The battle for Deimos

 

The Cadian gate campaign has begun, after several turns of manoeuvring the first confrontation occurs over the forgeworld of Deimos Binary, wich the Blacks Templars invade to purge the chaos filth

We rolled the escalating engagement scenario: only two ships are present at the beginning and the rest show up as the game progresses

A battlebarge and a devastation battled it out in the first turn, doing little damage except damaging one another's weapon batteries

Then the first chaos reinforcements showed up only to be set on fire by some boarding torpedoes

At last the Light of Purity managed to repair her weapons systems with a triple six (!) and destroy her opponent with a single locked on broadside 

By then more marine vessels had shown up, firing bombrdment cannons and guns to full effect

A lucky nova shot from another imperial cruiser crippled one of the heretic vessels

Then the massive Planet Killer emerged from the warp...

And almost destroyed a strike cruiser

The inital skirmish has escalated into a full blown battle, with the imperials dodging the Armageddon gun and concentrating on the chaos cruisers

Another nova cannon bullseye

With one chaos ship destroyed, two crippled and the Planet Killer unable to turn, the game ended in a well earned  imperial victory

In our next game the Black Templars will descend to the surface to remove the chaos taint from the forgeworld.

¡Volcanic rocks make great asteroids I think!

Hit and run

 

The Mordheim campaign ended last saturday with a cinematic game: the witch hunters had just stolen a valuable gold tablet from a temple and had to escape the natives' vengeance

The game began well for the imperials, with a dog taking out my priestess in the first turn

My girls were too hardened to let such an early setback give them pause, and soon a lethal storm of amazonian arrows began to fall on the reckless adventurers

The jungle began to stir, and puffs of hallucinogen spores enveloped some fighters

Taking out one of the warhounds

By now the Lustry Girls had reached combat, and their claws and skills soon began to tell

The witch hunter captain managed to fell one of the natives

But the tide of battle was turning in favour of the daughters of Rigg

I tried to take out a marksman with an adversity, but he just got his boots muddied by a quicksand

Luckily for me, in the next turn he was felled by several arrows

More quicksands kept popping up to no effect

One by one the imperials were hunted down by the natives

As always  Lustria took its own victims: a cloud of spores felled an amazon

While a lethal vine shot from the jungle and enveloped the hunter captain in its lethal embrace

The witch hunters were wiped out soon and at last the amazons recovered the artifact from the cold hands of the last invader

Grimaldus

 

To the darkness I bring fire

To the ignorant faith

Those who welcome these gifts may live

But I will visit naught but death 

and eternal damnation on those

who refuse them

-Merek Grimaldus

Naturally the last model of the first templar batch was no other than the big man himself. The awesome chaplain from Helsreach has got an upscaled upgrade with the new codex and now is finally ready to take to the field with his fellow knights of the Emperor.

I wanted something evocative for the base, so I threw in a dead goblin gretchin plus some templar remains as a reference to the terrible losses of the Armageddon crusade, where he lost all the members of his command squad in valiant defence of hive Helsreach. You will see the white shield with red band motive of the crusade repeated in all models of the squad. 

The memento mori motive of the backpack is a reference to the excellent video about the novel 

I decided to go with a black, green and red scheme for Grimaldus and his servitor bros

The chaplain doesn't come alone, but followed by three relics of the temple of the Emperor Ascendant. First there is the Banner of Fallen Crusaders, an ancient standard brought to Armageddon by the first settlers of that ancient world of mankind. I like to think that the skeleton mounted on top is a martyr of the crusade like general Kurov or even some member of his old command squad.

Then we have the last column of the Major Altar, a marble aquila that inspires the bretheren to greater feats of zeal so they ingnore wounds at 6+

The last member of the quarter is the carrier of the blessed water once kept in the Stoup of Elucidation, a most holy relic that buffs the prayers of  Grimaldus to a 2+ pass

Tankred endures!

 

I Liked the Black Templars since reading an old comic that told the tale of a warrior that went from neophite to initiate and then became a dreadnought after being grievously injuried while slaughtering a ton of chaos marines. I needed that dread in my army and instead of going for a venerable I picked a massive redemptor kitted out for maximum antihorde.

After seeing how easily cold normal marines turned into primaris the techmarines turned their bionic eyes to the ancients of the Crusade, interring Tankred into one of the new redemptor dreads

The kit comes with an optional plasma cannon and an extra front shield