The Daemon's Claw

Alan, Richard and I have decided to get in some more games of Kill Team using chapters from the Badab War. We will start playing this after Call to Arms. Using Kill Team makes it really easy to get into the game. Alan is going to make some Characaradons, I have the Executioners and Richard is making the Astral Claws. The Badab War chapters come in two flavours, original from the 1980s and new recipe from the recent Imperial Armour books ~2010. There is plenty of opportunity for painting and modelling. The club also has a Salamanders army. The Salamanders were also part of the Badab War so someone can use those if they want to join in. Using the same armies gets away from the mismatches where 5 marines are trying to corral 20 Hormagaunts. This is especially true if we are using the Arena rules where its a great advantage to have a large number of bodies to block up the objectives. We will be looking for additional players to join our narrative campaign.

I got in a game of Kill Team against Richard. Richard was using the Apostles of the Abyss from Blackstone Fortress and I was using my Executioners. As befitting the tight confines of the Apostles lair we played using the Arena rules and one of the interior maps. Being Arena noobs we played the first mission in the Arena pack. Here are my Kill team in their deployment zone. I have a Marine sergeant as the leader, A marine sniper with a plasma gun and a marine heavy with a heavy bolter. I also have a Primaris sergeant who is a combat specialist and two primaris marine gunners with auxiliary grenade launchers. Here is Richard's horde of cultists, mutants and renegades who have turned against the light of the Emperor. The look in need of a good purging. Richard's horde race out of the starting room and head towards their objectives. The Executioners advance into their objective rooms and then continue to set up their sweep. Here are my positions after my moves in...

I needed a Kill Team to defend the Imperium from the threats of Genestealer Cults, Orks and other Xenos as well as Chaos Marines and other renegades. I had originally intended the Executioners to be used for kill team type games so I looked through the list of kill teams and selected some models. I have 3 normal marines, 2 gunners and a sergeant, the Heavy Bolter gunner is the heavy specialist and the one with the Plasma gun is a sniper. The sergeant is the leader and has a power sword and an auspex. In front I have a primaris sergeant who is the combat specialist, and two primaris gunners with auxiliary grenade launchers. One has, the heavy bolt rifle and the other a normal bolt rifle. I still need to do some more work on the power swords and add some decals to the two blank shoulder pads. They will be ready to defend the Imperium by kicking ass and taking heads.

After playing the Marines again, I realised just how fragile Marines are. They can't go toe to toe with many 40K armies in a straight up shootout so they need to be handled carefully. They are a toolbox army, they can move a bit shoot a bit and fight a bit but are not really good at anything compared to the standouts in one field. After playing Alan and seeing how good the Primaris and especially the Hell Blasters are I broke my first theme rule for the Executioners and I am getting some of my own. Originally, I had thought that my chapter would be unlikely to have been allocated Primaris after they were on the losing side of the Badab War and had to undertake a 100 year penitent crusade. Given that the timeline has bumped forwards 300 years or so from the end of the Badab War and the Executioners came out of the war with their base intact. So given the desperate straights of the Imperium and 200 years to rebuild, I decided that the Executioners could get some of the Primaris a...

Last weekend Alan and I played a 1500 point game of 40K. We used the turn sequence from Kill Team to try out a more interactive game rather than the completely separate normal 40K turn sequence. I took my Executioners marines, using the Black Templar chapter tactics and Alan used his Doom Farers using the Imperial Fist tactic. We were playing the Relic Scenario and the deployment was lengthwise, the Executioners are on the left and the Doom Farers are on the right. Alan moved first so pushed his Rhino over the objective. You can see Alan's clump of Hellblasters, supported by the captain, lieutenant and  ancient. They open the shooting phase and 5 of my tactical marines died to the opening volley.  Here is my other Rhino, trying to sneak round the forest and set up a pincer movement.   Here is the clump of Doom Farers there are some intercessors protecting the rear and some tactical marines in the ruin on the right.  In Turn two the Doom Farers m...

I so wish 40K had moved to an alternate activation system rather than the I smash you turn 1 then mop up approach the game has turned into. So Alan and I are going to try a game using the Kill Team turn sequence. So I have dug out my Executioners and will get a little army together. I get to try out my hammer and anvil strategy with a basic marine army. I don't have to worry about whether the army is internet competitive or not. After reading the published background, I have decided to use the Black Templars chapter rules. They have good chapter tactics, warlord traits and an OK artifact but they don't have librarians. That's OK as long as I don't want to use psychic powers. I have a Sternguard squad with a mix of combi weapons and special issue bolters  Here is my assault squad they are made from old black reach terminators with weapons from a box of Vanguard Veterans.  Here are some tactical squads and some officers  Here are some more leaders and cham...