BFG Battle Report: Space Marines v.s. Eldar

I had a Battle Fleet Gothic game with Gavin and his gorgeous Eldar Corsair fleet at our FLGS a couple of weeks back.

It was a pity I didn't bring in my space gaming mat as both of our fleets were painted to a very decent standard and would have been a thing of beauty to behold. However the game was still a spectacle and we had more than a couple of curious onlookers checking us out.

The fleets

Given that we were still a bit rusty with the rules we decided on 1,000 points per side to allow us some toys in our list without having too big a fleet engagement that would go on for ages.

Eldar Corsairs

1 Shadow Class Cruiser

2 Aurora Light Cruisers

4 Hellebore Frigates

2 Nightshade Destroyers

Space Marines

1 Battle barge with Master of the Fleet

3 Strike Cruisers

2 Gladius Escorts

Set up and Deployment

Similar to my previous game with Jeff, I suggested we play with some asteroid fields to add a bit of tactical depth to the game. We alternated placing asteroids which eventually formed three separate fields.

We then rolled for sides and alternated deploying our ships. We both ended up splitting our fleet into two detachments to facilitate movement through the asteroids.

I deployed my Battle barge with a squadron of two Strike Cruisers in the middle with a clear path into the centre of the table. I deployed my other Strike Cruiser beside a squadron of two Gladius on the left of the table.

Once again we decided to play a straight shoot em’ up game. Kill or be killed!

The Game

I had first turn. I advanced my main detachment with the Battle barge towards the centre of the table and launched Thunderhawks and torpedoes.

My other detachment flew into the asteroid field for cover.

In my ordnance phase the Thunderhawk squadrons and torpedoes flew straight into the middle of the table in an attempt to influence his movement next turn.

On Gavin’s turn he moved his ships forward. His Shadow and two Hellebores flew at my ordnance in the middle of the table. He moved his two Nightshades around into the asteroid field. On his right he flew the Aurora and the other two Hellebore straight parallel to the asteroid field. He split the other Aurora and moved it into the middle of the table.

The Corsairs then launched their own torpedoes directly at the Thunderhawks which together with his ships’ armaments managed to destroy the majority of my ordnance.

On his ordnance phase all his ships did a 180 and ran. Eldar ships can turn freely and can move in both the movement phase and their ordnance phase. In addition, if the sunward edge is behind them they get a massive boost to their speed. This was my first time playing against Eldar and was completely unprepared for this. Very tricksy.

On my turn I continue to move forward with my main detachment to within weapons range. On my left, the Strike Cruiser continued to move through the asteroid field. The Gladius, with their 30cm speed, flew through the asteroid field right beside the Aurora that was trying to escape.

Eldar are very resilient due to their holofields. This provides a 2+ save against lances and ordnance. Against weapon batteries they force a right column shift reducing the number of attack dice.

I issued the ‘lock on’ special order and unloaded with all my guns reducing the Aurora to a drifting hulk. Space marines’ bombardment cannons use the gunnery table and therefore negate the Eldar’s holofield saves.  Eldar ships without holofields are as strong and resilient as wet toilet paper.

The Corsair responded by springing a trap.

In the centre, the Shadow and Hellebore that were running away made a complete turn and zoomed directly at my two Strike Cruisers. His Nightshades also successfully navigated their way through the asteroid field to come up right on the Strike Cruisers. On his right he punched his other Aurora and Hellebore through the asteroid field right on the port side of my Battle barge.

He then unloaded all manner of deadly Eldar munitions against my fleet. His weapon batteries stripped shields from my capital ships. He then followed up with pulsar lances which made mockery of my heavy 6+ armour. The icing on the cake was when he launched torpedoes at point blank range and started to strip my hull points at an alarming rate. Eldar torpedoes are hard to hit with defensive turrets and can reroll any misses. It was not a pretty sight. To top it off, his ships than did another 180 and ran off into the asteroid fields!

Somehow, when the space dust settled, none of my ships were destroyed. Both of my Strike Cruisers were crippled and my Battle barge loss four hull points. However my fleet was still intact and ready for vengeance.

On my turn I moved away from all the blast markers bringing my shields back on line. I also succeeded with reloading all of my ordnance. I reckon the only way to destroy more ships were to concentrate fire so I flew all of my ships towards the right side of the table in pursuit of the Shadow Cruiser, Hellebore Frigates and Nightshade Destroyers.

The Eldar had speed on their side and I would never catch up with them with my capital ships. However my Thunderhawks can move in both of our ordnance phases. Therefore, I scrambled all Thunderhawks from my launch bays and hurled them at his ships. On my shooting phase my main armaments couldn’t find any gaps through his holofields but my Thunderhawks managed to land a couple of critical hits against his Shadow Cruiser.

On Gavin’s turn, the Eldar once again did a u-turn and came right up on my grill. He reloaded ordnance and again shot them point blank at my ships. This time around he managed to blew both of my Gladius Escorts into scrap adamantium. He also succeeded in overloading my shields and stripped a couple more hull points from my Strike Cruisers.

With that we ran out of time and ended the game.

Post battle analysis

Eldar

Pirate Prince Gavin:

"It was my first time facing Space Marines and it was quite a challenge dealing with their high armour and fearsome bombardment cannons!

Due to not having any attack craft tokens I was forced to rely on holofields for ordnance defence. Next time I will make sure to take ships with fighters and bombers to deal with pesky Thunderhawks!"

Space Marines

Master of the Fleet Voiddragon:

"That was a thoroughly enjoyable game! It was my first time against Eldar and I was very impressed with their special abilities. They had advantages in both their movement and weapons. However my Space Marines held their own thanks to their heavy armour and Thunderhawks.

Also I realised I cheated after the game as both of my Strike Cruisers were crippled (i.e. lost more than half their starting hull points) but I forgot to play them as such. Sorry about that Gavin!

Tactically, I don’t think I could have done any better given the placing of the asteriod fields. Deploying centrally meant that no matter which direction he went I would be able to chase and keep within weapons range most of the time. Also I realised there was nothing I could do against point blank torpedoes. Man those were nasty!"

Hope that was an enjoyable read. We certainly had fun playing it. More to come soon. Stayed tuned.

BFG: Space Marine Fleet Part 2

I have finally finished painting my Battle Fleet Gothic Space Marine Fleet. The last few tasks were by far the most time consuming to complete. However I persevered and I am now a proud owner of a fully painted Space Marine battle fleet.

Read on to discover how it turned out.

Edge Highlights

If I was normal I probably would have dry brushed all the ships with a lighter shade of red to create the desired highlights. However I am not normal. I convinced myself that the only way to do them justice was to edge highlight with an extreme detail brush. Not sure if you've noticed but Space Marine ships have a LOT of edges.

With watered down GW Blazing Orange, I edge highlighted all the raised areas by sweeping the side of the brush on the edges in precise and confident strokes. This took ages. However I am very happy of how it turned out. A little bit more orange then red but the ships do pop.

Star Field Base

I've always intended to paint all my BFG ships' bases with star fields. I think this makes them blend in really well with star mats. Given that I have the Gale Force 9 star field mats with red nebulae my bases were going to be painted with the same colour scheme.

Paints used in this process

I started by airbrushing the bases black

I then randomly airbrushed VJ Fire Red followed by VJ Red Fluo followed by VJ Rosey Flesh

Using an old toothbrush, I flicked VJ Rosey Flesh onto the bases

Followed by White and then Fluo Yellow to simulate a field of stars 

I then took the crown needle cap off the airbrush so that I can spray VJ White paint in a small cone to simulate the glow of a nearby star

I then drew thin lines of VJ White in an X pattern to simulate the sparkle

I did the same with my ordnance bases

Here's the finished product ready for the ships to be mounted on

Hand Draw Blood Angels Chapter Symbols

If you've played me at 40k than you would know that my fleet is not just random Red Marines. Rather they are part of the glorious IX Legion, the Blood Angels.

As such, they needed the Blood Angels iconic tear drop and wings Chapter symbol. With the Battle Barge this was easy to achieve as the wing armour was big enough for a generic transfer from the Space Marine Tactical box set. However for the rest of them I had to paint it on by hand. Another task that took ages.

I started with watered down GW Abaddon Black to form a black tear drop down the middle

I then carefully drew the wings. Any mistakes were fixed with VJ Fire Red after

Varnish

Given that some of the ships were pewter and prone to paint chipping of it, I protected all the ships by airbrushing VJ Matt Varnish over them. Twice. Hopefully this will protect them from normal usage as gaming pieces. I'm pretty sure if I dropped them the paint will still explode spectacularly.

The Reveal

My BFG Blood Angels Space Marine fleet is now ready to bring the fight to dirty Xenos and heretics in all four corners of the galaxy...

The combined might of an Adeptus Astartes battle group

Hunter Destroyers

Nova Frigates

Gladius Frigates

Strike Cruisers

Battle Barge

Dark Angels Strike Cruiser

Grey Knights Strike Cruisers

BFFs

Well I hoped that inspired people to finish their own painting projects. Painting and modelling can have its downs but the greatest feeling as a hobbyist is seeing your hard work on the tabletop or display cabinet. Plus I can now move this task to the 'Finish' area on my Kanban board. The first ever!

BFG Mini Battle Report: Space Marines VS Necrons

I played a Battle Fleet Gothic game with a local guy, Jeff, last Wednesday in our FLGS. We both have not played the game in years so our knowledge of the rules was a bit patchy for the game. Nonetheless we had a blast. Here's a brief battle report of how it went down.

Fleets

We decided on 1,000 pts.

Jeff had 2 Scythes and around 8 Jackal escorts I think.

I made a school boy error and forgot half my fleet on the night! Anyway I had just enough for 995 pts made up of 1 Battle Barge, 3 Strike Cruisers, 2 Hunter escorts and a Master of the Fleet.

Set up

We didn't play any scenarios and just went for a simple shoot em' up annihilation style game.

We had a big asteroid field in the middle which made the game a lot more tactical as there was essentially one huge line of site blocking terrain in the middle.

Gameplay

Jeff set up facing straight towards the asteroid field.

I set up my fleet with a slight angle so that my direction of travel was parallel to the asteroid field

First turn Jeff went all ahead full with most of his fleet to circle around the field to come at me from behind. One Jackal squadron punched their way through the asteroid field but suffering one casualty as they failed their leadership test.

I did likewise and moved all ahead full to try to get to his isolated Jackal squadron that just made their way through the asteroid field.

On Jeff's second turn he did another all ahead full on his Scythes and some Jackals to come directly behind my fleet ready to unload next turn. One of his Jackal squadron shot at my Hunters with their Lighting Arcs and promptly blew my escorts to bits.

On my turn I moved my fleet away from his to try to set up a nice firing position next turn. I launched all of my Thunderhawks behind my fleet to intercept the rapidly approaching Necrons.

On Jeff's next turn he gave chase and unloaded his Lighting Arcs and Gauss Particle Whips on my fleet destroying the slowest Strike Cruiser, took down shields and a few hull points from my GK Strike Cruisers and most of the Thunderhawk squadrons.

On my turn I reloaded ordnance on all my ships and launched them straight at his Jackals which was right behind me at this stage. One wave hit home and crit the shit out of a Jackal squadron. Escorts are destroyed whenever they suffer a critical hit. We played it that they didn't get an armour save from the hit and run attacks. Not sure if this was correct?

At this point most of his Jackals were gone. He retaliated with his 2 Scythes and they took out both of my remaining Strike Cruisers in 2 turns. In the mean time I did a come to a new heading special order to try to bring my Battle Barge into firing position. This took it into the asteroid field which meant it couldn't be shot at nor can it shoot out.

At this point we only had 15 mins left before the shop closes and we decided to call it so Jeff could get his train home.

All in all it was a very fun game. We had to check up some of the rules a good few times but it went smoothly enough.

Thanks for the game Jeff!

I'm hoping to have regular BFG games and will be posting more battle reports in the near future. So stayed tuned.