An Aegis Line too Far...

After suffering a close defeat by the Ultrmarines, Duke Sliscus had merciously tortured Haud Dico for his failure.  The Archon now not only wanted revenge on the Ultramarines, but also sought a way to acquire additional strength to strike back at his master.  One of his most loyal spies had managed to find a lead to a fragment of the lost relic that had once served as a weapon of unimaginable power.  As far as the Duke was concerned, Haud Dico would simply be going on a raiding mission to take out his frustrations on the planet's populace.  In actuality, Haud Dico had much bigger plans in mind...

 

The battle for Angamar had spread the Ultramarine forces across the surface of the planet in search and destroy missions against the xenos.  Calgar had withdrawn to the Battle Barge Octavious in order to direct the full campaign.  Captain Tragan had been given elements of the Second Company along with a contingent of Calgar's personal Honor Guard to pursue the Dark Eldar.  Reports indicated that the normally mobile Dark Eldar had momentarily paused near the site of one of the many ruins that dotted the planet's landscape.  For the Dark Eldar to remain in one place too long meant they were searching for somthing either very valuable or very, very dangerous...

 

2000 Grey Knights/SM vs 2150 Dark Eldar

Bob vs Ned (Written by Ned)

 

Ultramarine First Contact

Ultramarine aircraft arrive to support the beleaguered defenders

The vanguard of Calgar's force made landfall on Angamar to find the Forge World fully engulfed in a raging battle.  While the Dark Angel and Blood Angels forces had focused on recapturing the vital Manufactorums, the Ultramarines turned their attention to securing the planet's defensive fortifications.  The xenos had shown remarkably little interest in actually controlling the planet or its facilities to this point--they only seemed to be searching for something... 

One sector showed a particularly high amount of Eldar activity.  After the Battle of Orr's Sepulchre, Calgar recognized the lengths the treacherous xenos would go to steal any artifact that they thought could give them power.  But like Orr's Sepulchre, Calgar wanted nothing more than to make sure that once again the Eldar left empty-handed...

Opponents: Bob (GK/SM) versus Noah (Eldar)

Last Hoorah for the Honorguard (for a while)

My FLGS held a 2500 point tournament yesterday with Comp and Painting scores, so I brought out the Honorguard again.  I was actually looking to bring my Vanilla Marines, as 2500 actually makes Calgar reasonably viable.  However, I sold quite a few models a while back, so could no longer field a 2500 point list I liked.  I took the following list:

Draigo (Chapter Champion)
5 Pallies with Brotherhood Banner (TDA Honorguard)
5 GKSS with Pyscannon and Pysback with SL (PA Honorguard)
5 GKSS with Pyscannon and Pysback with SL (PA Honorguard)
5 GKSS with Pyscannon and Pysback with SL (PA Honorguard)
5 GKSS with Pyscannon and Pysback with SL (PA Honorguard)
5 GKSS with Pyscannon and Passback (PA Honorguard)
Stormraven with TLMM and TLPC and SL
Venerable Dread with AC and Pysbolts
Vindicare (Telion)
Dreadknight with Incinerator and Personal Teleporter (CALGAR!)
Pysfleman
Pysfleman

Honorguard against Steel Rain... for all the marbles

As I mentioned in my two previous posts, I had the opportunity to play in a 2K tournament on Sunday. My first round was a lucky, but convincing win against an SW list, while my second round was solid victory over a Newcron army.  My list was:

Draigo
Paladins (5) with DH x2, Halberd x2, Pyscannon x2, and Banner
GKSS (5) with Pyscannon and Pysback with SL
GKSS (5) with Pyscannon and Pysback with SL
GKSS (5) with Pyscannon and Pysback with SL
GKSS (5) with Pyscannon and Pysback with SL
Venerable Rifleman
Rifleman Dread
Stormraven with TLMM and TLPC and SL
Dread Calgar with Teleporter

The tournament itself was a three-round tournament with each of the three deployments. The objectives for each round were the same: three sieze ground objectives, two capture and control objectives, and KPs. Winning an objective was worth 10 points, draws were worth 5, and losses 0 for a max of 30 points per round. I didn't get army lists from my opponents so I am going from memory.

Round 3
Deployment: Spearhead

So I rolled into the third round with 60 points and was paired off with a Space Marine player who had also received 60 points from his previous rounds.  I don't think either of the next two people had 40 points, and I think I had a sizeable VP lead, so I just needed to force a draw to win the Tournament.  However, when I saw his list, I knew I was facing an uphill battle:

Vulkan
Tactical Squad with PF, MG, MM, and DP
Tactical Squad with PW, Flamer, MM, and Rhino
Tactical Squad with PW, Flamer, ML, and Rhino
Scout Squad (10) with Snipers and Cloaks
Ironclad with DP
Ironclad with DP
Devestators (5) with MLx3 and LC and TLLC Razorback
Devestators (5) with MLx3 and LC and TLLC Razorback
Thunderfire Cannon

Honey Calgar don't care!

Dread Calgar... he takes what he wants!

I had an opportunity to make it out to a small 2K tournament yesterday, so I dusted off my Honorguard (Counts As GK) army and bumped it up to 2K.  I didn't use the 2K list I posted earlier because some models are still under construction.  Here is what I took:

Draigo
Paladins (5) with DH x2, Halberd x2, Pyscannon x2, and Banner
GKSS (5) with Pyscannon and Pysback with SL
GKSS (5) with Pyscannon and Pysback with SL
GKSS (5) with Pyscannon and Pysback with SL
GKSS (5) with Pyscannon and Pysback with SL
Venerable Rifleman
Rifleman Dread
Stormraven with TLMM and TLPC and SL
Dread Calgar with Teleporter

More Honor Guard... Almost done

I took some time yesterday to base/model a few more Honorguard to fill out my 2K list.  I now have four Terminators, and 10 PAGKs that are ready for some paint.  Once I finish them and another Pysback, I will have my 2K list completed.  I still have a box of PAGKs and Sang Guard ready to be turned into Interceptors/Purifiers, but I do not have a list that utilizes them just yet, so they are on the backburner.  In the meantime, I plan on building up a 2K Necron army.... dun dun dunnnnnnn  

"Improved" 2K Honor Guard List

Future Thrawn Model

After doing some playing around with Army Builder, I am leaning towards tweaking my 2K Honor Guard build.  While Draigo and five Pallies can survive pretty well at 1500, I think their effectiveness is somewhat suspect at 2K, where an opponent can throw a lot more firepower at them every turn.  Torrenting them down actually comes into play.  At that point, I either have to commit to a full ten-man unit or drop them completely.  Because of this, I am looking at switching out for Termies led by Thawn (aka Chapter Champion) and supported by a Librarian.  I lose some of the flexibility of Grand Strategy, but gain more bodies, another Razorback, and a teleporter for the Dreadknight (which should make him more of a legitimate threat).  Here is what it looks like:

More Honorguard Battle Summaries

Chapter Champion and TDA Honorguard

I have been playing a lot of Minecraft lately, so I have been on a bit of a 40K hiatus.  However, the "semi-local friendly gaming store" hosted another 1500 tournament this Saturday.  I am starting to really get into the 1500 scene... it's cheaper and does seem to allow older/themed armies to compete better than at the higher levels.  I decided to bust out my Ultramarine Honorguard (Counts as GK) again and here's how they did:

Tournament Overview
The tournament was a three-round RTT-like tournament with Battle, Painting, and Comp Scores.  There were about 20 people with a solid mix of armies.  I saw IG, Marines, BT, GK, Eldar, Orks, a couple of Necrons, and a couple of DE.  Noticibly absent were SW and BA.... two tournaments in a row without them.  The missions were based on normal missions (KP and Sieze Ground) with slight "Christmas Theme" twists.  The games were broken down into Major/Minor/Tie with 2 bonus points per round.  Unfortunately, not a single one of my opponents had an extra army list, so I am going from memory.  My army consisted of:

Draigo (Chapter Champ)
5 Pallies with 2 Pyscannons, 2 DHs, and Brother Hood Banner
5 GKSS with Pyscannon and Pysback
5 GKSS with Pyscannon and Pysback
5 GKSS with Pyscannon and Pysback
2 Pyflemen
1 Dreadknight with no upgrades (CALGAR!)

It's a really weird/unbalanced army, and I was really worried about the DE lists floating around.  I almost busted out my normal Space Marine army, but ended up just saying "screw it."

Honour Guard Update!

Chapter Master Calgar... ready for a fight! (In his DK armor)

I finally sat down and cranked through a lot of my modeling/painting backlog in the last couple of weeks.  My lovely wife was kind enough to Greenstuff cloaks for my models, and I was able to block off time to focus on painting.  These pictures are pretty terrible, but show an update of my progress:

Counts As Thoughts...

I'm still debating how I am going to go about doing Counts As Honorguard.  I have been looking in the White Dwarf at the pictures of the bits and trying to figure out just what I'm going to use.  The helmets and weapon arms are no brainers.  However, the legs, chest, and shoulder pads are more "iffy".  They would be more useful if they had kept the old gibberish text instead of readable words such as "Doom", "Nemisis", etc.  While they are very ornate and look super cool, they don't scream "Honorguard" to me.  I would replace the left shoulderpads with metal Ultramarine ones, but I'm not sure what to do about the rest.  I think I can use them as long as I get the file and greenstuff out.  For now, I am going to test paint one of my plain, extra metal PAGKs and see how it looks in my Smurfs scheme.  That should give me an idea of what areas need some extra detail to look more like Honorguard.  Any suggestions are appreciated!

GK Counts as Smurfs...

I am tempted to steal the idea for Honorguard Counts as Grey Knights.  For one, I do love my Smurfs and the fluff associated with them.  I also LOVE the idea of not having to spend a crap ton of money on stuff like Dreadnoughts, Rhinos, and Razorbacks.  And if I do it right, it would be a nice way to "be different" from the rest of the bandwagon jumpers.  I could kit bash the hell out of the GK, Sang Guard, and other kits and get some Roman-style crests for all the helmets.

A lot of the rules and gear can fit an Honorguard/Vet force pretty well, but there are quite a few "stretches" that might cause problems.  The pysker and demon rules would not have any real justification besides the "rule of cool".  Here's what I'm thinking:

GKTs/Paladins = TDA Honorguard (creative, right?)
GKSS = PA Honorguard
Purifiers = Tyrannic War Vets (I thought the "FU Gaunts!" ability was appropriate)
GKGM = Captain
GK Libby = Libby (easy enough)
Dreadknight 1 = Papa Smurf
Other DKs = ???? (I want to use multiple DKs)
Interceptors = Vanguard Vets (would probably use piece Sang Guard Models)
Inquisitors = PDF leaders (TDA one would be hard to justify)
Warrior Henchmen (probably won't use) = Ultramar PDF or Scouts
Pyscannons = Assault Cannons

I'm not sure if I will actually go with this, but it's definately an idea I will be thinking about this week.