Sisters are doing it for themselves

I'm starting to feel like the more productive I get with hobby projects, the worse I get at updating this blog. I've actually been pretty busy with painting and gaming over the last few months, both before and after my Japan trip.

Firstly, I had enough Blood Angels and Death Guard painted up to try my first game of Warhammer 40,000 Eighth edition. It wasn't a very big game - power level of 75 per side - and I used the open war cards to generate a random scenario, but it was a good opportunity to try out the rules, despite making a few mistakes. Most notably, I kept rolling two dice for morale check instead of one, meaning those units that weren't unbreakable were far more likely to run away.

In the end the Death Guard edged a victory after the Daemon Prince wiped out an entire Tactical Squad to claim their objective, while the Death Company remained locked in combat with the Death Guard squad guarding their objective.

I found a very fast and fast moving game. If I had any complaints it was that, like Age of Sigmar, most of the rules are rear-loaded. That is to say, the basic rules are pretty simple but their are dozens of additional rules to keep track of, with most units getting one or two unique rules plus all the stratagems that form a crucial part of the game.

I think over time, this can lead to the game becoming unwieldy and overburdened with additional rules, as happened with Epic second edition. Though, for the moment it isn't too bad. I'll certainly be playing some more.

Having gotten my Death Guard and Blood Angel forces battle ready, I decided to take a slight break and look at something else. I've had a decent sized collection of Adeptus Sororitas or Sisters of Battle sitting around unpainted for years now and with the new models on the way it felt like the right time to get them painted.

The previews of the new models look quite promising. The designs haven't changed too radically, for the most part, so I should be able to slot the new in with the old. But I know from past experience that it's all too easy to be distracted by new models and one way to avoid that is to make sure the old models are painted.

The first squad I had already mostly painted for my Shadow War Armageddon campaign, which is why they have numbers on their bases. The only change was that the Shadow War squad included a Storm Bolter which I swapped for a meltagun. This was to maximise the number of squads that could use the "Holy Trinity" stratagem that requires the squad to fire with at least one bolter, melta and flamer weapon in order to get a bonus to wound.

I had already decided to paint my Sisters as part of the Order of the Argent Shroud. This was mostly because I had a pretty quick and easy paint scheme for them. I spray painted them all in Army Painter Plate Mail Metal and gave them a wash with Nuln oil. This took care of all the armoured areas. The robes were painted in Vallejo light grey, then highlighted in pale grey blue and with a final highlight of off white. It took me a few goes to get the exact mix right, however and, if you look closely, you'll see that not all the robes look exactly the same.

The gloves and holsters were Vallejo black grey with a Nuln oil wash and highlight dark grey and the red areas on the weapons done the exact same way as my Blood Angels - GW Mephiston red, Carroburg crimson wash and then Evil Sunz Red higlights.

For each squad I left the heads until last and tried to have as many different skin tones and hair colours as possible. I'm not a fan of the Games Workshop all white hair for every model approach.

My Sisters army was assembled over a pretty extended period. I bought the first boxed set almost as soon as it was released back during 40K Second edition, along with the army book. I then got the £50 small army box as a birthday present. This was basically equivalent to the start collecting boxes you can get now and included a battle sister squad, a seraphim squad and a Canoness with a Celestian Body Guard (though back then they were Seraphim without jump packs).

That gave me about 1000 points back in 2nd edition, enough for some small games. But when third edition came along, Games Workshop initially nerfed the sisters, reducing them to standard humans in power armour and leaving me with no more than about 400 points. Consequently I left my Sisters on the shelf for a while.

When Codex Witch Hunters came along at the tail end of 3rd edition, and the Sister were restored to their former glory, I made elaborate plans to rebuild the army, but never quite got around to it, I was pretty distracted with other games at the time. Then, a couple of years ago, I noticed that some of the metal Sisters were going out of stock on the GW website and I had a paranoia attack that they were about to drop the whole range and ordered a bunch more.

At the time I was thinking or revisiting 4th edition 40K, which had been the version I had most enjoyed. But I still had other projects on the go and didn't have time to do much more than assemble my new Sisters. Then eighth edition came along and my plans changed again.

The banner carried by the Celestian Imagifier was included in my 2nd edition army boxed set and is the official banner of the Order of the Argent Shroud. If I feel like paying the command points I can upgrade it to the Order's banner. I distinguished this squad from the regular Sisters by adding gold detail to their shoulder pads and helmets, an approach I also used on the Canonesses.

The army command, including two Canonesses, the original from my army box with a combi-flamer, and Canoness Verdian, who was a Christmas present from my brother last year. The Missionary is a converted Empire Flagellant with a lot of additions from bits box, including the brazier from a Corpse cart. I painted the flame effects by painting them white and then using successive glazes of yellow and then red.

The Exorcist is a huge, unwieldy beast with a very weird centre of gravity, thanks to it being a plastic kit with loads of extra metal bits.

I basically followed the same approach as the rest of the army, with a lot of Vallejo brass for the pipes. I painted the parchment and bone in the same way using the highly useful Privateer Press paints Menoth White Base and Menoth White highlight. I painted them with the base initially, then gave them a wash of GW Seraphim Sepia, followed by drybrushing a mix of both colours before a final edge highlight with Menoth White Highlight.

The Penitent Engine was an impulse buy from when I was at Warhammer World two years ago. I was actually in Nottingham for a Warlord Games event and just popped along for the evening. I remember when these were first released they seemed over priced in money for a model that wasn't worth much in game. But, since then, their monetary price has barely changed, while they have become much more effective in game, making them feel like a bargain.

I painted most of the Penitant Engine in the same way as the metal areas of my Death Guard - a spray of Army Painter plate mail metal, followed by two heavy washes of Agrax Earthshade to give it a corroded look. The rest followed the same basic scheme as the rest of my army.

That's pretty much everything I have for my Sisters painted now, so I am taking a short break from Warhammer 40,000 all together to work on a completely different, but hopefully pretty short, project. More updates on that as soon as possible.

Shadow War Campaign Final Mission Part Three

When we last left the Shadow War Campaign Final Mission, the Sisters of Battle had taken the lead having captured their primary objective and carried it off the table via their deployment zone.

Part one, covering the mission and deployment is here.

Part two is here.

When we left things in Part Three, the Sisters of Battle had just carried their Primary Objective off the table, securing them 3 victory points. As they were in second position on the leader board, that meant any other Kill Team than the Orks needed 4 Victory Points to beat them and win the campaign.

Enough Orks had recovered to try and drag their primary objective, the Doomsday Device, back towards the table edge.

But they were now coming under attack from Blood Angel Scouts and Tau, both of whom needed to go through the Orks to get their own objectives and both of whom needed to stop the Orks if they were going to win the campaign.

But despite the heavy attack, the Orks kept struggling on.

Meanwhile, having lost the Data Bank that was their primary objective, the Chaos Marines started moving towards the centre in the hope of claiming Victory Points elsewhere. And the Sisters were not resting on the laurels. Grabbing one more piece of Archeotech would cement their victory.

The Dark Eldar had broken away from the Tau and, with their high speed, were certain to make it to the table edge.

With their primary objective lost, the Tau turned their guns on the Orks. Their slim chance of a victory depended on securing all four remaining objectives. But just as they really started to focus, their shooting failed. A series of utterly appalling rolls meant that even it point blank range they missed, or if they didn't miss failed to wound or if they wounded the Orks made some truly ridiculous saving throws. The Orks were being pinned, but still dragging their objective inch by inch to the table edge.

On the far side, the Sisters of Battle Seraphim had seized a second objective, while the rest of the Kill Team tried to surpress the Chaos Marines with supporting fire.

But they had reckoned without the Dark Eldar. With their primary objective secure, the Succubus and Homunculus saw an opportunity to take another victory point and steal victory from the Sisters.

The Orks were inches from victory and the last few survivors desperately tried to fend off the Tau, whose shooting had not improved. At the same time, the Blood Angel Scouts were still trying to take their primary objective.

The Succubus charged the Seraphim, who had little chance against her in hand to hand combat. Meanwhile, the Chaos Space Marines were closing in on the surviving Sisters from behind.

But the Chaos Marines were not about to surrender a piece of archeotech to the Dark Eldar and they turned all their firepower on the Succubus.

But all this was, ultimately, a sideshow, because on the near side, Trukk the last Ork still standing, dragged the Doomsday Device over the line, giving the Orks 3 victory points. As they were at the top of the leader board, any other team needed 4 victory points to beat them.

The Blood Angels, Dark Eldar and Chaos Marines fought over the one of the remaining pieces of archeotech...

...and the Tau secured another piece of archeotech, which happened to be the Blood Angels primary objective.

The rest of the Tau positioned themselves to prevent the remaining scouts from trying to take it back.

Had they managed to take another piece of archeotech, the Dark Eldar could have won the campaign. But it was not to be. The Chaos Marines had taken one from the Succubus and the Tau took the last.

At this point, I brought the mission to an end. The Tau and Chaos Marines could have fought over the remaining objectives still on the table, but it would have been a fight for fourth place and Sunday evening was drawing in.

The scenario and the campaign had a winner. The Orks, Sisters of Battle and Dark Eldar had managed to carry their primary objective off the table, each winning 3 Victory Points. With a three-way tie, the campaign was decided by the campaign leader board, which, at the end of round 5 stood as follows:

Kill Team	Data Caches	Wins	Losses	Team Rating
Orks	10	4	1	2064
Adeptus Sororitas	10	3	2	2154
Dark Eldar	10	2	3	1963
Space Marine Scouts	10	2	3	1785
Tau	8	2	3	1743
Chaos Space Marines	7	2	3	1881

All three teams were equal on data caches, but the Win-loss ratio was the clear decider. The Orks had secured a lucky victory, as they had throughout the campaign, but a lucky win was still a win and the victors took their place on the podium.

The Final Mission was over, the campaign complete. But I still have one last post planned. Come back soon for the Shadow War Campaign Debriefing.

Shadow War Campaign Final Mission Part Two

Part Two of my report on the final mission of my Shadow War Campaign. Part One, covering the mission rules and deployment is here.

The Orks took the first turn and advanced quickly, swarming over the archeotech.

The Sisters of Battle advanced more cautiously, sending out a scout ahead while the rest followed on.

At the end of turn 1, the Dark Eldar and Blood Angels arrived, deploying on opposite sides on the far left and near right.

The Dark Eldar quickly found themselves under heavy fire from the Orks.

While the Sisters broke off part of their forces to pursue this new threat.

The Orks had seized much of the archeotech, but were now under heavy fire from all sides.

And at the end of the turn the Chaos Space Marines and Tau arrived.

The Sisters poured fire on to the Chaos Marines, doing no damage but keeping them pinned.

Meanwhile, the Seraphim seized their primary objective.

Despite being delayed by the Sisters and Orks, the Dark Eldar continued their advance.

While on the left, the firefight between the Orks and Tau was developing in the Tau's favour.

 

The Dark Eldar started to push through to the centre.

The Orks still had much of the Archeotech, but struggle to move it under fire from the Tau, Blood Angels and Dark Eldar.

Meanwhile, on the far side of the field, both the Chaos Marines and Sisters of Battle were pursuing the same objective. Most of the Sisters Kill-Team provided covering fire, while the Seraphim handed off the Data Bank to Sister's Ursula and Beatrice. The Sisters had little luck overcoming the Chaos Marines high toughness and armour, but while they were all pinned they couldn't advance.

Enough Orks had been taken down or out of action that the Dark Eldar were able to seize their primary objective, the weapons cache, and start to make progress towards their deployment zone.

The Tau were in difficulty. Their primary objective was the same as the Dark Eldar and they needed to move at top speed to get it, but they had to go through the remnants of the Orks to get it.

I hadn't considered, when planning this scenario, that the Shadow War rules require you to shoot at the nearest target unless a more distant target is easier to hit. This meant the Tau couldn't prioritise the Dark Eldar over the nearer Orks, even though killing Orks didn't help them achieve their primary goal.

But by the end of turn 5, enough Orks had recovered to make a decent go at recovering the Doomsday Device. They might not be able to take the bulk of the archeotech as they had hoped, but they could still achieve their primary objective. The Blood Angels and Dark Eldar had also secure their primary objectives, but were struggling to move them under heavy fire.

But it was the Sisters of Battle who would take the lead, carrying their primary objective off the battlefield first. Because they were second on the leader board, this meant that any Kill Team other than the Orks would need 4 Victory Points to beat them and win the campaign.

And that seems as good a place as any to take a break. We'll see how the other teams got on trying to catch the Sisters in part 3.

Shadow War Campaign Final Mission Part One

When I last posted about my Shadow War campaign it was December 2018, I had just completed round 5 and four of the six Kill Teams had gathered the 10 data caches I had decided was necessary to finish the campaign. Since then, I let things go quiet, partly because I got absorbed in my Blood Angels and Death Guard painting project and partly because I needed the time and space to bring the campaign to a suitably climactic end.

The original Necromunda Campaign rules, on which Shadow War's rules are based, had nothing to say about actually ending a campaign. You simply continued to play games and build up your gang until everyone died, got bored or grew out of wargaming entirely.

Shadow War improved on this by introducing victory conditions using its concept of Promethium Caches. Once one Kill Team collected 15 caches, if they won one more mission they would win the campaign. So far, so basic. For my campaign I changed the Promethium Caches to Data Caches and reduced the required number for victory to ten. But I never wanted to end the campaign or just another basic mission, I wanted something suitably climactic to round every thing off and provide a proper sense of closure. I wanted nothing less than a no-hold barred, all against all, six way Kill-Team mega fight.

But doing this was going to take time and space. As may have been apparent from previous mission reports, I usually played Shadow War on a 4' x 4' space that took up just over half of the table in my hobby room. This allowed me to clear enough space for a game by just pushing everything else to one end of the table. But for a six team fight I needed more room. That meant utilising the whole table. Also, if a normal game of Shadow War between two Kill Teams took me a couple of hours to play through a six team game was going to be a lot longer. So I also had to wait for a completely free weekend.

A six way finale needed its own special rules. Plus, I also needed to give some advantage to the currently winning Kill Teams or the rest of the campaign would have been pointless. With that in mind I devised a scenery in which six valuable pieces of archeotech would be placed near the centre of the table. I also allocated six deployment zones. The Orks and Sisters of Battle, as the two Kill Teams at the top of the leader board would deploy first, giving them first shot at collecting the archeotech. The Dark Eldar Wyches and Space Marine Scouts would arrive on turn 2 and the Chaos Space Marines and Tau on turn 3. When they deployed, each team would be randomly allocated a specific piece of archeotech to be their primary target, which would be worth 3 victory points and the rest would be worth 1 each. The goal of each team would be to get as much archeotech of the table through their deployment zone as possible and, because this was the final mission, no-one would bottle out.

The rule rules I devised for the scenario are here.

This is the table layout. After Five rounds of cityscapes I wanted things to try a different battlefield look. And, with six teams to keep track off, plus assorted special operatives, I didn't want too much crazy terrain and certainly not any high vantage points that would allow any team to dominate the game with long range shooting.

This was the final table layout.

The Orks choose a deployment zone on the centre of the near side. This left them vulnerable to attack on two fronts, but also gave them the most direct route to the archeotech. This was a calculated risk, but the hope was that they would be able to use their superior numbers to defend each flank. Unfortunately, their primary objective was the doomsday device, which was on the far row of archeotech.

The Sisters took the deployment zone on the far right side, hoping to use the extra mobility of their Seraphim to seize their primary objective, the data bank.

Deployment was complete and battle was joined. We'll see how it went it part two.