A Light Exploratory Vehicle

   One of the models I had on my wish list for if I ever decided to expand my Genestealer Cult army was an Achilles Ridgerunner, there was just something about this vehicle that makes me happy. So when our final Fratribusia game date fell through with 2 players dropping out, it was decided to turn it into a normal game - which made me wonder if I could get my force to the points needed.

   I was already working on a squad of Neophytes to round the infantry out and while I had/have other plans for the army, this was the perfect moment to add a Ridgerunner. 

   I built it with 2 options - main gun is magnetised - so it can either have the armaments I would choose (heavy mining laser and spotter*) or the option that the new combat patrol includes which is survey auger and missile launcher.

*somehow I managed to drop and lose the spotter on the way to take a photo of the model and have yet to find him**

**ironically, I could do with a spotter

   I painted a big 2 on the front as I thought it balanced nicely with the fact the store voucher I got for coming second using Genestealer Cults in a tournament went towards this model. Otherwise it's in the same horrible corporate cheap green and dirty metal that my other vehicles are in.

Predictably, it died turn 1 in it's first game

   I suppose now I'm getting prepared for the new combat patrol box, do I go ahead and pick it up to keep this project as useful as it can be? This army was only ever supposed to be a small project to make Fratribusia more interesting, but I've really enjoyed using them far more than expected.

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Even More Cult Troops

   After the tournament at the weekend I was actually in the mood to do some painting which hasn't happened for a good month or so now. I had picked up a box of Genestealer Cult Neophytes for a different project as I had an idea I wanted to try out, but now they have come back to the home they should have been bought for as the 3rd troops squad.

   I built these guys in a pretty standard way, but I raided old sprues for weapons that the combat patrol I built my other squads for hadn't used. So this squad has two mining lasers and has bulked up the special weapons for my other squads - mostly flamers and grenade launchers. I also cut the hand off the leaders weapon, sticking it on slightly twisted for a bit of variety, but something not even I will notice in the future.

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Combat Patrol Tournament

   At the weekend I went to a 40k Combat Patrol tournament at Wayland Games. Like the 30k tournaments I used to do, I treated it as a paid day to guarantee a certain amount of games against new opponents rather than a win at all costs competitive thing, plus being combat patrol I was hoping to avoid the net 40k lists that don't look like fun to play. 

   The first game was against my regular opponent and his Sisters of Battle. This game played out like our normal games, mostly as we know how each other play, but much as it was annoying to play your regular opponent it did give us a chance to ease into the day.

   It goes without saying that he smashed me. I'm partly blaming the dice as I failed stuff I really shouldn't have - but ultimately I was out played.

   The next game was against the T'au - using the old combat patrol. This game was a weird one, my opponent forgot about the objective in his deployment zone for 2 whole turns before realising he didn't have time to go back to it later in the game. Then the army just didn't have the output you'd expect, so I just kept surviving beyond what I expected.

I ended the game sitting on every objective - which surprised everyone - with a large points difference.

   The last game was against Space Marines and a player who HAD A PLAN. He went over my combat patrol rules, decided my army was weak and told me how short the game would be.

   2 turns later I controlled every objective comfortably and I had blocked him getting to any. It took him another 2 turns to get any objectives by which point my points lead was fairly substantial and I still had answers to his gambits.

   The game ended with him having a single model left - the terminator librarian - and me having odds and sods spread across the board in key places. 

   This was the game I learned the most about how this army is really supposed to work and where I played my best which has given me ideas.

   I ended up finishing the tournament in second place - my best ranking for a proper tournament ever. Just gutted there was no certificate or anything for my wall.

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Lure Of The Chaos Gods - Combat Patrol

   While the details of this year's 40k campaign, once the Fratribusia cuffuffle has been sorted, aren't important for this post, the nature of it is. The aim is to have it set on a chaos held planet, with the Tyranid players going to the dark Gods and the Imperial players sticking with their current collections.

   Combat Patrol has been decided as the form the first few games - and how maybe the bulk of the campaign will be played - and this left me with a choice as I don't have a legal chaos combat patrol, despite having a decent sized chaos army. I plan to pick up the chaos marine combat patrol at some point, but I sort of want to see if it stays the same when their codex comes out in a couple of months.

   So I was looking at my traitor guard and realised I was actually fairly close, plus I'd love to see the regular humans feature more in themed campaigns. My current collection was a tad light on the special weapons needed as it was built at a time when cheap under equipped squads was my go to way of building them and I needed the two newer kits from the guard combat patrol - Field Ordinance Batteries and Sentinel.

   I'm still working on the sentinel but I have got the following done;

A mix of guard models including a new commander (who needs a suitable power weapon stuck to his hip), a grenade launcher, plasma gun, flamer and a few guys for the command squad.

Then I moved onto the Field Ordinance and while I have a few things I want to say about this kit, the big take away is that I want more of them and any future ones will be magnetised if I can work out how to do it as the two guns you take in the combat patrol list aren't what I would pick if I was building a pair for a list.

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