Although it has been a while #warmongers I have played two games, but only one of them was part of the original Siege of Vanithros’s Bastion narrative campaign. In other news, WordPress.com only partially works with the Safari browser so I had to use Google Chrome to start this, the final hobby blog update of 2022…
As this was going to be the final hobby blog update of the year, I planned to also revisit my hobby goals for year. I definitely ran out of steam there for a while painting and got bogged down updating models that I didn’t need for our narrative campaign nor had I planned on painting them in 2022 such as the Beasts of Nurgle which I’ve still not finished rebasing again.
One thing I did learn was you can not even declare a charge if you are not within twelve inches of the enemy, no matter what special rules you have. Also Death Guard have relics that are Relics of Decay which are on page 50 of the codex, but the other relics, the company specific ones are they thus not “Relics of Decay” because they are not on page 50 for the purpose of the “Release the Toxins” stratagem? What say you Internet?
Pre Game
Despite it being New Year’s Eve we will play again tomorrow, so this blog post may become epic if I add another battle report to it. I must type like a maniac to try and get at least most of this blog post finished tonight. Last night I failed to write more than the introductory two paragraphs.
For my first game in quite a while I drew Bill, loyal Ultramarine player. Or so he used to claim to be, now he’s gone back to his first army, the Orks. We played 25 power and our mission was Fat-berg Clearance. I took McFly, Rabban, Gangrene, a rhino and of course the Cancer Cell. Bill fielded some boyz, some grots, some killa kans and a trukk. WordPress hates orky spelling.
My army had five campaign points to Bill’s one, it being his first game with his new old army. So the Orks were the underdogs and got extra command points. I took Cull the Hordes as my agenda but that didn’t work out so well for me. Bill was big on scrapping and busting heads. He also won the roll off and got to be the attacker which suits me fine. My army is slow and has few long ranged guns. I will eventually rectify this but at the rate I’m painting it will be bolters and knifes for the foreseeable future.
Deployment
We were on a small table as it was busy at the Box, but we were playing a combat patrol game. I deployed second but Bill had twenty grots in two squads of ten. I thought I could cull them, but I’m just not so devastating. I put down my cultists the Cancer Cell, Bill probably deployed more grots. I put everything else on the opposite flank. I did not deploy anything in the rhino, I use it more as gun platform in small games, afterall it has a D2 Havoc Launcher thanks to campaign experience.
Battle Round One
In this mission, the attack went first, so not surprisingly the Orks moved forward. Thenthe grots in the top left of the picture headed towards an objective, they are black Ultramarine symbols. Why aren’t they painted Bill? My objectives are all painted.
The Killa Kans killed two Kulitists.
Death Guard Turn One
My first turn was not terribly exciting. I did fire all my guns but I did a lot of missing. However the Reaper Autocannon did some work and orks are not known for their resolve so after taking a few casualties I believe the first grot failed morale. I believe I forgot the psychic phase. Bill let me cast Miasma out of turn, but I gotta remember the psychic phase I often skip it to go to shooting. Too many years with no psychic phase in the game.
Battle Round Two
Of course the orks move forward, as you can see in the picture they ultimately get stuck in. The grots may not have ran completely away just taken some additional casualties so the first fat-burger may have been destroyed this battle round. But perhaps it was Battle Round Two. The ork warlord who badly needs a name was ineffective but I’ve fought orks before this particular model is tough to kill and has a lot of attacks including an attack squig which got forgotten then remembered at least once.
A lowly slugga caused a wound on the dread, which is actually good as it enrages the Hellbrute and they wound better. The hammer has proven its’ value but I miss the heavy flamer which I modelled twice, only the powerfist arm can now have the heavy flamer so at some point I’ll paint a 9th or perhaps 10th edition dreadnought.
The actual trukk charged, I used overwatch but failed to wound it with the Beast Rabban. However the aforementioned hammer did twelve wounds and the trukk exploded!
The Killa Kans had kept shooting at the Cancer Cell but again they passed their morale check.
Death Guard Turn Two
I too moved closer so I could use my psychic powers but I failed to cast Plague Wind, however Smite which is underrated did three mortal wounds. The cultists also managed to wound an ork. I shot the grots dead, preventing them from removing an objective. Finally the Beast Rabban charged the Badmoons killing three with his hammer.
The last lonely ork in the mob ran.
Battle Round Three
The orks of course move forward. The killa kans killed more kultists. They also charge the last two as you can see in the picture, finally removing the Cancer Cell.
Bob the Necessary Evil managed to do a single wound with his powerfist on the warboss. However the warboss fights back killing one member of Gangrene squad.
Death Guard Turn Three
I think I failed my psychic test, suffering perils of the warp, maybe Bill remembers but it did happen but which turn, this game was before Christmas so several weeks ago. I charged the grots with the rhino setting up a heavyweight clash. However I failed other charges I declared.
I did three wounding hits, resulting in seven wounds but I didn’t write down which model did this. The warboss finally Krump’ed killing three plague marines with his klaw.
Battle Round Four
This round some grots again tried to destroy a fat-burger. I think the killa kans may have spent a turn earlier destroying one. Bill did destroy two in total and thought that would guarantee his victory, alas he did not read the mission closely enough.
The warboss with no name charged my Hellbrute leaving it with one wound perhaps, I know Bill complained about my models surviving but isn’t that my thing? The hammer did six wounds in return and the warboss was no more.
Death Guard Turn Four
I had big plans for the psychic phase and using a stratagem in the command phase but then I forgot. I did wound something with the Malignant Plaguecaster’s bolt pistol. The last squad of grots again failed their morale check, apparently that is their thing.
Battle Round Five
The four surviving grots advanced. This was the turn I forgot the psychic phase. The rhino finally managed to kill the last of the grots. Maybe this was the turn it charged, my memory is clearly hazy. Bill was busy patting himself on the back after I killed all his models, but that earned me the defender 50 victory points and I thus won 70-40.
Post Game
The Cancer Cell took another injury, they already have two battle scars and I was thinking of just letting them expire but after thinking more I took minus d6 experience points. I made McFly the MVP giving him 32 XP and earning him a campaign relic, his second, alas it may not count as a Relic of Decay.
2022 Hobby Wrap Up
Since I’ve basically agreed to play another game of Warhammer 40,000 tomorrow morning at Sentry Box this may not turn out to be the last blog post of 2022. But I still want to prepare by reviewing what I said I was going to do versus what I actually managed to accomplish.
I did paint at least eight models, actually I think I painted a lot more than that, but I only needed to choose eight models I worked on to do #ArtVSArtist on Instagram.
I said I was going to paint more plague marines but I barely pained any. I rebased a lot, painting a lot of skulls and nurglings, but actual new plague marine models added to my army may have just been two.
Apparently I thought I’d also finish a Necromunda gang. I did do a test model, but there is no way I can play in two campaigns at once, long term I’d like to switch to skirmish games as they are less painting and require less space, but Siege of Vanithros’s Bastion will continue into next year. I used and plan to continue using Necromunda models as chaos cultists.
My third priority was to rebase old models for new rules. And boy did I spend a lot of time on that. I now have four “chaos” codexes. I’m still using just one, but long term I may get to use all four, whether the Siege of Vanithros’s Bastion lasts that long is to be determined. I had not planned on updating my Nurgle daemons but somehow I got caught up in the enthusiasm and I ordered special adapters for them too. I’ve rebased well over thirty plague marines.
My fourth priority was to paint chaos cultists. Of course I’ve collected so many models over the years I plan to run a horde, probably two squads of twenty eventually, but I only managed to paint ten. I did spend a lot of time on these very low points costs models.
Priority five was Night Goblins aka Gloomspite Gitz but I think our Warcry campaign came to an end. I still have partially painted and likely some unpainted goblins from Warhammer 4th Edition but they are clearly not a priority heading into 2023.
I also wanted to employ simple but effective miniature painting techniques but despite my vision worsening every year I’ve been in Alberta I’m stuck painting tiny lines because of Owen and Thor. I will probably never start a new army but if I did, I’d use coloured primer. I have yet to go “slapchop” but I may drybrush more in 2023 as Bill is not the boss of me.
Amazingly I did paint two chaos spawn and due to Maceo the Maligned rolling 31 or was it 13 he is now a chaos spawn in our narrative campaign. He has been converted but as yet to be painted. He may be painted soon and damned if I don’t drybrush him.
I’m not sure I painted many Nurglings in 2022 but I definitely painted some and I bought more because I’m also using them to enhance bases. I’m thinking of updating the Nurgling Party Mobile for 9th Edition as well. One day I’ll field an absolute horde of Nurlgings like I’ve dreamed of since 3rd Edition of Warhammer 40K. Now in the Death Guard I could only field a few unless we play a truly monstrous game.
I also said I was going to paint non-Nurgle Chaos Space Marines but as I’m DIY chapter not truly a Death Guard player I will eventually use what is probably a better Chaos Codex for me. I still will be able to field Plague Marines, but not all the extra Death Guard stuff, but that will have to wait at least another half year, we’ll see how long the narrative campaign lasts. There are new rules coming yet again and maybe even 10th edition.
Although I had no plans to desert the Diseased Sons like Bill deserted the Ultramarines I too was originally an ork player but it wasn’t really by choice. I still have that army and many, many unpainted orks. I even bought Kill Team which I still haven’t played.
I’m going to publish this post. It is already probably too long, but apparently search engines are using machine learning more and more so although this isn’t a popular blog, it is more popular now than it was when I wasn’t updating it. But the blogosphere peaked in the past and although Elon Musk and Mark Zetterberg are doing their best to piss people off, running your own blog let alone an entire domain is a lot of work. I don’t really have the time, but I have some hobby goals, which I may have to detail in a future post, but if you have hobby goals for 2023 you can leave them in a comment below.
Musk's Miniatures 
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