Little Shot Of Horrors

Whilst I was in a Daemonic mood after finishing the Lord of Change, I decided to finish off the last few models I had left for my Tzeentch Daemon army: a handful of Horrors.

These are all spare models which came on other sprues, for example the Brimstone Horrors are from the Lord of Change sprues and are intended to be little more than base decoration. However. I'm never one to look a gift horse in the mouth and having an extra pair of Brimstone Horrors seemed like a no brainers.

Similarly, these three Blue Horrors come on the sprue for the Burning Chariot as an optional upgrade and in 9th edition they cost points and added rules. However, in 10th edition there's no option for including them and so they are best served as regular Blue Horrors.

This is especially the case as Blue Horrors now also pop into existence when Pink Horrors die on the roll of a 4+, meaning I will need more of them than I have.

I painted these slightly differently than previously, using Talassar Blue contrast paint rather than dry brushing Lothern Blue over Caledor Sky washed in Drakenhof Nightshade. It's much quicker but results in a slightly lighter shade of blue. This is not something I'm overly worried about going forward as something similar happened with my two units of Pink Horrors and some variation adds some depth to the army and means that I can pick out different units if I need to.

Barring a couple of bags of bits which may get glued together to create something at some point, I'm not out of Daemons to paint. I'm still working out what my next purchases will entail, but I think a box of Blue and Brimstone Horrors is definitely part of the equations.

Acquired: 75

Painted: 184

Lead Mountain: 492

The Times They Are A-Changin'

Come gather round people

Wherever you roam

And admit the the armies

Around you have grown

And accept it that soon

You'll be skint to the bone

If the game to you is worth playin'

And you better start paintin'

Or you'll be playin' alone

40k's edition's a-changin'

Sorry about that. I've really having to stretch my change-related puns for posts about my Tzeentch Daemons and that one got out of hand.

Anyway, in an attempt to resist starting a new army due to all the hype around the release of 10th edition 40k, I've returned to an ongoing project and finally finished my Lord of Change.

I'm not sure it comes across in the pictures, but this is a BIG model. Barring terrain pieces, this is the biggest 'miniature' I've ever painted, towering over other monsters. Only Treebeard and my Leviathan Dreadnought have bodies on a similar scale, but they lack the MASSIVE wings and have much less detail to deal with.

The main body is done with Talassar Blue contrast paint with increasingly heavy white drybrushing towards the edges of the wings. The rest is very much the same as I've approached the rest of the army, lots of Retributor Armour, Skeleton Horde, Tesseract Glow and Emperor's Children. Nothing amazingly clever or time-consuming, there was just a lot to do with each stage.

I actually bought and assembled the beast over a year ago (it was a birthday present) and have been chipping away at it in fits an starts as each section of the model took significantly longer to do than I'm used to and I kept getting a bit over faced. Additionally, as I was dipping more into Horus Heresy and 2nd Edition, I played much less 9th Edition and so the Daemons took a back seat. In fact, I didn't even bother buying the Chaos Daemons Codex when it was released last year.

However, with all the fuss surrounding 10th Edition, I needed something to help me resist buying Leviathan and getting two armies I'll barely use and so being able to return to another army I've barely used seemed like a good plan. I'm still not at 2000 points of Daemons, but the Lord of Change gets me significantly closer.

When it comes to 10th Edition, I'm not sure how much I'll play it, although I do like the accessibility that has been incorporated into the free rules and index cards, which are great for a casual gamer like myself. The new army building rules (or lack of them) also means my whole army can hit the table at the same time with me having to take and in-game hit (losing Command Points) to be able to use the stupidly large number of character models I've done thanks to the old detachment rules.

The only downside is that the more regularly sized units mean that currently there are two of my 8 Screamers that I can't really use. In theory I could use units of four or five, but the new rules make it clear that I've have to pay for six, which is a touch annoying. Therefore, I'm going to have to try to get my hands on a single Screamer from somewhere.

On top of that I'm still about 400 points short of my target, and so I suspect that I need to flesh out the infantry a bit more, which means returning to the tedium that is painting Pink Horrors. I also need to pick up at least one box of Blue Horrors as the can now appear for free when Pink Horrors die, as well as form their own units, which oddly have slightly different rules...not confusing at all.

After that, I'll see what points I have left and do something fun to finish off, I have a real temptation to do something weird with spare bits and hot glue...

In terms of progress, despite it's size, the Lord of Change, as Gimli would point out, still only counts as one. Given that I picked up a few Crooked Dice Miniatures recently as well as receiving a Kickstarter fulfilment from Kitbash Games, means that despite the work that went into it, this post bizarrely represents a lack of progress.

 How very Tzeentch...

Acquired: 75
Painted: 179
Lead Mountain: 496

Afraid of Change?

Tenth edition you say?

I'm still wrapping my head around second.

There's only one kind of change I'm currently embracing: the Great Deceiver; the Architect of Fate; Tzeentch, the Changer of the Ways. 

The emanations of the warp under my command were from the Daemon World army list from the 2nd Edition Chaos Codex, and the list was really quick to put together as the Daemons don't come with any options other than...more.

Characters

• M'Kachan - Daemon Prince of Tzeentch

Daemons

• 3 Flamers of Tzeentch
• 3 Flamers of Tzeentch
• 7 Pink Horrors of Tzeentch
• 5 Pink Horrors of Tzeentch
• 5 Pink Horrors of Tzeentch

Unfortunately, Screamers, Burning Chariots, Heralds  and Exalted Flamers didn't exist back in second edition, and adding a Lord of Change would have taken the mount of points I had in character models over the allotted limit, therefore, my force was somewhat two dimensional.

Fortunately, my mission was Engage and Destroy, and so I could focus on running forwards, spewing magic and hoping M'Kachan would shop stuff up.

My opponents would once again be Matt's Squats, which also have a somewhat limited range of options.

Characters

• Warlord in Exo-Armour
• Living Ancestor in Exo-Armour (Level 4)

Squads

• Thunderer Squad (2 Heavy Bolters, Plasma Gun, 2 Lasguns)
• Thunderer Squad (2 Lascannons, Missile Launcher, 2 Lasguns)
• Thunderer Squad (Missile Launcher, 2 Plasma Guns, Plasma Pistol, Lasgun)

Support

• Weapon Team (Mole Mortar)
• Bike Squad (5 Bikes)

With Matt drawing the Witch Hunt card the game immediately became all about my warlord, M'Kachan. Would he make it to the Squat lines and proceed to dismember them? Or would he be blasted back to the warp by a wall of heavy firepower?

SQUAT TURN 1

With no massive incentive for Matt to advance the Squats, the only movement in his line was the Bike Squad rolling forwards to get some shots in on the Daemon horde.

Predictably, the heavy weapons opened up and began dropping Pink Horrors, only for them to be replaced by their Blue brethren. I should point out that we discovered later that I was cheating massively by mistakenly giving all of my Horrors a 4+ invulnerable save. Bear that in mind as events progress.

Beyond that, the only other significant events were Lascannons putting a marker down and almost vaporising M'Kachan. Thankfully his Daemon save protected him (he is entitled to one), but it was clear that he'd have to weather a storm before he made contact.

Also, the Living Ancestor erected a Force Dome in the centre of the battlefield, forcing the middle of the Daemon line to have to divert around it.

DAEMONS TURN 1

As the Squats hadn't advanced, it was up to my Daemons to go to them. Pink Horrors and FLamers surged forwards across the board, trying to use cover as much as possible.

Meanwhile, as expected, the centre of the Daemon line was forced to go around the Force Dome, and slow their advance. I was probably too cautious with M'Kachan and, should probably have rammed him down Matt's throat straight away.

SQUAT TURN 2

With Matt neglecting the movement phase and me neglecting the shooting phase, the turns were moving past quickly. Again, Matt's only movement was the Bikers repositioning to bring their guns to bear on the lurking Flamers.

Elsewhere, the Squat line opened fire, aiming to kill everything they could, concentrating fire on M'Kachan and his accompanying Horrors.

In a quite awesome display of firepower, and even with me outrageously cheating, Pink Horrors were obliterated in droves. Yes, they would be replaced by Blue Horrors (of which I don't have enough, hence the imminent appearance of Brimstone Horrors on the photos), but my limited ranged threat was being significantly diminished as the magic level of the Horror units dropped as they took casualties.

The two Lascannons once again took aim at M'Kachan and this time one of them got through. This was enough to utterly destroy the Daemon Prince and almost certainly win the battle for Matt...

...or so it seemed...

...M'Kachan has the ability to select an additional strategy card at the beginning of the battle (as long as the opponents can't guess which one has been selected) and so I unveiled the Saved strategy card, and the Daemon Prince strode unharmed through the blast.

He them proceeded to add injury to insult by obliterating half of the Biker unit with a Tzeentch's Flamestorm.

DAEMON TURN 2

Realising that the safest place was actually in combat, the Daemon horde surged forwards seeking to make contact with their tormentors.

M'Kachan ripped into the remaining Bikers, killing one and consolidating into another to provide some protection for the inevitable salvo in the following turn.

Meanwhile, Flamers charged into the Warlord's squad on the right of the battlefield and effectively bounced. It was clear that this particular gamble had failed as they were now locked in combat in reach of the Warlord himself

However, the last Flamer in the second unit made it into combat with the Mole Mortar, killed one crewman and the other one fled.

SQUAT TURN 3

With the Daemon Prince getting ever closer, the Lascannons opened up on M'Kachan. One missed and the other hit the Biker in combat with the Daemon Warlord, killing him. Things looked bleak for the Squats.

However, on the other flank that I didn't photograph for some reason, the Squat Warlord began to make mincemeat of the Flamers.

DAEMON TURN 3

The Pink Horrors finally made it to the fight and ran in to engage the very last Biker, finishing him off but leaving them surrounded by out of control bikes.

Meanwhile, M'Kachan made straight for the Lascannons that had been tormenting him and made short work of the Squats. I'm not sure even the Warlord would have been able to stand up to his wrath.

SQUAT TURN 4

With very few units left on the board, the Pink Horrors on the left were pummelled by out of control Bikes exploding around them and the last unengaged squad of Thunderers unloading a volley of plasma upon them.

Meanwhile, the Living Ancestor ran forwards to engage the Horrors on the right, whilst simultaneously Dominating a Flamer into firing at them as well, leaving only Blue Horrors left.

DAEMON TURN 4

Having ripped apart his previous victims, M'Kachan turned, looking for new toys to play with. He swooped down upon the remaining Thunderer Squad, and with the aid of the last Flamer, tore them limb from limb.

The Blue Horrors closed in on the Living Ancestor, but were outmatched, despite outnumbering him, and he cut through the rest of the unit with ease.

FINAL RESULT: DAEMON VICTORY

Even though most of the Horrors and Flamers had been destroyed, remnants of units were still left, denying Matt points. Conversely, M'Kachan's rampage had left pretty much every Squat apart from the characters dead. Given that my mission gave me extra points for destroying units, the final result was a somewhat convincing victory for the Daemons.

The shine was somewhat taken off it by discovering that I had been cheating. This was accidental as I'd actually been reading up about Horrors in 10th edition (in which they do get an invulnerable save) that afternoon. However, the Horrors had a limited impact on the game, which was really all about whether Matt could kill M'Kachan, and the Saved card made that doubly hard.

The Daemon army was fun to play with, if a bit of a one-trick-pony. I may consider getting some Cultists, Beastmen or Trolls to vary things a little bit.

Lurkers from the Deep: Issue 3

Whilst the Police and FBI hit Dr Fiske's factory and the Finley cannery, Colonel Roth led the main force directly in the heart of Marshport, where they were met in pitched battle by a horde of fanatical cultists and gibbering eldritch horrors led by the Mayor Newbury, the apparent leader of the Cult of Kutulu.

The Battle of Marshport is the third scenario from the Lurkers from the Deep feature pack for 7TV: Pulp, and sees what is probably the closest to an outright battle that I've ever played in 7TV.

Again, I took control of the 'fishy' inhabitants of Marshport, who are all part of the mysterious Cult of Kutulu:

Mayor Newbury - Star

Shoggoth - Extra

Police Chief (Dirty Cop) - Extra

High Priest - Extra

2 Malign Zealots - Extras

4 Dark Disciples - Extras

4 Fishfolk Hybrids - Extras

2 Protoplasmic Terrors - Extras

For the purposes of the game, we made a small change to the Cultist Coven unit card to replace the two required Gibbering Lunatics with Fishfolk Hybrids, allowing the Malign Zealots to lead two separate units. Not doing this would have meant that the villains would have had no chance of activating all their forces each turn.

Matt took control of the National Guard unit which had been called in to deal with the insidious threat emerging in Marshport:

Colonel Julius Roth - Star

Spiritual Custodian - Co-Star

Army Officer - Extra

2 Army Sergeants - Extras

8 Army Privates - Extras

Army Flamethrower - Extra

Truck - Vehicle

Again, as an extremely minor change, we played the Flamethrower as a two man team to reflect the two wounds on the card and the fact that I had a spare model. Also, we ran most of the heroic force as a Military unit, which gave this cast a very efficient activation cost each turn.

The battle saw the Army pushing in from the top right corner of the table and the Cult moving out from the House of Dagon temple in the lower left. The objective was a straightforward 'kill them all' mission for both sides, with the only wrinkles being the Protoplasmic Terrors and Shoggoth being able to move across the table via sinkholes (the craters) and the Inferno peril card being in play - which I forgot about and was unable to avoid with half my force at the end of Act One.

The villains took an absolute mauling in that battle. A combination of Matt maximising his plot points, the Army having better weapons, me forgetting about the Inferno, and all the negative objective effects hitting the Cult made things extremely difficult. However, because of the even split of objectives, all the stars and co-stars escaping unscathed and the way the victory points worked, the final result was only a 4-3 victory to the heroes.

Although I was unlucky in places, this scenario felt quite one-sided. Had we not made the tweak to the Cultist Coven unit card, that feeling would probably have been overwhelming. One of the key elements of designing 7TV casts is thinking about how many plot points are required to activate the entire cast. Even clanging the units still meant I was stretched to active all of the villains, whereas Matt had plot points to spare each turn.

Additionally, despite the special rule about sinkholes, the Protoplasmic Terrors still moved too slow to take advantage of this. If I were to play this scenario again, I might suggest that the Shoggoth and Protoplasmic Terrors begin play in the sinkholes, perhaps with the Shoggoth only emerging in Act Two as a balancing factor.

However, much fun was had and the campaign moves on apace. I think I have everything I need for the next scenario...except for a lighthouse...