Ave Dominus Nox- A nightlords Project part 6- first games in and 3000 pts just before New-years

This is actually a slightly belated post, but what with the holidays encroaching on all my hobby time (Lest glazing a ham counts as "hobby time) i haven't really had time to sit down and do a write up on my collated efforts.

So by the 16'th of December my goal was to have finished either my Leviathan Dread, or the three scimitar jetbikes that i started waaaay back in frigging august , unfortunately work and adult life caught a hold on me, and i managed to finish neither, i got as far as highlighting the edges of my Leviathan before i had to pack up all my NL stuff spread over the living room bookshelf, i then spent a good two hours in sorting out all my packing foam, and trying to decide on how to transport all of these spiky vehicles and marines. Ultimately i did some rearranging, and put all of my 40k into unspecified storage for an unspecified amount of time. That's probably another piece of advice i would give to anyone getting anviluses in general.

• Make sure you have a good way of transporting them 

all those damn spikes tend to get in the way. So, having managed to wrestle that Nemean lion of a task i assembled the fury of the VIII'th and went to our local gaming club in The Swedish Old town to roll some bones. We had three players for our 30k day, and a number of visitors of which some showed genuine interest in starting.

I made two lists, one for 2500 points containing two anviluses and all the good stuff i had ready. And one pretty bare boned 2000 pts terrors assault list. As i put the list together it got increasingly clear to me that the stuff that i had was rather unsuitable to put together a low points list, but seeing as our other two players had brought a max of 2k each i just went in a cut rather roughly.

my 2000 pts of NL 

in the end i managed to squeeze in the following

- delegatus with and iron halo, artificer armor, jump-pack and master crafted nostraman chainglaive
- Destroyers with jump packs, AA on the sergeant and a phosphex bomb, as well as a missile launcher with suspensor web and rad missiles
- land speeder javelin with Multi melta and missile pods
- two grav rapiers
- seven man veterans with one melta gun and six combimeltas in an anvilus
- two terror marine squads with six men and sergeant in each, both with one flamers and reamining marines with volkite chargers, both sergeants had a nostraman chainglaive, AA and meltabombs.
- one terror marine squad with seven men plus sergeant, infiltrating in outflank with a sergeant with chainglaive, AA and meltabombs
- Three apothecaries, one with jumppack, nostraman chainglaive and volkite charger, and two without jumppack and with same.
- One xiphon jetfigher with strafing run and armored cockpit. With TL lascannons and Xiphon launcher (S8 AP1 heavy 2 and when i roll armor penetration i roll D3 results and choose the best one) it also makes opponents reroll succesfull jinks/coversaves

I positioned everything except the grav rapiers and javelin in outflanking or deepstrike.

Having faced the player before, and witnessed him play my friend just before , i knew i would be facing two large  scimitar groups, as well as an allied detachment of fearless cultists hordes as well as terminators in Maru skara.

The match before was my Friends Dug in IW versus the more mobile Emperors children

Onwards to GLORY! 

 The speed of his bike squad were not to be underestimated, and having seen my buddy's IW getting outcircled i thought it best to leave most of my army in reserve

the Iron warriors getting outflanked 

 I also knew  that my opponent would be counting on charging me for the superior combat resolution, as well as getting the AP2 on his phoenix spears

the glorious III'd breaking the lines 

Unfortunately his tactical squads were all equipped with vexilias, and were all scoring, as were his phoenix terminators.

So this is what i would face

Not featured is the Milita detachment of his army. 

Most of it is pretty cool conversion work, the bikes are a third party manufacture, but works really well with his glorious army, and the spears are made from custodes spears so it looks cool.

So, one group of tartaros terminators, one group of Phoenix terminators, two tactical squads, two bike squads (with his praetor in it) as well as a HS squad with autocannons.

And an allied detachment of cults and militia, which were fearless and rending ( abhuman flesh and cults)

Luckily his main army was pretty small in size, so my hope was in concentrating fire on his bikes, and outmaneuvering his terminators.

The mission was shatterstrike, so it was all about taking the opponents table quarter and showing no mercy.

The Grav cannons taking aim at the squalid malformed menagerie of the emperors children 

i concentrated into a corner, and after having deployed i used my Warlord trait to move my deployed terror marines into reserves ( i always get this one and i really despise it). as per the Terror assault Rite of War i then rolled my die, assured i would get night fighting (on a 2+) and rolled a one. We're off to a sterling start.

he then preceeded to seize the initiative, his turn one consisted of shooting down my javelin before it could do anything, and then speeding up with his bikes,

my opponents, side 

 having deployed all his bikes behind cover, he forewent shooting to speed across the battlefield, the grav technology making a mockery of the shattered and twisted hellscape from previous battles.

WE HAVE COME FOR YOU 

My turn one saw one group of terror marines come screaming down from low orbit in a drop-pod slamming into the ground and before his praetor could react the irregulars of the the VIII'th came running out, taking precise shoots with archaic volkite guns and laying down a screen of flamer fire on the right flank. I managed to do one wound and place another wound on his praetor with some real bad shooting

on the other flank my dreadclaw descended on plumes of fire and burnt away some cultist, while my gravrapiers opened fire on the selfsame, hoping to tie them down with difficult and dangerous terrain, while painfully aware of what their innocuous forms could do if given half a chance

On his second turn the praetor crossed the T and charged my terror squad, while his second jetbike squad opened up on my rapiers, accomplishing two wounds after combining their fire with the Heavy support team.

The combat fared poorly for my headhunter who dared to take the challenge of the Emperors children praetor, felled in a vicious I6 blow.

The terminator elites of the III'd looking on with didsain at their dishevelled enemies of the VIII'th

 In his turn two he came running in with his terminators on the same right flank where my Terror marines had run in

Meanwhile his preator was fighting my Terror marines but could'nt wipe them out. My apothecary earning his keep, but unfortunately my crap rolling failed him. The other squad didn't manage to quite reach my grav rapiers.

On my second turn everything arrived except my praetor with the destroyers. The Xiphon came zooming in and fired his xiphon launcher at the jetbikes, felling one of them, and then flew on, sure of his domination of the skies.

target acquired 

On the right flank fighting continued as my outflanking squad of terror marines came running in and shooting volkite chargers at the entrenched terminators and clearing the ruins with flamers.

Clearing with flame and condemning with volkite chargers

 The Preferred enemy meant that i managed to reroll all 1's to wound and to hit, resulting in my actually killing three out of five.

Veterans taking positons 

Meanwhile my melta veterans ran into cover, and levelled their combiguns at the bikes, their melta guns having difficulties to find targets as the bikes turned from right to left. Meanwhile the Anvilus flew over the Cults burning away another six cultists, and burning another two from the entrenched marines in the ruins ( realizing that i needed to take his side or at least deny it) My last squad of terror marines descended on the left side of the battleboard.

Ave dominus nox 

Leaping from their droppod they opened fire into the ruins and killed seven marines, the rest fleeing six inches off the board.

Scurry away! 

 My terror marines that were bound in combat finally succumbed to their losses and tried to flee, but got swept up by the remaining two bikes.

On his third turn his praetor charged my remaining flank and won, albeit with a single wound on his praetor remaining, and his second squad charged my gravrapiers. Wiping them out as well.

The cults and militias charged my Veteran squad, wiping them out immediately.

On my third turn my Praetor finally decided to show up, i made a last ditch attempt at consolidating the now neglected left flank, if i could wipe his terminators there i might be able to finish with a tie at least.

The hour was nigh

I threw my one phosphex bomb and hit his legion champion, stripping him off a wound and creating difficult terrain for him. Meanwhile my Xiphon flew off the board. And the dilligent anvilus tried to fry some more marines.

His turn four ended it, holding the entire board while i only contested no-mans land.

A really fun game, i had set my heart on playing a bigger game, but i had really fun and it was good to have a game outing regardless. Something that readily became clear to me was that while my terror marines are a very costly investment, they quickly earn their points back but they need to outnumber their opponents, effectively bullying them to get that +1 to wound and +1 to hit, which stacks pretty well with the Preferred enemy USR. the volkite chargers are good, but the 3+ armour save of power armor usually negates them. I should also keep my Javelin in reserves, unless i have a clear target.

I really missed getting night fighting as it not only guaranteed a 4+ cover save in the open (it stacks with the night lords turn 1 cover save) and getting the plus to running and initiative.

It was a productive game as everyone said that they had a good time and got really motivated to expand their 30k games, and hopefully we managed to recruit another player.

So after the game i went home, and still being psyched about 30k i popped on The verangian heresy podcast and painted up my Leviathan

I did it mainly in my other scheme, with Nostraman runes going down the left and right side, as opposed to covering them in skulls and gore, i also went light on the chipping( as in almost none existent) as i couldn't decide on where to do it. But decided to add some chained skulls to give the impression of movement, i also gave it a "red hand" to show it as traitor or coward (as is the standard of the VIII'th legion) The "arms" are done in black ,to give the Leviathan some contrast, which is also the purpose of the scarlet knee pad. It doesn't show very well ,but i used some nihilakh oxide on the phoshpex bombs, as i can't imagine it being stored without damaging the materials it is stored in.

While on a high i also finished up my three scimitars. i Found these a real treat to paint, this is without a doubt one of the best kits forgeworld have done, and are super fun to do, i kept the etched brass on the sergeant but the other ones need to do without it as it stuck out a bit much. Beyond that i kept the paint scheme secondary to playing around with metallic effects and letting the model take priority. It's fortunate that these are so expensive, as i relly want to but a bunch of them.

the sergeant and riders all have scarlett gauntlets

I did some lightning work on the sergeant, as well as a skull mask, all of them have scarlett gloves, as i cannot see them living long, and thus they are commended to the van. Scouts and outriders to recon the way for my troops proper.

I actually lucked out, as i managed to set up a game with a new buddy that i met at Hagvarian&scandus, it's the same cool mechanicum player from one of my previous posts 


We decided to play 3000 pts each, really lighting a fire under my butt to finish up to that points limit.


We played at his home, and he had this beautifull board full of a lot of gorgeous terrain.

My army was basically

-praetor with digiweapons, mastercrafted chaiglaive,artificer armor, jetpack, meltabombs,volkite serpenta, and iron halo
-Destroyers kitted as above

- Leviathan with droppod, armored ceramite, phosphex bombs, melta lance
- xiphon as above
- three scimitar jetbikes, one Multimelta, and sergeant with powerfist, everyone had meltabombs
- javelin as above
- Three terror squads, as above but with 8 men in each squad, o two in  dreadclaws
- melta tankhunting vets in droppod
- three rapiers
- three apothecaries as above

to get to 3000 pts i had to max out a lot stuff that i would not have gotten otherwise (melta bombs here and there, volkite pistols, artificer armor, extra phospex bombs) meaning that when i finish up other modells i will probably leave out my destroyers, or do extra marines, with the lack of HS slots i need to adapt my other squads to pick up the slack. But for the moment i needed to do a lot of padding. Which i hope to amend at a later date.

I was very conscious about the fact that i was lacking in anti armor. But i knew that he was a good dude and looked forward to playing.


His army is gorgeous (as i have gushed about before) and it was really varied and had a nice divide between tanks, mechs and thralls.

two anti infantry krios, and two anti tanks

He had two lighting cannon artillery tanks (S7 AP2 large blast) and two anti tank (s9 AP2 heavy 2) two thanatars with plasma mortars (reroll succesfull covesaves S7 AP2) with his HQ magos(lachrymallus meaning that if a thrall squad dies he gets them back on a 5+),  and one vulturax

two max sized thrall squads, three castellax with a magos as well as a trios for transporting thallaxii with "ferrox" that have rage and heavy chainblades, giving them rending, scary shit and three vorax.

the board before deployment

I deployed second, and as such placed reactively, this time i placed everything except bikes,rapiers  and javelin in reserves

My javelin out of picture to the left, and the bikes on the right 

 I was banking on my 2+ cover save with night fighting. So i only left my rapiers in the open.

his right flank excluding the building 

 and on the top of the house just above the thrall herd he had...

two thanatars with a magos. I underestimated these guys, both the difficulty i would have in clearing them, and the damage output they could do. Particularly as the Magos could let them shoot twice every second turn. And just shoot AP3 bolters the other turns. The Tanks were in squadrons, so i more or less assumed that having that having a leviathan shooting at the one, and having my anti tank vets shooting at the other one might resolve some of my problems.

The mission is the one where we place one objective in our own side, and that is worth five points (different one from last time) and a VP for each unit killed in the first turn.

So, first turn, i manage to roll night fighting, but i do not seize.

before the sky caught fire 

He starts shooting with his thanatars, krios venators, and the majority of his army, My rapiers are T7 and i get a 2+ cover save, meaning that they took a single wound. My scimitars lost two models, but the sergeant persevered ( just barely managing their LD save) and my javelin weathered the lightning guns, darklance guns and archaic technomagic that the mechanicum brought forth.

The cometh my turn one, and we will come for you

And hell walked in their path

Hurtling from the strike cruiser "night cometh"  in low orbit a dreadnought droppod (proxied by my droppod) and my second droppod onto the battle field. My Anti tank veterans make have their orders and fire their Combi-melta weaponry at the sides of the venators, their flare shields unable to compensate for the surprising dagger strike, and all krios venators are blown up. The Melta lance and the melta gun situated in it's siege claw blows up one tank, and immobilized the other one. The javelin , shot at the krios venators, shaving another hull point. 

After the shooting 

The Scimitar sergeant sped out of the ruins taking full charge at the thallaxii, shooting it's heavy bolters and hitting them, doing two wounds. And then failing a charge at the thallaxii, but ignoring their archaic lightning.

condemned to ignominy they do their duty 

My rapiers round out by shooting graviton shots at this transport, managing to create difficult and dangerous terrain. While also trying to tie up his thallaxii (forgetting that they are JET-pack, and not JUMP pack creatures) 

Night looses it's iron grip on the battlescape, and day dawns, and with it, hell was unleased. Combined shooting blows up my javelin, shaves 3 out of 4 HP from my javelin, the thallaxii advance towards my rapiers, the last scimitar got wiped out by this other group of Thalaxii. creating a pincer maneuver towards my end zone his plasma mortars can't shoot, so his thanatars are simply venting plasma looking towards my meager humans with blank-faced disinterest. The thralls mill about, spreading out to make sure i have a hell of a time descending. The veterans are wiped out to a man by the vorax.

Everything decides to arrive, Except my HQ (again)

My already arrived dreadclaw moves over his thralls simply removing 8 of them, and then doing a simple wound to his vorax. I have to say, that S6 flamer is great at removing unwanted vat-grown flesh

The second one comes screaching into his endzone, burning away about six thralls, and the two dreadclaws descends one into his right flank, neither disgorging it's cargo so as to let me charge when i exit, i just feel safer in the air.

The Dreadclaw wreaking havoc

Preferred enemy "thrall-flesh" 

 Meanwhile my infiltrating group of terror marines take up positions in cover to start deleting his thralls holding his objective trying to force him to spread his units out. 

My Xiphon comes in and shoots at the transport shooting it to pieces. while my leviathan shakes the Krios tank and it can only zoom around. 

 My rapiers prioritize shooting at his vulturax, trying to ground it, which they succeed with (two hits)

Whereupon it is his turn three the leviathan is felled by mass darklight beams tearing it to pieces, the inbuilt refractor field failing to deflect the shots.

The anviluses jink from left to right as the air is filled with mauler bolt cannons, and the vorax reject their given directives and start tearing my droppods apart, the thallaxii give in to the same strange demands, the ways of the lachrlymalii being truly mysterious for the uninitiated.

picfeed of the strange hellscape that the xiphon jetfighter saw on his strafing run 

meanwhile his thanatars rained plasma mortars over my terror marines in cover, forcing me to re-roll succesfull cover saves, decimating them to the extent that even my hardened killer balked at their losses. But they kept. His vulturax turned on it's mechadendtrites and charged my marines.


On my turn three my praetor arrived, blazing boltfire and archaic volkite beams into his magos taking refuge behind his castellax, my destroyer sergeant unpinned and threw phosphex fire into his magos,while the radflensed missile was loaded and fired failing to penetrate his remaining, shattered pieces of frail humanity

we have come for you 

My Anviluses disgorge their terror marines, who proceed to start clearing thralls in the middle, while the other ones charge towards his thanatars, seeing it as a perverse challenge to wipe them out.

We are terror, and we are here for you 

meanwhile the independent cogitators of my anviluses turn them towards burning thralls into cinders and bravely trying to finish of his krios tank (s6 against rear armour eleven, decent odds) but fail.


i fail to remember that i cannot run and charge. so my terror marines are left in the open and fail to charge his thanatars.

me forgetting my BRB

My Xiphon FINALLY kills his triaros transport. And my terror marines that just now cowered in cover break cover and charge his thralls, clearing and holding his objective. The vulturax finally finishes eating my rapiers and they are wiped, ensuring that he is now holding my objective as well. 

Then comes his turn four. 

He consolidates his Thalaxii and vulturax into my end zone, while sustained plasma mortars make bloody mockery of my terror marines trying to break into his safezone. 

The remnants of the terror marines flee, while the ones holding an objective is now struck by a S7 AP2 large blast, wiping them out to a man and incinerating their apothecary as he is egging a man into action.

in the right hand corner my marines are fleeing 

 His thralls charge my terror marines, and then the voraxes charge in. as i have initiative 4 i start by having my apothecary and headsman striking first. With S5, and rending, and rerolling ones i manage to whittle his vorax down to 2 wounds ,and the remaining seven terror marines roll out 21 hits. Making my opponent quip "this might have been a mistake" The terror marines now outnumber him giving me +1 to hit and +1 to wound. Meaning i win combat. I consolidate towards his table edge, if i have to i will melta bomb that tank to bits.

true survivors plying their bloody trade 

 Now. His magos had the "lachrymallis" upgrade, this means that WHEN a thrall unit is wiped out, he has a 1/3 chance of getting it back. Which he now does

summing up my feelings 

Meanwhile, on the left handside, my praetor,destroyers and apothecary fights his castellaxi, after sustaining a whittling darklight barrage, i am reduced to having an apothecary and a praetor on two wounds alongside a destroyer sergeant . As the battle automata charge in my destroyer sergeant unpins a Rad grenade and rolls it towards them. The -1 to Toughness really helps out, meaning that i manage to challenge and kill his magos, and in the end only the praetor remains.

Ultimately the castelax caught the chainglaive in their fists and pour green flame into his gorget

on the last turn i try to change my anviluses to burn his thalaxii to pieces, failing to kill all of them and none of them flee. My praetor is instantly killed by the infuriated last two castellaxii.

We called it there.

I had a fucking blast with this game.

Initially i was worried about the fact that i was understocked with antitank, and i'm starting to think that the suicide veteran squad either needs to be fully staffed or removed, however, when only one or two survives at least they can clamp meltabombs on something. For next time i should probably place my leviathan in a better position. Seeing as how it is a HUGE point sink, i need to keep it in play, it would have been invaluable in tackling castellax.

After doing some basic math (my one, true, foe) i realized that i am probably better off deleting my destroyers, replacing them with a terminator squad with teleport transponders, and adding a raptor squad to my Fast attack slots.

I'll probably do a more extensive analysis when i get more games in, but right now, that's about it, i might try to add some quadmortars, i need more swiss army knife entries. The main bane of my existence this game was definetly the thanats, i should probably have poured my fire into it turn one. Volkites and flamers did jack shit, so next time i will probably try to shoot destroyer fire at it.

still, felt good to play a cool player who had a badass mechanicum army, and i feel like he had restraint in making his list, which was nice of him,



Phew, so that was what i did what am i doing?

Well, right now i am looking to have a ZM option for my NL. As well as more options, so what can i imagine skulking through the inner corridors of a dying spaceship? Well, the same thing that is worse than having an insane murderer at the door.

come unto judgement 

having an insane murder inside your door. So right now i am doing some contemptors, unlike my Alpha legion Contemptors i am posing them a bit more dynamically, and i have to say that this Battlebunny post helped a lot i wanted a running to grab you pose, so now the only question is how the hell i am going to base him decently.

I also have something coming up dedicated for ZM

castaferrum options 

I think that a talon of castaferrum dreads with flamestorm cannons, might do really well in ZM, these are the third castaferrums i have ever done, and comparing to the contemptor and leviathan they look positively puny. But still, i'll see what i can do to diversify them a bit.

I also have some raptors i need to scrub and clean, and order more decals.

Phew!

still, goal reached so far and overshot. 3000 pts before 2017. Now, i hope that you will stick with me for 2018

happy new year!