with the dice gods as any gamer will tell you and few ways are better than shiny new dice! So behold! Brand new Ultra dice, with Company coloured dice facings and Ultras on all the one faces, to make me feel slightly better when I roll low. Twenty in all are handy for a full squad rapid firing Bolters (praise the Emperor), but sadly no scatter die, so I will have to use a few others as well when hurling fiery doom across the table.

The Scouring of Vibros

Hulls Angels recently ran a “day of war”, two thematically linked games, with a 2,000 point battle for objectives followed by an apocalypse scale game. It has been a while since my Ultramarines have taken to the field, but I love the madness that is an apocalypse game, so I dusted off my codex and headed over to the club to join in.

With no lords of war and no formations, it was back to the classic force organisation chart, what is now called combined arms. One of the great things about Ultramarines and marines in general is that there are so many viable styles of play, so I decided to go with a fast list, composed of the 10th and 8th companies (Assault), with scouts in Landspeeder storms as my core backed up by three whirlwinds, a Storm Raven two Landspeeders with melta guns, an ironclad dreadnaught and 5 Thunder Hammer Terminators in a Landraider Redeemer.

For the apocalypse game I also had another 3 Vindicators and a combat squad in a Rhino for an easy 500 points.

This will not end well

Game 1 was a slog-fest against Tau in which both sides completely forgot about the objectives and tried to wipe the opposition off the board. Three Riptides were making a nasty mess of anything they decided to remove from play, but as a combined unit they were only killing one unit a turn. A very early lucky shot with the Landspeeders killed a Hammerhead and won me first blood, while my Scout Bikes advanced in a death or glory attack taking out the one unit of Tau pathfinders on turn 1, suffering the wroth of the rest of the Tau army for their trouble. It was a high price to pay for them, but made a big difference to Tau shooting in the rest of the game.

Turn two and three were largely manoeuvring while the Whirlwinds acquitted themselves well, accounting for most of the enemy troops on the board. My Terminators underperformed, denting, but not destroying a unit of Ghost Keels, the Ironclad deep struck with skies of fury, positioned badly and died to pulse rifle fire. Time was running out, so the game was called early, but a turn four flanking move by the Landspeeder Storms got me line breaker as well, leading to a narrow victory in a very tough fight.

Scout bikes on the offensive

Game 2, the apocalypse game, saw most of my forces facing off against Eldar. The three vindicators sat almost on the other side of the board, dropping an apocalypse template a turn on advancing Orks. My Scouts made an early objective grab with their scout move and managed to sit on it through the rest of the game. So much happens in an apocalypse game that spanned 5 hours that I can’t cover it all in detail.

The Whirlwinds performed well again, killing Orks, Chaos Cultists, Tau and an entire unit of Banshees the turn they were forcibly disembarked from a wave serpent until Karandras assaulted them from the rear and totaled three in 2 turns. My Captain went toe to toe with an Autarch and won, splitting the Eldar in two with his relic blade, before being shredded by return fire from Dire Avengers and Dark Reapers. Death Korps of Kreig hammered out 7 or more strength 10 large blasts a turn and the whole game was very close until the last turn, where Dark Angel bike units made a grab for the objectives and put us ahead, with 3 out of 4 possible slay the warlords, with only 1 in return and 6 of the 8 objectives, leaving Vibros safely in Imperial hands.

Back to war!

My brother recently speculated about how many vehicles I have and I was prodded into getting them all out to check. (I need a better system for this)

While unpacking cases I ran across the fuzzy void of not quite a vehicle Dreadnaughts. Dreadnaughts have always been funny to my mind as they are not fast enough to keep up with the close combat troops, not quite high enough initiative to be useful against monstrous creatures, not quite tough enough to slug it out at range with the likes of lightly armoured Eldar Falcons, or traitor marine tanks and lately not much use at tying down large squads. They do look cool, they are very nice fluff and they are not too points heavy so they do occasionally make it into my lists.

I have a couple of these guys painted and finished, but nowhere near the total number for the whole chapter and in the new Codex you can now field squads of them, which will look so much better if they are painted. I still need to base these latest additions and the large flat blue areas are a sucking void that makes me want to add more detailing, but I managed to bash out 4 dreadnaughts in a weekend, including a very nice venerable dreadnaught from Forge World.

I am still sticking with a few of the 80s/90s paint scheme elements and can’t bring myself to paint the end of a lascannon anything but bright red. They might look like lipstick, but let’s see you laugh about it when it punches a nice big hole in the side of your prize tank. Ha!

Hulls Angels Wargames club

I have mentioned in a few posts already my local Gaming club Hulls Angels. It is a fantastic place full of friendly and like minded people and is doubly worth a visit now as they have just relocated!

Their new gaming hall is larger and better equipped, 20 tables, varied terrain and some storage space for club members too. There is more soft seating, space for board games, displays including award winning miniatures.

These are the guys who keep me coming back to the hobby time after time, with loads of enthusiasm, loads of ideas and always something going on. If you are in Hull go pay them a visit. Find out more about them on their site: hullsangels.com

Slightly behind on my painting...

So, how can you tell you are slightly behind on your painting? When you have to use an entire can of Chaos black undercoat and you still have not finished! For the record today I undercoated:

• 3 Drop-pods
• 7 Rhinos & Razorbacks
• 1 Predator
• 1 Bastion
• Assorted turrets, guns, emplacements and tank parts

It does not sound like a lot, but it is a lot of square footage of plastic to cover. Right, now to make it blue...

New codex

So I finally got my hands on the new codex and there is still a lot I have to work out from it, but overall I am impressed. Apocalypse battles are my favorite part of 40K and the new book alongside the new rulebook make every game of 40k much more like Apocalypse. The book is high quality and hefty as you would expect from the newer codexes and there is a lot of material in it, but the majority will be familiar to most Space Marine players.

Doctrines have been opened up to all of the Space Marine Chapters, but with a little bit of wangling I have found that the Ultramarines can use the doctrines more far more times than their less disciplined cousins, with the tactical doctrine available up to 3 times a game! As an Ultramarine you get it once, as part of the Gladius formation you get it again and as part of a Demi-company you get it again! So just for being fluffy and thematic with your Ultramarines force and taking a balance force (as the codex decrees brother) you get a significant bonus.

I also couldn't resist picking up the card set to accompany the codex. The cards are very high quality and feel very nice. They also help me keep track of what I have and have not used and substitute in the additional Space Marine objectives to the main list.

I have started to get a couple of games under my belt with the new objective system and it is very easy to gain or lose points. How the cards fall can make or break you very quickly, with kill a psyker, manifest a psychic  power and take down  a monstrous creature all liable to appear in games without psykers or monstrous creatures.

It is a new style of play and one I think I like in friendly games. I am yet to sign up to a tournament in this edition and will be interested to see how they work.

Chapter level engagement

Behold! The largest display board GW have ever done! If you wondered what happened to the complete Chapter which was on display a couple of Games Day’s ago now you know. The Blood Oath board is the largest display board that GW have ever built, with the complete Ultramarines Chapter, multiple Titans, Daemons and Grey Knights. The whole thing is so large that a set of stairs goes around it. The room has also been set up with atmospheric lighting and sound that complement the display and highlight different parts.

One of the most impressive sections was a Warhound Titan being hit by a drop pod, although there are hundreds of unique details and scenes, with dynamic action like land speeders racing through canyons and jump troops leaping up the side of buildings. The entrance fee to the exhibition was worth it for this display alone.

To go with the display is a Warhammer world exclusive Blood Oath book, containing some background fiction and formations, including an updated 1st company formation which takes huge advantage of the tactical doctrines and a new formation for the 2nd company, the Spear of Sicarius, which you may recall as a boxed unit not so long ago. It is a nice book and has some great high quality photos of the display that put mine to shame. Of course the best way to see the board is in person, so get yourself down to Warhammer world and pick up a new Ultramarine T-Shirt while you are there!