Daemons/Death Guard vs Iron Hands/Assassinorum

Mission: Cloak and Shadows, Hammer and Anvil Deployment

Points limit: 1500 points

Lists:

Chaos Daemons: Daemonic Incursion 

• Command: Daemon Prince of Nurgle, Warlord; wings, armor, level 3 Psyker (Warp Speed, Enfeeble, Haemorrhage), 2 greater rewards (hellfire gaze, armorbane, fleshbane), 1 lesser reward (Plague Flail)
• Core: Tallyband of Nurgle
• Herald of Nurgle, Locus of Feel no Pain, level 2 Psyker (Incursion, Infernal Gaze)
• 4x 10-man Plaguebearers
• 3x 3-man Nurglings
• Auxiliary: 5-man Chaos Furies

Chaos Space Marines: Deathguard Allied Detachment

• Daemon Prince of Nurgle, wings, armor, level 3 Psyker, Plaguebringer
• 6-man Plague Marines, Plasmagun

Iron Hands: Fist of Medusa Strike Force

• Core: Battle Demi-Company
• Chaplain, Jump Pack
• 5-man Assault Marines, Jump Packs, 2 Flamers
• 3-man Centurion Devastators, Grav Cannons
• Dreadnought in Drop Pod
• 6-man Command Squad, Apothecary, 5 Flamers
• 5-man Tactical Squad, Grav Cannon, Drop Pod
• 5-man Tactical Squad, Grav Cannon, Rhino
• 5-man Tactical Squad, Rhino, Plasma Gun, Imperial Space Marine
• Honored Ancients
• 2x Dreadnought with Assault Cannon

Officio Assassinorum: Assassinorum Operative

• Culexus Assassin

Deployment

I won the roll-off, but had the Iron Hands player deploy first. I wanted nothing to do with unexpected Dreadnoughts in my back field. He set up fairly close to the deployment line, with the drop pods in reserve, and infiltrated some units thanks to his Warlord trait. Luckily, I spread out my Plaguebearers in my own deployment zone to deny him infiltration spots. Both our infiltrators went down close to the deployment line.

Notes.
The Terminators on the far left proxy the Centurions.
The Librarian model in front of them proxies the Assassin.
The white Daemon Prince on the right is the Death Guard one; the Warlord is hiding in the ruins to the left.

Iron Hands, turn 1

The Command Squad heroically (and foolishly) lands by drop pod next to these ruins. I had the warlord, a squad of Nurglings and a squad of Plaguebearers in there.

Another, empty drop pod landed on an objective in the middle of the table.

5 Flamers cleaned out the place pretty well, but thanks to the Feel no Pain offered by the Herald (the black figure amid the other squad), they failed to score First Blood. I had two Plaguebearers remaining!

Other shooting took place at long range, and I lost a couple of Plaguebearers, because I did not want to go to ground.

Nurgle, turn 1

The troops in the middle shifted towards the Assassin, as I wanted to intercept him before he gets involved with my Daemon Princes. Alas, I forgot to assault, which I think was a major mistake and contributed to the final result.

My Warlord suffered a wound from a Flamer hit, so I flew the other Daemon Prince around to heal him up. Naturally, I rolled Perils on 2 dice, and the Death Guard Daemon Prince took a wound and was grounded.

On the bright side, my Warlord assaulted the Command Squad (with the Nurglings taking the overwatch) and killed them to a man, scoring first blood.

At the end of the first turn, I was leading 4-1.

Iron hands, turn 2

The Plaguebearers had advanced too far without assaulting the Assassin, and now they paid the price. The Assault Marines flamed, then charged them, leaving the squad thinned out, even with the Herald giving out Feel no Pain. At least the Assassin failed to charge in.

Nurgle, turn 2

I had the Warlord destroy the Drop Pod near my ruins (I needed that objective, and the Drop Pod had Objective Secured). I had the other Daemon Prince advance on the combat in the center, and save the day - but he failed his charge, leaving him exposed. I had the Nurglings go in, to tie up the Assault Marines at least. Without princely support, the Assault Marines finally killed my Herald.

Iron Hands, turn 3

The Centurions unloaded into my Warlord, who graciously failed 3 2+ Jink saves and died.

The Dreadnought in his Drop Pod landed behind the Plague Marines, but did no damage. 

Nurgle, turn 3

A lucky plasma shot from the Plague Marines stunned the Dreadnought. I took advantage to rearrange the Plaguebearers, wanting to assault in with both next turn. For now, I had one group descend on the Drop Pod and glance it to death.

The Daemon Prince finally joined the battle, but the Chaplain, who stepped up to the challenge, saved all but 1 wound thanks to his Rosarius and Feel no Pain.

Iron Hands, turn 4

The Dreadnought failed his charge, but the Assassin got stuck in. He failed his Glorious Intervention, and the Chaplain got slaughtered, along with the rest of the Assault Marines.

On the other side, 5 Tactical Marines (with a Plasma Gun and the Imperial Space Marine) disembarked from the Rhino, killing 2 Plague Marines.

Nurgle, turn 4

I had the relentless Plague Marines and the remains of one Plaguebearer squad descend on the disembarked tacticals. They failed spectacularly, and the Plaguebearers died to instability.

I had the other Plaguebearers charge the Dreadnought with 1 HP remaining. They also failed spectacularly, loosing half their number of instability.

The final nail in the coffin was the Daemon Prince rolling 1 for his daemon weapon, thus unable to kill the Assassin. The Culexus, on the other hand, rolled 3 Instant Death wounds, dispatching the Daemon with ease.

At this point I conceded, with only some Plaguebearers and Nurglings remaining against sizeable enemy forces. I was also at a point disadvantage, with no way to recover, all my heavy hitters gone.

Aftermath

I could talk about army composition, but I deliberately did not bring my Tzeentch summoning madness. We had agreed beforehand on a rather relaxed game. And at least we had fun! Some points, though:

• The Culexus Assassin is the bane of my existence. I had mistakenly brought the Herald too soon into its reach, and thus made it impossible to summon reinforcements in the hour of need. In hindsight, I should have pulled back, evading the Assassin for as long as possible, maybe feeding Nurglings/Furies to tie him up for a round or two.
• Centurion Devastators with Grav Cannons are extremely effective, as they have shown time and again against my 3+ armored Daemon Princes. With their Grav Amps, they even did work against unarmored Plaguebearers.
• Dreadnoughts are another weakness that Daemons generally can't deal with in close combat. Some Tzeentchian psychic shooting would have worked wonders, though.
• Plague Marines are awesome, but very expensive.
• The new CSM Nurgle Discipline is awesome. It would have shined greatly by healing up my Princes and giving the Plaguebearers poisoned 2+, if not for the Assassin.
• As always, Nurgle daemons are ridiculously resistant to shooting, but fail against dedicated close combat troops.

Painting a drow elf fighter

Introduction

The final character of the DnD group is none other than my drow elf wizard (who will at some point multiclass into fighter). The figure is that of Drizzt Do'urden from The Legend of Drizzt Board Game which I will desecrate by painting in traditional drow colors.

Prime

In black, due to the dark color scheme planned.

Painting the cloak

The traditional drow color is purple, so I did that instead of Drizzt's optimistic forest green. I also departed from my usual feathering cloak-painting method.

Basecoat of bright purple (Vallejo Hexed Lichen):

Mix the color with dark blue to get the shade color:

Mix with white to get the highlight color:

Generous purple wash (Druchii Violet) to mesh the colors together.

Same procedure on the front of the cloak.

Painting the fur on the cloak

I painted this at the same time as the dragonborn paladin, so I used the exact same colors and paints to get that brown fur look.

Painting leather and cloth

Brown and bone/white details should offset all that purple. 

Start with a brown basecoat.

With leather brown, basecoat the smaller details (straps, belt) and thick edge highlight the larger ones (armor straps, boots).

Bonewhite basecoat on the padded armor on the arms. Ochre basecoat on the gold details. I wanted the gold to be more yellowy than metallic, again to offset the purple.

Sepia wash on the entirety of the cloth.

Brown wash (Agrax Earthshade) only in the recessed areas of the cloth. Also do the entirety of the leather surfaces.

Highlight the center of the cloth square with bonewhite. Edge highlight the leather areas with leather brown.

Painting metallics

Basecoat the blades and armor segments with gunmetal. Basecoat the sword handles with bronze, to give them a distinct look.

Overall black wash.

Basecoat the clasp of the cloak and the wide plate belt in gold.

Wash the gold with Reikland Fleshshade, then spot highlight the raised edges with gold.

Edge highlight the armor segments with silver.

Slight blue glaze on the blades. This makes them look slightly magical in nature, without over-the-top effects (molten or icy blades, etc).

Highlighting skin

I followed the black highlighting scheme I first used for cloth. I limited the highlighting to the raised areas of the face - brows, nose, chin, ears - and just two layers.

Painting white hair

Basecoat white, then paint over with thinned down grey.

Line highlight with white.

Painting red eyes

I didn't want to have to apply 10 coats of red until I get a bright shade over the black basecoat of the face. So I did a basecoat of white for the eyes.

And followed up with bright red.

Painting finished!

Basing

Rugged wasteland base.

Finished!

Converting a tiefling warlock

Introduction

I searched long and hard for a tiefling warlock miniature, but to no avail. So I decided to convert one. It took some time to find the right parts, but here we go...

Components

One human mage (I don't know where it's from), and one incubus from Hasslefree miniatures (warning, explicit picture).

Conversion

Start by chopping their heads off. I used a pair of cutters to chop, then smoothed out the surfaces with a hobby knife. Note that the body of the incubus is reusable, but the head of the mage was completely deformed by the cutters (not shown).

Smooth the surfaces and glue the head on. This ensures that it holds better than sticking strictly to green stuff.

Of course, it look terrible at this point. The neck and especially the hair does not fit.

So apply green stuff! As always, apply it first, and sculpt second.

I used a fine hobby knife (dipped in water) to draw the lines. I also tried to draw them in such a way as to continue the hair lines already sculpted onto the head.

Finished

Ready to paint!