The battle for Vogen

I don't know how many of you are familiar with this ancient volume of forgotten lore. I wasn't , until recently , since I started playing 40k back in 2002 (and certainly didn't care about alternative rules systems at the time) and Codex Cityfight was published in 2001. I came across a copy a while ago and I was  intrigued to find that the 122nd Cadian Regiment was featured heavily in this tome.

The Khai-Zhan rebellion

Khai-Zhan was a planet with great strategic importance. It was an agri world with a close proximity to Cadia (about 75 light years). It mass production of seaweed consumables meant that it kept half of the population of the Cadian Sector fed. Comprising mainly of water mass it only real city was Vogen, the only place with a spaceport.

For the last 10 years, before the event, the planet had fallen into decay. Corrupted Imperial Governor Harikon Kadulus has neglected it's people. The budget for the planet's defence was minimal and there was a  growing malcontent amongst the general population. Con artist extraordinaire von Guyen took advantage of the situation and set up covens to worship the warp. Selling false hope to the disillusioned citizens he steadily gained followers and power.

The chaos rebels consisted of deranged cultists to Night Lords chaos space marine and everything between. Also some of the planets own PDF took part in the apostasy. On the day of the governors birthday they launched a precise strike and took the  world by storm. Almost the entire city of Vogen fell but for two loyalist strongpoints, the 122nd Cadian HQ compound and the Adeptus Arbites precinct house. Although the waves of attacking cultists were vast, the Cadians were well dug in and of superior training. They hold the tide back and bought enough time for reinforcements to arrive. The building laid close to the city walls so their allies could get easily inside the city. Although the battles were furious, the rebels never managed to capture the compounds.

The regiment took heavy casualties in the first day. Only half a dozen men manage to stay unwounded but everyone kept fighting with all their strength.  By the third day the troops from the 122nd regiment were reinforced by troops from other Cadian regiments and the Imperial Fists Space Marines. They were able to counter assault and started taking the city back. The cityfighting that emerged was brutal, with death waiting on every street corner. After three weeks of attrition the apostates had been driven back to their final strongholds. With the aid of the Imperial Fists, who are famous for their siege warfare, the loyalist forces managed to breach the defences of the Palace of Peace. The planets Adeptus Arbites made the final push and the horribly overmatched rebels were cut down to a man. The Khai-Zhain uprising was over.

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This is a very nice little piece of fluff spanning five pages of the book. It's exciting hearing about my army in action. I know it's not much, but since my army hasn't got the literary wealth of , say ,  Ultramarines or Space Wolves, every little bit of information I can get is quite precious.

Fortunately the paint job on the tanks is similar to what I have done. This is completely coincidental by the way. I hadn't seen any of these pics before I painted my first tank, which was solely based on the illustrations from Imperial Armour. Here are some pics from the book that showing the GW studios122nd Cadian in all it's glory. The infantry models are the old metallic ones but the chimeras are close to the original and you can compare them to mine.

Tutorial: Scratch building a radio antenna

Very straightforward and easy technique here but it will add a level of detail on your model. Many Forge World kits come with a base for an antenna but you can also add one your self on a GW plastic tank kit if you want to superdetail your model.

You will need the following:

• Hobby Pin Drill
• Very thin drill bits, preferably 0,5 mm in diameter
• Hobby Knife
• Guitar String
• Acrylic Black Paint
• Super Glue 

You can find the guitar string in any musical instruments shop. Ask for a spare higher E string (the very thinnest). It should cost less than 1 euro. You can use jewellery wire instead (like I have in the picture above) but  I have found that the guitar strings work better for this because it keeps straight.

We start by marking the center of the antenna base with a thin pen. Make sure it's as close to the center as possible.

We make a small guiding hole with our hobby knife so that the drill stays in place for the next stage.

Using the drill, we make a small hole in the same way we would if we wanted to pin something on it. It doesn't have to be too deep so don't overdo it. Make sure you are very gentle because these thin drill bits break very easily (trust me on this, I already broke three or four).

We cut an appropriate length from the guitar string and make sure it fits nicely.

Now it time to paint the antenna. I use my airbrush because it covers nice an evenly but if you don't have one make sure that you thin down your paint a lot if you are going to use a brush. If not you will not have a smooth finish and the antenna will look lumpy.

In order to get that little ball at the top, just dip the string inside the paint pot a few times, waiting about a minute for the paint to dry each time.

At the end is should be looking like this:

                     

When you have finished painting your vehicle, put a little super glue at the end bit of the string and place it inside the hole you made in the previous step.

Voila! It's very easy to do when you get the hang of it and it will give your vehicles this little extra something. Hope you find this useful!

Battle Report VS Blood Angels 2

This is the fourth game I played this week. I haven't played so much 40k since...well my last tournamet which was in June but still it's a lot. Few days ago I faced Stefanos again in another objectives base Battle Mission which I won 2-1 and the other day I played against Vangelis (not the composer but a guy with the same name, AKA Pradator from the Imperial Seals guild) which I won 2-0 objectives in a dawn of war seize ground mission.

We rolled for Surprise Attack. This mission is particularly nasty since I have to cram all my units in the middle of the board and wait for my opponent to just come on the first turn (which he gets automatically) and blow them apart. And Stefanos learned from our previous encounters that the best way to deal with me is to include as many melta weapons as possible.

His army list was like this pretty much: Corbulo, Librarian (with lance and cover save), sanguinary priest, 10 man assault squad with 3 inferno pistols, 8 man assault squad in Land Raider with 2 inferno pistols, 2 x 5 man assault squad in twin lasbacks, demolisher, predator. So a lot of anti tank potential there.

I tried to place my tanks as best as possible but since they had to be 6'' away from each other they could barely fit on the table. And since he could come from every table edge he wanted there was no way I could place them in vantage points. I tried to cram the artillery in the middle of the table and the more expendable vehicles towards the outer rim.

Then his first turn started and moved all of his army from the table edges:

The big assault squad with the sanguinary priest landed next to my veteran squads chimera ready to blow it to smithereens. They managed to score 3 penetrating hits but the highest they could roll on the damage chart was wrecked. Veterans escaped relatively unharmed from the back door:

His other assault squad jumped off the Land Raider hell bent on destroying my HQ chimera and then assaulting the command squad inside (since it was worth 3 kill points). After the melta/las/lance fussilade he only managed to roll wrecked again. Command Squad managed to leave their vehicle unscathed but botched their pinning test. I knew officers were cowards!

On the right side of the board things were looking so rosy for me either. Predator and demolished opened fire upon the Vendetta which managed to stay alive albeit immobilised and not being able to shot next turn.

On the south side, the Platoon Command chimera somehow managed to survive but the Bane Wolf was blown up by melta power.

I felt quite lucky since this could have been much worse for me. Two wrecked chimeras, a dead bane wolf and an immobilised vendetta somehow ain't that bad. Plus the fact that he didn't manage to assault any of my squads.

When my turn came I knew I had to do some real damage. Platoon command tried to fry some space marines alive but only managed to kill one. Then they launched a suicidal assault but managed to stay in battle since they were stubborn due to the missions special rule although they lost 2 of their comrades.

Veteran squad moved back to the charred remains of what used to be their chimera. They opened up on the assault squad, aided by the awesome firepower of the Medusas.  Not being able to withstand all that carnage, the Blood Angels went to ground leaving only two of them cowering in fear.

The Hydras destroyed one of the razorbacks and I managed to destroy the predators main gun with a lucky multilaser shot on the side armour.

On his next turn his Land Raider assault squad charged into my veterans and made short work of them. Unfortunately only a couple were left and they passed their Ld check since they were stubborn which was all the worst for me since I couldn't shot them next turn. He detached his characters and went after my vehicles but to no avail. To be honest he did some abysmal dice rolls in the rest of the game. He rammed on of my tanks with the on the back side armour doing a S8 hit but then rolled a "1" for the penetration. He shot three tanks scoring three penetrating hits and managed to roll three "2"  for all his damage table results. Shot with two inferno pistols from close range to my chimera and roll both "1". It was so bad from a point on it wasn't even funny.

In the following turns my command squad shot at the combined unit that corbulo and librarian formed, killing both of them with the meltas due to instant death. Then they scraped an charge from the 8 man assault squad (by an inch). When finally the assault squad finally reached them it was much depleted (3-4 guys left) so they endured three round of close combat. In the end they managed to beat their attackers with only the company commander left. He then run away to safety so he never got the 3 kill points from him. Amazingly heroic (or lucky some would say) stuff!

His Land Raider was constantly ramming and shooting at my soft heavy support tanks but only managed to kill the Manticore in the end.

With the combined firepower of my chimeras and infantry squads I killed his small assault squads and finished off the remaining two guys from his jump pack squad.

Final result I had 15 kill points and Stefanos had 11. I couldn't believe that I manage to fluke a win since this mission was very against me. To his credit though he had some very unlucky dice rolls. We still had a fun evening gaming and that's what counts.

This is it for this week then. I'll be gone for holidays starting tommorow for a week or so. Wish everyone who is reading this to have a good one and I'll keep you updated with my projects when I get back.

311 Infantry Squad Part 1

So this is the first infantry squad of my platoon. Autocannon and 3 ordinary guardsmen. I had done most of the painting on these guys a few years back (5-6) but I did some touch ups and added weathering (armour chips and mud). One of the most difficult things in the process was cutting out the decal to form the"311" on the shoulder pad. I had to cut the "31" part from "317" on the Cadian tranfer sheet and then the "1" from "190". Aligning it all together was kinda difficult for me but in the end I think I did alright (althought some of them turned a bit crooked).
I wasn't sure how to take pictures of multiple miniatures before but I got this idea from Courtney @ Cadian 127th. That is to take each one picture individual and then stitch them together in photoshop (thanks Leah!).

                      

Story of my hobby experience.

I am not sure how many people checking this blog would be interested in knowing how I started the hobby and how it evolved for me through the years. I'll do this anyways just in case anyone is wondering.

1993 was a year that would change my life. Czechoslovakia was split into Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic, Prince changed his name to that weird symbol, Jurassic Park hit the theatres but most importantly (at least for me) I purchased my first White Dwarf. I still got the bloody thing, torn and battered sitting on my comfy couch in the following pic:

          

Battle Report VS Blood Angels

My friend Stefanos (AKA Lakaidemon from the Imperial Seals guild) wanted to play some games using the missions from the Battle Missions expansion. He wanted an opponent to play all 6 missions between the 2 armies. I was up to the task of course! Points were set at 1750 and we were going to roll for the mission each time.

We met in Athens city centre in a sweaty hot afternoon to play our first game. Terrain was set up and we rolled to play the first mission of Imperial Guard called "Prepared Assault". Well not so much prepared on the Guard side since all 3 of the objectives are in the opponents deployment zone (one pretty much in the middle of the table, one halfway between the middle of the table and opponents table edge and one that guard player chooses where to be but must stay within opponents deployment zone). Guard hates having to move and get to enemies turf so I can't see how this mission is supposed to be even slightly beneficial for us. Anyway we took turns deploying our armies and the end result looked kinda like this:

His army was pretty much like this: Mephiston, Chaplain with Jump Pack, Priest, Land Raider with 8 Death Company, Assault Squad, Tactical Squad with Multimelta and Meltagun inside a Rhino, Predator with lascannon, Furioso Dreadnought.

Stefanos deployed his LR next to a big piece of terrain in the middle of the board with 5 men from his Assault squad (including the Sarge) Mephiston, Chaplain and the Priest. Predator stayed far behind as well as the rhino and the other half of the assault squad (to keep the objective I suppose).

I deployed my melta wielding squads 18'' away from the LR, my infantry squads on the left of the board to claim the one objective I placed there and my artillery in comfy places behind terrain. On anything but a "1" (which I didn't roll) I would get the first turn and so it happened.

In the beginning of turn one I moved my Command Squad and my Veteran chimeras forward to put the meltaguns in range of the Land Raider. The little men of death and destruction leaped out of their vehicles ready to wreak havoc. The Vendetta hopped a little to the left to get the Dreadnought on its sight and the Platoon Command Squad chimera moved closer to one of the objectives.

Then the inexorable fusillade begun. The commander issued the "Bring it down!" order to his squad making their meltaguns all the more deadly. Turned out there was no need for it since they all hit with the first roll. I also scored 3 penetrating hits resulting on a very dead Land Raider. On the irony side of things its explosion took 5 guardsmen with it but at least it was out of the way. The Manticore targeted the Predator all the way across the table where it made sort work of it with a direct hit and a penetrating roll. Medusas opened fire at the mass of death company leaving only 2 standing. The Vendetta shot at the rear of the dreadnought leaving a smoldered wreck in its wake. Only the blasted Rhino manage to stay unscathed ,due to some lucky cover saves and bad damage table rolls, after being shot by 2 Hydras, 2 Autocannons and 3 Multilasers. I was amazed at the damage this army could do since this was my first game with it. I probably took half of the points of my opponents army with a round of shooting. This left me feeling a bit dirty and degraded but this is the path I choose to follow and I wouldn't back down. Anyway the game was far from over. So this was the view of the battlefield after this first round of shooting:

Land Raider and its occupants were pretty much gone along with the chaplain and some assault marines!

A crater for Predator!

Unfortunately my veterans managed to botch their Ld check from suffering casualties due to the Land Raiders explosion and fell 7'' back.

His turn, Stefanos charged my Command Squad with his two remaining Death Company killing them all but the commander which put me in a difficult position since I couldn's shoot them next turn. Mephiston charged the veteran squad and cut them down and the assault squad with the priest only managed to immobilise the chimera which was also bad since I couldnt really shoot either.

Next turn was kinda comical for me since I didn't really have any juicy targets to shoot at so I threw pretty much everything at the Rhino. And the bloody thing just wouldn't die. It fired its smoke launcher so it either made all it's cover saves or I rolled poorly on the damage table. Hydras, autocannons, manticore, multilasers, psykers the whole kitchen sink and nothing. Thats dice rolling for me I suppose. Vendetta managed to take a couple of wound off Mephiston which was proving to be a thorn in my side and Bane Wolf killed the last members of the Assault squad.

Rest of the turns tuned a bit uneventfully since the result was pretty much predetermined from this first round of shooting. Mephiston was chasing around my scoring units trying to take them out and the Vendetta was chasing him in return (it was the thing that could hurt him most). In the end my gunship managed to get to him before he got to me.

When the rhino was finally destroyed next turn after another fusillade that made heavy ammunition look like fire crackers it finally got destroyed from a lucky multi laser shot. The tactical squad inside tried to find sanctuary in the big piece of terrain in the middle of the board. I fired at them with my manticore scoring 11 wounds, which Stefanos managed to fail 7 on 3+ rolls. Amazingly bad luck.

Last couple of turns was a race for my Platoon Command squad and one of my Infantry squad to get one objective so the game wouldn't end in a draw. I flatted out the vendetta to contest his objective but managed to roll a "1" for it's dangerous terrain test. The sarge from the tactical squad managed to pull a very impressive last stand almost costing me the game. All the power to him:

But in the end I managed to wipe everything off the table which was a relief.

What I learned from this game? Well I should manoeuvre my scoring units a lot more to get them in to the right position so they can claim objectives when they need to. This might sound too obvious but one can get distracted with all the shooting and forgo the movement phase. Also I shouldn't deploy the medusas so far back because 36'' range just don't cut it. Apart from this I am pretty happy with the army.

First Hydra

This is the second vehicle I managed to finish for the army. The first of two Hydras this time. I manage to use the weathering techniques to a better extend since I am getting used to them. Also this time I was much faster and I hope next time I'll finish even quicker.

Squad Markings

I wasn't really sure how to use the decal sheets to number my squads and vehicles so I asked around to see how it is suppose to be. The squad numbering work as follows:

Company Command Squad: company number/skull/1

Platoon Command Squad: company number/platoon number/0

Infantry Squad: company number/platoon number/infantry squad number

Veterans : 0/0/veteran squad number

So my army is based on the 3rd company of the 122nd Cadian regiment, simply for the fact that there are more "3"s on the cadian decal sheet. So the squad markings will be like this:

Cadian 122 Regiment

3rd Company

Company Command HQ: 301

1st Platoon
Platoon Command Section: 310
1st Squad: 311
2nd Squad: 312

Veteran Squad : 005

Hope this makes sense!

Reinforcements have arrived

What can I say, I like to arrange my tanks on the table and just look at them. Still have 1 Manticore and 3 Chimeras to assemble but that's pretty much about it. They will keep me occupied for the next 3 months or so. I figure I paint a tank in about a week but I think I will be getting faster since I am getting used to the techniques.