THE LAZARUS EFFECT

Upcoming series of posts on how to create a campaign

2012-01-16T22:53:00.003-05:00

I'm in the midst of putting together a thematic campaign for our playing group and thought sharing both the step-by-step process and final output might make for interesting reading. As an aside the battle reports from our campaigns are often posted up on dakka dakka so I'll include a link.

The steps are pretty basic -

1) Know your group - This has two parts understand the player base and your material options
2) Build a thematic framework and get feedback - Put together your basic ideas and start talking to your player base
3) Flesh out the theme - Take your theme to the next level know how you want to start and how you want to end
4) Build a flowchart - You know the direction you want the campaign to take now plan out the individual steps
5) Build games around the steps - The most labor intensive step, now you have to design the individual games
6) Balancing - Go get feedback around game balance
7) Final review - Proof for accuracy, balance and fun
8) Play the games!

In later days I'll spell out each step and share the process using my current campaign as an example.

Thanks for reading!

Dark Angels Codex Dark Angels

2011-12-28T22:36:00.000-05:00

I have played "Greenwing" Dark Angels for the past two years or so, and have generally shunned my chapter's out-of-date codex in favor of the standard Space Marines book. Lately I've been using a Vulkan based list, and I will stand by my earlier assertion that for a number of reasons Vulkan is the best HQ in the game, and as a result of what he does, that type of list is one of the most versatile.

There's a problem though: I don't really like it anymore.

I'm kind of bored with marines, but more than that I really want to play Dark Angels. Real Dark Angels. Dark Angels codex Dark Angels.

I've tried this a few times, but in the end it turns out that the same, or a similar list, works better with the Space Marines codex. This trial and error, however has led me to a list that takes advantages of some of the remaining strengths in the codex, while avoiding its (greater number of) weaknesses.

At 2000 points it reads something like this:

HQ

Azrael
Interrogator Chaplain (power armor, combi-flamer)
Command Squad

Apothecary (meltagun)
Champion (power weapon, bolt pistol)
Standard Bearer (meltagun)
Marine (power weapon, plasma pistol)
Marine (power fist, plasma pistol)
Rhino (extra armor)

Elite

Dreadnaught (plasma cannon)

Troops

2x Tactical Squad

Sergeant (powerfist)
9x Marines (7x bolter, flamer, plasma cannon)
Rhino (extra armor)

Tactical Squad

Sergeant (powerfist)
9x Marines (7x bolter, meltagun, multi-melta)
Rhino (extra armor)

Fast

3x Landspeeder Typhoon (typhoon missile launcher, mult-melta)

Heavy

2x Predator (twin linked lascannon turret, heavy bolter sponsons)

A similar list, built with the Space Marines codex, using Cato Sicarius and Chaplain Cassius as HQs costs almost the same; the command squad is more expensive, but some other stuff is less so.

Here's why I like the Dark Angels variant:

HQs: I love Azrael. He is a fucking badass, and I don't care at all that he has WS 5 instead of the standard marine captain/chapter master 6. He's eternal warrior, four wounds, gives the entire squad a 4+ invulnerable save, and has seven S 6 attacks on the charge (4 base, +1 for additional close combat weapon since is sword is not actually a relic blade, +1 for charge, and +1 for the chapter banner). The Interrogator-Chaplain is three wounds, three attacks, and I 5; a first rate secondary HQ who provides re-rolls to hit when charging.

Command Squad: Two power weapons, one power fist, two plasma pistols, two melta guns, chapter banner, and feel no pain.

Dark Angels: It is a genuine Dark Angels list.

Grey Knights as an all-comers army

2011-12-22T02:08:00.005-05:00

I've been trying lately to build a Grey Knights list that's really representative of the theme of the army. I've also been reading some of the tips in the codex from the game designers and I'm really impressed with how well the army plays when it's built with their intentions in mind. I'm not trying to make it out like I have a hard time enjoying games because my codex is underpowered or anything like like that, but I think the GK codex is much more balanced and well thought out than it gets credit for.

Often times when perusing internet forums the Grey Knights lists that I come across seem to just pick the best unit (or group of units) out of the codex and take as many times as one can fit into the allotted points. This is really unfortunate for all codices not just Grey Knights, because it doesn't show what the army is capable of and it's also a chore to play against. I like the "Psyflemen" Dreadnought as much as the next guy, I mean come on, it's tough to stop with the psychic pilot and it's great at opening up transports but why take 6 of them? There are a ton of equally powerful units that don't have the stink of douche on them. Anyway on to my list.

This is meant to be my flexible all-comers style list at 1850 (and maybe later trimmed down to 1750) points. I'm using Draigo for my HQ because, simply, he's awesome. I used a Librarian for my HQ almost exclusively since the release of the codex so I really want to try out using an elite spearhead unit, what better way to do that than to put Draigo in a Stormraven with an entourage of Paladins. They get in fast and try to wreck house, then hold an objective. If the Stormraven doesn't get blown up, great, it can fly away and be a gunship for the rest of the game. I like to run it with the multi-melta and assault cannons so it's brutal at 24 inches and can take advantage of machine spirit with the melta to wreck vehicles. To fill out my troops I take two 6 man Strike squads in Psybolt Razorbacks, I give the Justicars hammers and take a psycannon. These guys are surprisingly good and I often find my opponents not taking them as seriously as perhaps they should.

Now that I have three troops choices with some decent shooting I wanted to try using some of the other infantry units. I've got a squad of 7 Interceptors with psycannon and psybolt ammo and the Justicar has a hammer. I like to use these guys as really dangerous harassing unit. I'm still getting used to how best to play jump infantry but so far I've really liked having them around. They're shunt move can be game changing and they're great to move around behind cover and use they're potent shooting. I wanted to play with Purifiers too, but more as a small slice of the there tough-as-nails order. I put 5 of them into a rhino and use their FREE incinerator upgrade on two models I give the Knight of the Flame a Halberd as well as one of the other troops, and the last guy gets a hammer. This gives me an opportunity to play with wound allocation shenanigans but primarily these guys are a suicide unit who are going to drive up and flame then assault greater numbers. They're just really fun to use and often times feel like a wild card. The incinerator is awesome but under-used due to it's more well rounded cousin, the psycannon being so cheap, nonetheless it's a nice change of pace and great to have on hand for when I have to play against Orks or Tyranids.

Finally I've got the Dreadnoughts, ugh, I know. I only take 2 and think any more would be misallocating points and losing important boots on the ground. They're the new Longfangs in terms of the unanimous internet hate but it's hard to argue with their quality and quantity of fire. To be fair these Dreads are a good combo in the Standard Marine Codex too, they just get a huge boost in the GK book with Fortitude and Strength 8 Autocannons.

So now I just need to learn how to use these unit in unison to achieve greater potential than any one of them has on it's own. I'm confident that with practice this will be a good list, fit for a tournament, and now it feels like the swiss army knife, elite marine army that it's supposed to be.

On to my latest hobby progress: The Stormraven Gunship...

This is pre paint and post magnetizing. I used a lot of magnets to make it flexible for the long haul since I only want to have to have on of these.

Here are a few shots immediately following the basic paint job. The highlights will be a little more toned down once it gets a dose of Testors Dullcote.

Finally here are some bits on their own. I left the glass out of the cockpit and turret until all the painting is done.

I've got lots left on my desk so I'd better get painting.

Shifting feelings about Apocalypse games

2011-12-10T10:47:00.002-05:00

For the first several years of playing 40k I have belittled Apocalypse games. I thought they were a mess, unbalanced (with the addition of super heavies), and denied the players any ability to apply tactics to the game.

I have more recently changed my view. Partly due to a reconsideration of what's fun and partly due to having played in a very well organized game. n.b. this is written and photographed from the DE player's perspective so take with a grain of salt :)

While there were two superheavies on the board, a warhound titan and squiggoth, they didn't drastically alter the game and both were damaged with squiggoth actually being eliminated. Granted better looking models would be nice... However, my partner in the game that fielded the toy robot counts as titan is actually purchasing a titan so that will change.

The strategic assets also added a nice variation to the tactics of the game. On the Chaos/Xenos side the Dark Eldar chose the 36" psychic blocking one which ruined my crafty null zone libby plan for his flicker fields, the Chaos player threw up a wall of smoke in the first turn that allowed the Orks to march up the field in the first turn without being shot at, and the Ork player chose the vital objectives asset which made the pivotal battle at the end so important.

For the imperial players we also chose the vital objectives asset and even designated the same one as the other team. We also chose orbital bombardment which killed off the squad of three ravagers that would of finished off the titan and flank march which forced our opponents to split their forces and let me remove the orks from the vital objective which ended up winning us the game.

Finally, as I mentioned earlier the game was exceedingly well run. Action was fast and furious and play never got bogged down. I'm going to play again next week and will see about grabbing a camera and writing up a proper battle report.

Iron Hands Terminator Librarian

2011-12-08T23:23:00.001-05:00

Just a few work in progress photos of my terminator librarian (with storm shield). He accompanies my shooty terminator squad and Lysander and acts as their ride using Gate of Infinity.

As you can see he's the first terminator that I've done hard line highlighting on, and I like it. It will probably cause me to revisit all my older terminators to make them match. I'll probably go ahead and base him so I can call him done.

The weapon is from the Grey Knights, and the storm shield is from Space Wolves

Attic Wars!

2011-12-05T16:57:00.001-05:00

Check out our sister blog Attic Wars 40k for some great pics of our group gettin' it on, Attic style.

Battleground Doubles, and Players Choice

2011-12-05T14:32:00.000-05:00

Mark and I played three great games this weekend in a doubles tournament at the Battleground Games in Plainville. We went in with a plan, played well, and ended up winning the Players Choice award, which I believe is a combination of overall sexiness, coolness, and wicked awesomeness.

The tournament used the Adepticon missions, and army construction rules, with each team (or Coalition) comprising a pair of 1250 armies. I used a Deathwing list made up of Belial, an upgraded terminator squad with an apothecary, three standard terminator squads, and a pair of melta/typhoon landspeeders. Belial and the terminators all had the standard thunderhammer/storm shield load out, and there was a cyclone missile in each squad. Mark ran Grey Knights; a librarian, a 10-man terminator squad, a five man terminator squad, a five man strike squad, and a pair of psy-bolt rifleman dreads (I don't know all the details of his list of the top of my head, maybe he can fill them in later).

The plan was simple: line up the Deathwing, give the Grey Knights cover, march forward, and kill everything in sight. Speeders and dreads provide cover. In general it worked.

Game one vs. Necrons and Space Wolves was going our way, the primary objective was having as many victory points within six inches of the table center. Near the end game however, things took a dramatic turn when Mark's libby and 10-man squad, still at nearly full strength, lost an assault against a C'tan shard, and due to a bad leadership check, and fell back. They could not regroup the next turn because of a single Thunderwolf Cav locked in combat with a strike squad near the table edge, and as a result we lost.

There's not much we could have done to prevent such an outcome, other than roll better. Deploying the big squad as two five-man combat squads may have helped, but it also makes each one more subject to falling back from shooting losses.

Game two was thematically one of the best I've played: Deathwing and Grey Knights Vs. Fallen Dark Angels and Chaos Marines. It really couldn't have been more perfect. The game itself did not go well for our opponents though; the Dark Angels were Samael (in a speeder) led Ravenwing, and the Chaos Marines were mostly Khorne Berzerkers in rhinos with a lash wielding Demon Prince, and a few obliterators. With all of the missiles and strength 8 shooting we had, the bikes fell quickly, followed shortly by the demon prince. We shot up all the vehicles we could see, and the Berzerkers didn't last long out of assault range. Our opponents had some bad dice, and our lists were an unfortunate foil for theirs, but they were good sports and it was still a fun game (more so for us than them).

The final game was against Necrons and Eldar in a mission focused on eliminating one army in the enemy's Coalition--they chose Deathwing, we chose Eldar. It used spearhead deployment, and there was an objective in the center of each unused table quarter. Their Coalition was essentially a "difficult and dangerous terrain" build, with Nightspinners, Imhotek, and some Necron terrain modifying shenanigans. Things looked grim in the beginning, but once we were able to batter our way through, and around, the Necron horde, we were able to start killing the cowardly eldar, hiding near the shadowed fringe of the table. By then end of turn five, the last turn of the game, the Eldar were mostly in retreat, a number of Necron warriors were left since they had been largely ignored, but they were unable to claim the objective near our deployment area due to a last turn speeder steal. We ended up tying on primary, secondary, and tertiary objectives, and loosing (I think) on a tie breaker. It was about as close as they come.

Overall we probably finished in the upper part of the middle of the crowd, which is acceptable considering the fact that we did not read the missions ahead of time, or play a single practice game. Winning the Players Choice was a welcome surprise at the end of the day, earning us a total of $160 in store credit, of which my portion quickly disappeared on some finecast fire dragons, and Incubi. Mark wisely bought some new dice (for use on leadership/morale tests), and I'm going to advise him to throw out his old ones before their garbage luck can rub off on the new.

All in all, a great time. I look forward to the next event.

Iron Hands - more from Shapeways

2011-12-01T22:24:00.001-05:00

This is how I envision my terminators...

Just thought I'd open with an awesome picture which is rumored to be the cover of an upcoming Black Library book. I can't wait.

Handy (with a touch of Badab Black so you can see it)

I recently pruchased more bits from Shapeways. This time I got some cool shoulder pads from a designer who goes by Dynath. Totally awesome.

Thirty of them...this is going to take a while

I also got this guy...once he's built I'll run him as a Master of the Forge with conversion beamer on a bike.

It's like Warhammer 80,000!

One of my terminators is finally getting a chain fist...

Painting in progress

Finally, I made a counts-as Lysander and used him in a game last week. Lysander crushed a dreadnought (big surprise, right?)

Lysander!

Plasticard Iron Hands Stormshield

Now I need to do some painting.

Thine arms shall be forged in resin

2011-11-28T21:46:00.004-05:00

I've been putting it off for but the time has finally come to delve into the dark art of resin casting.

Like many other Grey Knights players I've seen the merit of the Rifleman Dreadnought but I was really not enthused by the look of the Aegis Defense line Autocannons as arms. What better opportunity to experiment with resin casting. I already scratchbuild all the time so I knew I could make some decent looking arms, I also left out all GW bits and made them entirely from plasticard. This way I have a 100% original bit (in case I ever want to sell a few on the side). I should also mention I'm not looking to start a model business I really just wanted the requisite Dreadnought arms for my own army.

Here are the originals that I'll be making a mold of. I've always liked the Reaper style autocannons, and Forgeworld does a great AC arm so I took a look at what I liked about both of them and tried to get as much as I could into mine without having to work all that hard.

Unfortunately this is just the beginning of the process but barring some terrible disaster I should have a pair of new resin arms by the end of the week. I'll post again with my first time casting experience once I've figured out what not to do.

Finally the recipients of the arm transplants with some shiny new bases and dull flat paint jobs.

Christmas List

2011-11-23T14:30:00.000-05:00

Some friends have asked me what I want for Christmas. Since we pretty much only buy each other miniature stuff these days, I thought I'd put up a list of what I need for my new Dark Eldar/Eldar Corsair army. This is primarily for internal use, but if any strangers want to buy me stuff, feel free.

HQ:

Archon (1)
Medusae (1)

Elite:

Incubi (5)
Fire Dragons (6)

Troops:

Wyches (20)

Dedicated Transports:

Venoms (6)
Raiders (3)

Heavy:

Ravagers (3)

I'm planning on slightly modifying the Fire Dragons, which should be easy now that they are available in finecast, and running them as Trueborn. The Medusae will get an overhaul and become a Warlock-esque Haemonculus. Everybody else will be what it seems. I've already built my 20 warriors--they are a combination of standard DE Warriors and Eldar Guardian parts.

Dreadnoughts!

2011-11-19T23:07:00.001-05:00

These guys got upgraded to be fire support dreads (at the NOVA they had assault cannons, and DCCWs with heavy flamers). Now they are sporting twin-linked lascannons and missile launchers. I know rifleman dreads are probably better in a mathhammery way, but I think these guys look better, plus I like lascannons. I just wish those missile launchers were cyclones (two shots would make a huge difference).

Iron Hands!

Terrain!

2011-11-15T16:54:00.001-05:00

I needed some terrain, so last night I built and primed, and made this stuff:

Plus a little Dark Eldar Warrior fun:

Grey Knights Dreadnoughts

2011-11-12T22:01:00.006-05:00

So I've had some Dreadnought kits floating around for a while and I've begun getting them ready for a Doubles tournament I'll be playing in with Dr. Lazarus at our FLGS. I took an old standard marine dread and used the death company bits from the Blood Angels dread kit and made the first of the two. The second dread is the remainder of the Furioso kit using the librarian chest plate. I swapped the standard head with a GK termie head to make him look a little meaner.

I experimented with making him a little bit taller using some plasticard rod in the leg pistons (I've always thought that the current version of the Dreadnought looked too stubby so a little more leg helps him out some).

I wanted to be able to swap out bolters and flamers for when I'll be using close combat weapons so I placed them similarly to the Forge World Dreads' torso mounted weapons and use a pin and magnet to ensure they dont fall of in transit.

I also liked the Forge World Dread feet so I replicated them with some cutting and plasticard,

Also in the works are some homebrew twin linked autocannon arms. I've been been planning on doing these for a while and have only recently started moving on it. Basically I want to make a pair of nice looking arms that are pretty detailed then cast them in resin for myself. I know everyone is saying "just use the Aegis Defense Line AC's", but I really like the old style "reaper" AC's so I wanted to get close to them without having to buy anything. I also wanted to avoid any GW bits on them in case anyone ever wants to buy them from me. Hopefully I'll have a casting kit in the next 2 weeks so I can get these done prior to the tournament.

Here's a shot of the arm blue tacked on.

Other than that, I've finally started to collect some of the terrain for my GK themed "Shrine World" table. I'll be posting about that once of got some real progress to show off.

How I Photograph Miniatures

2011-11-12T19:19:00.001-05:00

In response to a question Warflake asked on his blog, I decided to post some information about how I take pictures of miniatures.

The setup:

The gesso bottle is for priming and keeps the paper from sliding

The result:

The details:

The background is a piece of 8.5" x 11" construction paper in a neutral('ish) grey. The light is a hobby light with a daylight-balanced fluorescent bulb. The camera is a Canon SD1300 (flash on) set to macro mode. This works for a couple reasons:

1.) camera meters adjust the exposure based on a neutral (18%) grey overall exposure, using grey instead of white paper makes the colors of the models appear truer without much processing (I don't do any). If you take a picture of a white object on white paper the camera will expose it so everything appears grey; and

2.) My hobby light is daylight balanced, and so is the camera's flash, so I can use them both without introducing a color cast (i.e. green fluorescent lights, or orange incandescent lights).

It works for miniatures too:

Preview - the Iron Hands are recruiting scouts

2011-10-30T21:59:00.000-04:00

Here are a couple preview shots of the scouts I've been painting between changing diapers...

I wanted the camo cloaks to be reminiscent of the German "rain" camouflage pattern

East German rain pattern camouflage (strichtarn)

I still have to base them and finish some details

Strike Squads are GO! (...ish)

2011-10-30T00:04:00.004-04:00

In preparation for upcoming events I'm trying to get the majority of my infantry squared away. Among those tasks one of the largest was the force weapon treatments for the Strike Squads. I have 15 of these guys in my 2000 point list, and 20 in some of my smaller point value lists so I really just want to get them done so I have a pool of finished marines to draw on for whatever point level I decide to play.

I had originally intended on doing a yellow to red color scheme for the force weapons but I was a little worried about not being 100% pleased with the results so I went the safe route and tried to rip off the GW colors.

I started with a trick I learned in a painting masterclass taught by miniature painter Mathieu Fontaine. I took a small sheet of kitchen plastic wrap and pushed the blade of the sword through and wrapped the mini in the remainder and secured it with masking tape. This is by far the easiest way to keep any part of the model from getting hit by overspray from the airbrush. It also means you can wrap the model up without fear of damaging any already complete paint work with tape or blue tack.

I painted the blades white with the airbrush, then taped off one edge of the blade as well as it's inverse on the opposite facing of the blade. Then I airbrushed GW Enchanted Blue from the hilt of the sword up 2/3 of the length of the blade. After that I airbrushed black from the hilt up to about 1/3 of the length of the blade. After that it's the same process except you mask the unpainted edges of the blade and paint from the tip of the sword down towards the hilt. As a side note I have issues with the Tamiya masking tape taking off some of my airbrush paint so I tend to do lots of redundant clear coats, almost always with Testors Dullcote, so I don't risk pulling my paint job up once I try to remove the masking tape.

Here's how the look before they were unwrapped. I was a little bit nervous that I'd have missed a spot during the masking process and they'd have some bitchin' blue graffiti on their armor, but they were fully protected during the whole process.

Here are the final results...

I'm pretty pleased with how they came out, I do think I went a little too heavy with the black but I may bring back some of the blue with a brush as I finish them up.

The whole process is a little time consuming but I think the finished product is worth it, especially if you only have a handfull of power weapons in your army and you really want them to stand out. For me, I liked the way GW's team painted the force weapons from the beginning so it was a pretty easy choice for me. Now I'm looking forward to getting into some the details on these guys and really getting them table top ready.

Oh Tau what will I do with you

2011-10-28T23:51:00.003-04:00

I lost a game with my Tau on Thursday. That makes two losses and one draw (and frankly pulled that out of my ass should of been a loss) in the three years that I have been playing them. Unfortunately this last loss and draw came back-to-back and on the heels of several wins that I barely managed.

After every game I tend to look back and try to figure out what I could have done better. As I thought through this latest loss I took into account some of the poorer tactical choices I made, my horrendous reserve rolling (reserved much of everything to minimize the alpha strike and instead had everything come in turn two so I could get hit nonetheless), and the stupid mistakes I made as I tried to salvage the game after an initial onslaught. What I felt most keenly was the lack of unit saturation on the table.

I also play marines (frankly not as well as my Tau) and at similar point levels I just have many more units and options on the table. What does this mean? Well in effect most every unit I field in a Marine army is capable of hurting both vehicles and infantry. I likewise just have a lot more units on the table. As I have been building my Dark Eldar army I also find that I am able to saturate the table with units which can do both. My Tau simply cannot do this my units as all somewhat specialized (outside of my battle suits which make competitive games possible) and I simply don't have as many of them.

This feeling of being overpowered on the table didn't come suddenly, more of a gradual increase in the level of difficulty and base tactics as more and more codices rollout with that challenge or neutralize the ability of Tau to be effective. First came the imperial guard with their ability to outshoot the Tau AND beat them in close combat. DOA blood angels came next forcing the inclusion of bubble wrap Kroot and the reintroduction of fireknife battle suits over deathrains to deal with FNP marines. Space Wolves and Dark Eldar didn't help either. Now I feel forced to play entirely defensive and castled up. I no longer have sufficient mobility to scoot away nor can I play enough hulls on the battlefield to offset the mass of vehicles my opponent lay out.

So what to do? I am loathe to play the same defensive game over and over and not looking forward to shelving them until a new codex. Would love to hear thoughts.

Vulkan Guilt

2011-10-25T23:21:00.002-04:00

I had such big plans... Marneus Calgar. Darnath Lysander. TWO LIBRARIANS! Now look at me. Happily chugging along with a Vulkan He'stan "counts as" Dark Angel's army. The primarch must be rolling in his secret crypt.

Here's the thing, Vulkan is the best HQ. Definitely the best for the Codex Marines, but maybe even for EVERYONE. Don't get me wrong, he can easily be killed by many of the brutally overpowered HQs: Draigo, Calgar, anyone with a thunderhammer... actually just about any HQ worth their salt. So why the hell is he so good?

Twin-linked and master-crafted, baby. He makes the best stuff that marines can take even better. For anyone familiar with 40k, this is old news. I always suspected that it was the case, but had yet to summon the courage to ask Vulkan out. Now that I've done the deed, I feel a little guilty for loving him so much.

After almost a year of Deathwing, I needed a change. I wanted the flexibility that marines ffer. I remembered all the times I've used combat tactics, and how awesome it was when it actually worked. Who makes that better? Calgar of course, but Calgar is always insanely expensive. Sure you can put him in power armor, and stick him with an Honor Guard in a rhino or razorback. They'll tear shit up and it will be awesome. Despite their 2+ armor, however, his coterie has no invulnerable save, and Calgar in power armor is only a 3+/4++. Four wounds, yes, but entirely killable. With my luck a squad of Long Fangs would take him out in one round of shooting. Ok then, we'll upgrade him to terminator armor, and put him in a Land Raider Crusader (my favorite of Dr. Land's raiders) with some terminators. Now we're reaching toward 600 points. I really like librarians especially when they're in terminator armor, so that puts us closer to 700...what's that you say, I have to take an ENTIRE ARMY? Well, 1300 points can buy me a fair amount: 3x10-man tac squads with rhinos or razorbacks (and powerfists on the sergeants--I love me some powerfists), a pair of melta attack bikes, a pair of landspeeder typhoons, and a thunderfire cannon. Not a bad list, but even at 2000 points its a bit top heavy (here's what it looks like in army builder).

So what can I do with Vulkan?

Vulkan, libby (in power armor this time), th/ss termies, Land Raider Crusader. We're already 100 points cheaper. So we'll take the same tac squads, Land Speeders, attack bikes, thunderfire cannon, and throw in a a melta/flamer dreadnought for good measure (here's the .pdf). We've lost the close combat monster that is Marneus Calgar, as well as the ability to pass and fail all morale checks at will, and not take fearless wounds, what have we gained? Better shooting (and slightly more of it), and better thunderhammers. Is it worth it? It sure seems like it.

I'm not going to try and mathhammer it out, that's been done to death, besides I went to a public school--I can barely tie my own shoes--it would be lost on me. I've played both of these lists though, and have witnessed first hand the way that Vulkan makes everything that matters work better. I'm missing the kind of flexibility that Calgar provides less and less, because in the place of army-wide tactical flexibility I have the flexibility that comes from reliable shooting and assaults.

I know the Dark Angels purists are probably like "No way dude, Azrael rocks." They're right, Azrael does rock. It doesn't matter that he has WS 5 instead of 6, he's totally bad ass. Eternal warrior, 4 wounds, a butt load of strength 6 attacks, and an 4++ save for any squad he joins? Yes please. The difference, however, is that you don't take your HQ in a vacuum. An army with Vulkan is better than an army with Azrael (or just about any other Codex Marine HQ), and in the end, the game is about armies, not HQs.

Grey Knights getting some TLC

2011-10-22T12:17:00.003-04:00

After a much needed break from painting, I've started working on the Grey Knights again. I had Lord Kaldor Draigo collecting dust for a while, and as he wasn't a part of my tournament list I had no time to work on him. Now with the weight of the NOVA of my shoulders I'm back to painting for fun.

So here he is:

I felt pretty rusty going back to painting after a few months off, so there's a lot I want to clean up on this model but It's a good start.

I'm focusing on just getting the existing Grey Knights I have completed and trying to focus on having one fully painted army list. I'll be playing in a 500 point tournament at the beginning of November so that's going to be a good reason to get some results on my GK strike squads as well. Unfortunately I've adopted a Land Raider recently as well as a pair of Dreadnoughts, but they're going to have to be on the back burner until the troops get completed.

Selling Out (Rifleman Dreadnought)

2011-10-11T23:00:00.001-04:00

Modeling them in all of their unpainted glory

The story - I was curious about all of the bits available from the 3d printing service Shapeways (search for 40k) so I ordered some bits from various designers. They were all untried designs that turned out to be unprintable. Shapeways has a minimum order of $25, and I ended up with a credit in that amount. I decided to use it before I forgot about it and ordered the arms pictured here for $12.50 each from Custom Minis, a designer who uses Shapeways.

Comparison with twin-linked lascannon

Ordering was no problem and the level of detail is great, however I feel like the arms are about 20% too large at the "shoulder" area (i.e. the part that attaches to the body).

Beefy!

Compared to "stock" dreadnought arms

Lascannon

Autocannon - larger overhang front and back

Overall I think they're a good deal. They are printed in one piece and are solid all the way through. The plastic is slightly porous looking, almost like the texture of fiber paper. I think they will look good once I get around to painting them.

Works in Progress

2011-09-18T21:19:00.002-04:00

Since the NOVA Open I've played a couple games and lately, at my brother's recommendation I've been experimenting with the Blood Angels codex. It has some options that seem to make it more versatile for the type of troop-heavy lists I'm interested in running (at the moment). That hasn't stopped me from making some characters that I'm interested in using on the table. I also wanted some more heavy weapons for variety in my tactical squads.

Counts-as Marneus Calgar

his twin, Counts-as Pedro Cantor

Terminator Librarian with storm shield

Grey Knights bits

I think it's a space wolf storm shield

Terminator Apothecary (Sanguinary Priest)

Honor Guard / Command Squad

Sniper Scouts

Counts-as Telion

Plasma Cannon

Heavy Bolter

I guess after all of the painting I was doing to get ready for the NOVA I was ready to build and convert based on some of the ideas I've had over the past couple months. The last thing I need to play the Blood Angels list I'm currently working on is a 10 man assault squad with a jump pack priest. After that I'll have to play it and refine it. This list will basically be a 180 degree change from the 5 dreadnought list I took to the NOVA Open, instead of mostly vehicles and only two troops it will have four troops and only a few vehicles.

List Mania! Dark Angels and Dark Eldar

2011-09-16T11:03:00.001-04:00

In a later post I'm going to describe the list I plan on running for the Da Boyz GT in Rochester, NY in October. Until then I wanted to spend a few minutes presenting lists I plan on running later on. These are basically lists that I need to buy things for, and so am putting off for the near term (until I find a job).

[These are both 2000 point lists. That has become the de facto standard around these parts. I now prefer 1500 or 2000 point games, and generally avoid 1750/1850.]

First the familiar: Dark Angels

There are actually a few strengths left for Greenwing Dark Angels; they can take a special weapon in five man tac squads, they can take awesomely cheap landspeeder typhoons, and your terminator hammer-unit can be scoring.

To that end I whipped up this MSU style list that I think would be pretty fun to play:

Belial (thunder hammer/storm shield)

Upgraded Deathwing Squad (apothecary, standard banner, cyclone missile launcher, 5x thunder hammer/storm shield

(5x) 5-man tac squad (flamer, sergeant w/melta bombs, razorback with twin linked lascannon)

(3x) Landspeeder Typhoon (missiles and multi melta)
Landraider Crusader (extra armor)

(2x) Predator (autocannon/heavy bolter sponsons)

Lots of vehicles lots of twin linked lascannon shots, lots of flamers, and some good direct fire anti-infrantry/light transport shooting from the Predators. The terminators are scoring, so it also makes the hammer-unit a great objective holder. Pretty straight forward. I think for this list I only need a single razorback, a few more flamer marines and a few plain sergeants.

Now for the foreign: Dark Eldar

I've been planning this one for a while, before I new anything about Dash of Pepper's list. I saw the Venom's, Incubi, and Reaver jetbikes, loved them all, so I'm going to make an army of them.

(2x) Archon (ghostplate armor, blast pistol, haywire grenades, shadow field, huskblade)

(2x) 6-man Incubus squad (klaivex, blood stone, onslaught, raider with dark lance and flicker field)

(6x) 5-man warrior squad (blaster, venom with 2x splinter cannon)

(3x) 6-man reaver jetbike squad (Arena champion, 2x heatlance)

Lots of little fast targets flying around. Two solid close-combat units with the Archon/Incubi combo, a mass of fast and flexible troops, and jetbikes for anti-mech. This list has a lot of stuff, but none of it is particularly tough. All those buzzing vehicles could be swatted down in a good round of shooting, so it might be a bit of a challenge to play well against skilled opponents. Should be fun either way.

I considered taking some more expensive HQs--Vect, Lady Malys, or even Lelith--but for now I think I'll plan on using the above, and adjust the list if necessary. This list requires the purchase of... pretty much everything but some troops. More of a long-term project at this point.

A post on the Codex Marine list I plan on running at Da Boyz GT is in the pipe, stay tuned.

Post-NOVA Open Observations

2011-09-06T16:48:00.000-04:00

A Summary Of My Games

I went 4-4 at the NOVA open. Not bad for my first tournament.

Day one I won two and lost two games. The first win was against a standard competitive guard list; lots of veterans, Leman Russ Executioner, the usual. This one went as expected: Deathwing terminators marched across the battlefield, crushed vehicles, and chased infantry off the board. I made a few first-game-of-my-first-tournament mistakes, including forgetting to move all of my terminators on turn one. In the end it did not matter, but it’s the kind of error I've been training myself to avoid for the past few months.

My second game was against Fateweaver demons. I lost this one, but only just. I've never played against this build, and never really paid attention to the internet chatter, so I was off my game until it was too late. I am positive that we skipped a turn, although my opponent (who this benefitted) insisted we didn't. I think it was just a mistake, not a deliberate attempt to steal the win, so I didn't really argue too much, but it could have had an affect on the outcome.

Game three was against Space Wolves. This was my first tournament game against the much vaunted space puppies. I haven't played against them for more than six months, not since my Dark Angels were green codex marines, so my estimation of the outcome of this game was more based on hearsay than experience. I think I played this one very well, and properly used my strengths against the weaknesses of MSU armies. I simply ignored the Landraider Crusader because I knew it would be a pain to kill, and disabled or destroyed all his other vehicles before systematically crushing, or chasing away the five man squads they all contained. I managed to immobilize the Landraider on the last turn, which cut its victory point value in half, and turned a close game into a solid win.

The final game of day one? Horde orks. Great. I knew going into the tournament that any game against the green tide was going to be nearly impossible for me, especially with the NOVA format missions, so I didn't really try very hard on this one. The table quarter deployment also didn't help. I lost two squads of terminators to mishaps from incautious deep striking, and then was slowly overwhelmed. I probably could have done better--although I doubt I could have won--if I had moved up in a Terminator mini-horde, and simply focused my attacks to wipe out one unit at a time. I definitiely need more practice against this kind of list even if I hope to break even using the Deathwing. In this game in particular a large part of my loss was psychological (although the lootas helped as well); I went in thinking that there was no way I could win, and didn't really ever try to.

Day Two, my first game was against Space Wolves. My opponent played very well, but had a similar MSU list to the one I face previously. I was able to win by victory points. At that point it began to set in: "I get 2+ saves against all those missile launchers... I no longer fear the Space Wolf."

My second game of the day was against that Grey Knights army we keep hearing about, you know the one: Dreadnoughts with psybolt autocannons, and inquisitorial retinues composed of deathcult assassins and a few crusaders. I am used to facing off against my brothers much more balanced list, so this was a bit of a shock to me. As with my game against the Fateweaver list, I did not approach this one well. I tried to charge the dreads as I would with an IG type list, and was simply blown off the table. Too many shots that always hit and always wounded. This was an educational game for me, and was really the one that drove home the importance of using my ability to deep strike. I think half of my terminators deposited in front of his dreads on turn one could possibly have overwhelmed them. I am not sure how I would have done against all the death-cult assassins, but either way it would have been a better showing on my part.

The third game of day two was also against Space Wolves. Long story short, there were shenanigans, but I still won. My opponent cursed his bad rolls on the last two turns, but I think he karmically fucked himself with the questionable tactics he tried to get away with earlier in the game. It was rewarding to see my final Space Wolf opponent's HQ, a broken Thunderwolf riding Lord and his Fenrisian escorts, fleeing off the board on the final turn.

My final game was with Dark Eldar, an army that I have a fair amount of experience playing against, although not this particular build. Ciaran from the Overlords podcast, and his Baron Sathonyx helmed Hellions, provided a game that was a great deal of fun, but was also a big loss. This ended up being a cinematic game, the final few turns of which saw my Deathwing occupying a hill at the center of the board, surrounding by a screeching horde of combat-drug crazed, hoverboard riding, space elves. I managed to chase Sathonyx and his squad off the table, but the other two units comprised of about 14 Hellions each, were enough to whittle my army down. The MVP of this game was my apothecary, who managed to save, either from armor or Feel no Pain, approximately 10,000 wounds from splinter weapons, lances, and blasters, before finally succumbing on the final turn. Knowing what I now do about such lists, I would have played the game very differently, but as jerks always tell you when you least want to hear it: hindsight is 20/20.

High Points

Defending the honor of the Dark Angels. There were five Dark Angels players at the tournament (who I believe all played some iteration of Deathwing), with a win percentage of 57.5%. I know that this is a small an unreliable sample, but regardless it is good to see my old and broken codex positively represented in a competitive environment.

Low Points

As I stated in a previous post, I was not particularly impressed by the appearance judging, also I wish there had been a place to place the display boards--by the end of the first day there were shattered board littering the hall, and since it had no effect on the overall scoring, I would rather have simply had small and durable tray for transporting my army.

In general things could have been a bit better organized, especially in terms of posting game assignments. All the yelling over the PA system didn't help the fact that 200 people only had a few minutes to find out where they were supposed to be, set up, and begin a game that they probably didn't have enough time to finish anyway.

On The Difference Between Standard And Tournament Games

Facing armies I was unaccustomed to really hosed me. That is not to say I would have definitely won those games had I been familiar, but I definitely lost them because I wasn't. A tournament is already a high-pressure environment, and the limited time for each game made it difficult to face an unfamiliar army. Also, NOVA missions require a more solid game plan--you can't just go for the tie, sometimes you even have to plan for a win on the secondary or tertiary objectives--so not knowing how your own army will fare against something will hobble you.

On Deathwing

Thunder hammer/storm shield terminators en masse work really well against mech'd up armies, and since that is a popular theme these days, Deathwing can do well. Most of the time. The problem arises when you face something other than those armies. This doesn't matter so much for me; I'm not going to tournaments to win Best General, so a few losses are fine, but certain armies are always going to be a challenge for Deathwing, and many of those I rarely play against, so its hard to practice for.

The game against Gray Knights really reinforced the need for accurate deep striking. I think I may go back and include a few bikes in my tournament army just so I can face such opponents. I like the speeders, despite the fact that they usually die, but in certain cases it is going to be much more important to have a no scatter deep strike for half of my army.

Stay tuned for upcoming "What-I'm-Going-To-Do-Now-That-The-NOVA-Open-Is-Over-And-I'm-Sick-Of-Playing-Deathwing!" posts.

The Nova Open: "OMG, I am so going to blog about that!"

2011-08-28T23:47:00.003-04:00

Well, that's it, the NOVA Open 2011 is over. It was a great time, and I will not hesitate to participate next year. We have so many tales to impart, tales of woe and triumph (mostly woe), but I am so crushed by fatigue that for now a summary will have to suffice. More will follow after tomorrow's drive back to Boston. Hopefully this will be enough to hold back the ghosts that live in the internets:

I couldn't be happier with my overall performance--for the weekend, four wins and four losses--which to me was like taking the whole event. A secondary, and more personally satisfying, accomplishment was my success against tournament Space Wolf builds. Three of my four victories were against that recently displaced "newest, most bestest army" (the fourth was against IG). I am happy to report the space marine variant that I appreciate least crushes quite nicely beneath the thunder hammers of Deathwing terminators. It was nice to see that Space Wolves are not necessarily the auto-win army that 40k webmonkeys often make them out to be, and also that my own outdated Dark Angels can be competitive even in the current environment. My four losses were to Demons, Orks, Grey Knights (goddam psybolt rifleman dreads...), and Dark Eldar. Not a huge surprise; they are armies that regularly give my Deathwing problems, or that I encounter infrequently and did not know quite how to deal with (more in a later post on my game against Ciaran from the Overlords, and his massively kill-tastic horde of hellions).

I was a bit disconcerted by the simplistic judging of army appearance. The judges seemed to completely discount the effort that goes in to techniques such as airbrushing, zenithal highlighting, and wet blending, instead favoring the classic GW style. Mark and I worked long and hard on our armies, so for the judge to not look at the display boards at all, or to ask "what's special about that?" when examining my scratch built chaplain was discouraging.

There was a general air of disorder that surrounded the event. It was irritating at times, but I am told things are greatly improved from last year, so I really shouldn't complain. I had a great time, and I hope that Mike Brandt, and all the hearty souls he dragoons into service on the NOVA staff will continue to smooth out the wrinkles, and provide a fantastic 40k event.

NOVA Open, Here I Come!

2011-08-27T00:37:00.000-04:00

Armies are painted, display boards are assembled; the Deathwing, Grey Knights, and Iron Hands are prepared for an epic series of confrontations. Battle reports and camera phone pictures will follow so keep your data slate close, your ear to the vox caster, and an orison to the God Emperor on the tip of your tongue.

For my part, the army is legal, but hardly in the condition that I aspired to. I guess I will have to plan on getting Best Painted at Adepticon instead...

Maybe I will try to get these dancing fools in shape for that performance:

More Grey Knights

2011-08-26T11:06:00.003-04:00

Here are a few more pictures of Mad Mark's Grey Knights display board for the NOVA Open. I'm posting them for him because he's currently on the road from Boston to DC.

Iron Hands Landspeeders - Complete!

2011-08-21T22:36:00.002-04:00

I finally completed the last unit of my NOVA Open list, three landspeeder typhoons.

The guy in front is from the rhino/razorback kit

He's smiling because he loves his job

NOVA Open Display Board - Painting Progress

2011-08-20T17:55:00.006-04:00

These are just a few shots of the current state of my Grey Knights display board. With only a week to go it's crunch time for getting things as close to done as I can. I only wish my army was looking as complete as their display does right now.

Most of the painting is complete on the board with the exception of a few small details such as the wooden railings and some metallic details on the burst sewer lines. Overall I learned some good lessons about what to do for next time but more importantly what not to do. I'll also be adding some water effects to the greenish sewer pool but I'm still waiting for my test batch to cure but I'll have to start that tonight or tomorrow so the display board has enough time to cure completely.

On to the pictures...

Up next, some well lit, clear images of the truly completed display board instead of these sloppy cell phone shots.

Iron Hands Razorbacks

2011-08-20T00:16:00.002-04:00

The Iron Hands have painted rides now. It's coming down to the wire but I just have three Typhoons to complete.

Yes, those are twin linked lascannons

Iron Hands Battle Report

2011-08-19T22:53:00.002-04:00

I recently played a NOVA Open practice game against Joe. It was a great game with a total of 10 dreadnoughts on the table. The rest of his army was a bunch of Raven Guard bikers, which was a good match against my more static shooty Iron Hands. Instead of writing a battle report I decided to refer you to the excellent report he wrote: http://www.joesavestheday.com/2011/08/more-nova-practice-raven-guard-vs-iron.html

End of turn one, the Librarian and Terminator Squad used Gate of Infinity to jump right in front of the opposing force

Unfortunately his Ironclad wiffed the back shot on my plasma cannon dreadnought

Birds-eye view of the battle

The Terminators took the shooting from most of his force leaving the Librarian standing alone, so he assaulted the scouts solo

You can see his bikers behind the hill on the left and my other tactical squad in the woods on the right

There were lots of dreadnought on dreadnought assaults

His Captain in the bottom right managed to run my tactical squad off the board after a couple of crack shots by Telion took out the Master of the Forge and Sergeant

Gaming at Battle Bunker in Bowie, Maryland

2011-08-14T10:24:00.000-04:00

Madmark and I packed up the Deathwing and Gray Knights and drove down to the D.C. area to visit our brother this weekend, and get in some practice games before the NOVA Open. We needed a really epic experience, so we decided to check out the new battle bunker in Bowie Maryland.

(Images looted from the store's Facebook page)

In the Boston area Games Workshop stores are hardly common--I think the closest is in Manhattan--so this place was a pleasant surprise. The store was large, not like the epic-ly huge chicago store but, pretty damn big; it was crowded on Saturday, but of the 20ish available tables less than half were used. It was also nice to see that not all the staff at GW stores live up to their reputation as pushy, personal-space-invading salesbots.

The first game was Iron Hands vs. Deathwing.

Grey Knights vs. Iron Hands for round two.

More pics and battle reports may follow!

Updated Dreadnoughts

2011-08-10T22:12:00.002-04:00

I played with these guys on the table last night and decided they weren't done enough for me after all. They went back under the brush tonight for some hard-line highlighting. I'm much happier with the result now.

Ironclad - my champion

They're smiling

I'm still trying to decide if I should replace one of the assault cannons with a plasma cannon. I'll try to get some games this weekend and see if I like the difference.

NOVA Open Display Board - ready for paint

2011-08-09T00:31:00.004-04:00

I've been busy with work lately but with the deadline for the NOVA Open approaching rapidly I need to get some serious work done. Since I'm not planning on being Best General I decided to try to show my painting and modeling skills to the best of my ability. I used some of the tips from Forgeworld's "Model Masterclass" Book (I highly recommend it to anyone looking to step up there painting and detailing skills, it's loaded with great techniques). Not much else to say here so I'll let the pictures do most of the talking.

I built and painted the frame for the board.

I then began assembly, gluing it all together with wood glue and super glue.

I boxed in the raised sides using plasticard so as to hide the foam texture and give it a finished look once painted.

After that I started the long tedious process of adding the texture through various means. I skimmed most of the untiled surfaces with joint compound then, while still wet added a mixture of crushed drywall and fine sand. This gave me a pretty natural texture and had some variety of depth. Leaving some of the bigger chunks of drywall looks really nice. I waited a day then went through with some spot detailing. I picked some bigger pieces of drywall out and glued them down in choice areas to create a more uneven surface and fill in some areas that looked like they needed some pils of rubble. I also added some small bits of crushed slate for the GW basing kit to add an even more varied texture. I finished by hitting the whole surface with some light coats of purity seal. I had tested the spray on a sample piece of foam to see how much it would dissolve the surface. I found that when used sparingly it actually helped to break up my hand carved flagstone ground.

The plan is to spray the whole thing with some black spray paint and then start airbrushing. I'd like to get this thing done by Friday since I'm going away for the weekend but we'll see. It's beginning to look like I'll be doing 40 hours of painting right before the Tournament. Oh well, all in the name of the hobby.

Iron Hands Dreadnoughts

2011-08-08T21:24:00.003-04:00

And now for the core of my list...dreadnoughts!

Multimelta/Heavy Flamer

Assault Cannon/Heavy Flamer No.1

Assault Cannon/Heavy Flamer No.2

Assault Cannon/Heavy Flamer No.3 (he just looks venerable)

Ironclad - Meltagun/Heavy Flamer

They'll probably get more attention in the future, but it's unlikely I'll make any changes before the NOVA Open. Next up, vehicles.

Iron Hands Terminators

2011-08-07T11:19:00.002-04:00

Iron Hands terminators are ready for action!

Terminators

That's all for now.

Battle Report - Iron Hands vs. Imperial Guard

2011-08-06T14:34:00.004-04:00

Last night I went to my local store (Eagle and Empire*) for a pickup game, and I ended up getting a great one. It was my Iron Hands (on their third "mission") versus a leafblower-looking Imperial Guard list.

Iron Hands vs. Imperial Guard at the bottom of turn 5, right before my last turn

We rolled for deployment, got Dawn of War and decided to re-roll, we settled on Spearhead. The mission was Annihilation, nice! We put lots of terrain on the table; the game store has a set of very cool industrial looking pieces that weren't being used so we threw it all down. My opponent won the roll-off and decided to set up first, I chose not to try to seize because after my last game I wanted the last turn.

Lists - my list is led by a master of the forge and librarian (with gate and null zone), I have 5 shooting terminators with a cyclone missile launcher, 2 squads of tactical marines with meltaguns and lascannons - the sergeants have power fists and combis, 3 landspeeder typhoons for fire support, and finally the heart of my list five dreadnoughts all with extra armor and heavy flamers - 3 with assault cannons, 1 multimelta, and an ironclad with a meltagun.

His list seemed like a typical tournament style IG list - company command squad with plasmaguns and chimera, 2 hydras (squadron), 1 hydra, 1 manticore, 2 vendettas each with melta-vets, 1 valkyrie with flamer-vets, chimera with plasma-vets, and two more foot-vet squads with plasma and meltaguns (all the vet squads also had autocannons).

Deployment - he set up his force in a quarter that gave him good cover and some high ground, unfortunately the opposing quarter didn't leave me to many places to hide all of my dreadnoughts. He put everything except the valkyrie and vendettas on the table, and held them back to outflank. All of his stuff was behind or next to the large building in the top right of the photo. the manticore and hydras were in the open with the chimeras behind the building and a squad of vets with an autocannon in a tower right in the middle.

I decided to deploy my razorbacks and combat-squaded lascannons behind and in the row of vertical tanks directly opposite him, they were spaced so I had line of sight through them. I started my dreadnoughts on the table. Three were near the middle of the board behind the large line-of-sight blocking building, the other two were on the right side of the razorbacks (trying to hug cover behind the tanks). I held my landspeeders and terminators in reserve.

The game -
Turns 1 and 2
I take a pounding and don't manage to do much damage in return. He took the weapon off and immobilized one razorback, and wrecked the other. He killed a couple guys from each lascannon squad, and directed lots of fire at my dreadnoughts. I popped smoke and ran them toward his lines, and the ironclad ran through the LOS blocking building in the middle doing his best immitation of cool-aid man. Oh Yeah!

Turn 3
His valkyrie comes in he keeps pounding me and I still haven't done much in return. I lost a couple more marines, a dreadnought is immobilized behind the large building in the middle (right in front of the middle vendetta in the picture). The ironclad comes out the other side of the building and continues running toward the manticore. The ironclad pops smoke on this turn and really makes that smoke count. Two of my landspeeders come in from reserves and come on from my board edge. The landspeeders and dreadnoughts form a conga-line behind some low ruins putting them out of sight of everything except his valkyrie and manticore. The dreadnought at the front of the line pops smoke giving the whole mess cover from his side of the board.

Turn 4
His vendettas come in and I'm thinking this is the beginning of the end. He shoots the right-most vendetta at the ironclad , and also deployed meltavets and they shoot too. The ironclad takes it like a champ making many cover saves but also loosing an arm - he's also shaken and stunned many times, but I remind my opponent that he has extra-armor and can still move...and assault. He decides to shoot his hydras and a foot squad of plasma-vets to try to finish him, but just can't make it happen. He realizes that the dreadnought is going to assault something no matter what he does. Lots of other shooting happens too, at the end of it one landspeeder is immobilized and looses it's typhoon launcher, and the marines take another casualty or two.

My turn the final landspeeder comes in from reserves and comes up the right table edge to get missile shots on the side armor of the chimeras and hydras. The dreadnoughts keep running toward his lines, and the librarian and his combat squad disembark from their immobilized razorback and move toward the valkyrie. They don't shoot and opt to assault the valkyrie (this was a mistake - if the meltagun had shot it down they could have assaulted the vets inside). Two typhoons move up the right and finally do some damage blowing-up the command squad chimera, and wrecking a hydra. The immobilized landspeeder is able to shoot it's heavy bolter are the disembarked command squad. The dreadnoughts on the right are in range to shoot some of his vehicles but don't manage any damage. The marines and librarian assault the valkyrie and manage to shake it, and take off the multi-laser. Also, I finally get to assault something with a dreadnought - the assaults the melta-vets. They get to go first because they are in cover, but can't hurt armor 13 with krak grenades. The ironclad stomps on the vets killing two and winning combat...and they fail their moral and get caught in a sweeping advance! The ironclad consolidates an inch.

Turn 5
I've finally diminished his firepower (and the manticore is out of ammo) and my dreadnoughts are close enough that he's worried. The flamer-vets jump out of the valkyrie and throw some templates on the marines killing everyone except the sergeant and librarian. The vendettas keep working on the dreadnoughts, finally immobilizing the ironclad, the center vendetta also dropped its melta-vets to try to finish off the other immobilized dreadnought (hiding behind the building in the picture) but only take off the heavy flamer. A chimera and some vets destroy a landspeeder on the right with multilasers and autocannons.

On my turn my terminators finally show up and walk on at the far left side of the board - left of the hill visible in the bottom left corner, and almost behind the valkyrie. The lascannon tacticals finally take something out killing another hydra. The immobilized dreadnought fires his assault cannon at the melta-vets causing them to flee, and the terminators fire everything at the flamer-vets under the valkyrie killing everyone but one flamer who flees. In assault, the remaining sergeant and librarian manage to blow up the valkyrie.

We roll the dice and the game ends there. The Iron Hands win 6 kill points to 2! The marines are amazingly resilient compared to my tau. Although many units took damage only one typhoon and one razorback were destroyed. The troops were knocked down to a man or two in each unit, but none were finished off, and two of the dreadnoughts were immobilized but none got destroyed. I managed to take out two vet squads, a valkyrie, a chimera, and two hydras.

Overall it was a great game, we both had lots of fun.

*Eagle and Empire - highly recommended, they have open 40k games on Friday nights, and the people that play there are great. Also lots of tables and tons of cool terrain.

Racing toward the NOVA

2011-08-04T10:14:00.003-04:00

Since the last post I managed to finish painting the second tactical squad and get a game in. I was looking for a game so I posted on the Inner Circle Gaming Club forums and panewman83 offered to bring either orks or space marines. I chose his Orks, it was a great game, his orks look excellent (unfortunately I didn't take any pictures).

Proof of painting progress...and alliteration?

During the game I made numerous errors, some large, some small. My errors included:

Taking first turn,
Not keeping my landspeeders together,
Not focusing fire on one of his units at a time,
Forgetting to run my tacticals on the first turn,
Not disembarking the other tactical squads from their razorbacks so they could contribute to the fight,
Underestimating his rocket-buggies
Finally, the big one was deciding to assault his tankbustas with a dreadnought (he warned me).

That final assault on his tankbustas cost me three dreadnoughts. At the end of the game (dawn of war, capture and control - 5 objectives) I held one objective, he held two objectives and we were both contesting another.

My MVP's were the tactical terminators who survived the assault by Snikrot's Kommandos (well the sergeant and cyclone survived) and held on until a couple of dreadnoughts jumped in to support them / squish some orks.

I can't help but think that the last assault on the tankbustas would have gone differently if the dreadnought's had been painted though...

Battle Report: Deathwing vs. Orks

2011-08-03T11:18:00.001-04:00

Orks. The army that the internets consistently refers to as non-competitive, but which consistently remains competitive. My Deathwing got their first crack at orks at the fantastic 40k BBQ we had on Saturday. It went about as I expected: my army is not optimized for winning against orks. They can kill them in droves, but its hard to pull out a win.

My army. The usual at 2000 points: Belial, Interrogator-Chaplain, upgraded command squad (apothecary, +1 attack banner, cyclone missile launcher, thunderhammer/stormshield on everyone), five more termie squads (cyclone missile launcher, thunderhammer/stormshield on everyone), two melta/typhoon speeders, and one melta/assault cannon speeder.

His army. Mechboy with KFF, Snikrot with commandos, Warboss, 20 lootas, cannons, deff dred, six cans, two big shoota boy squads (30 each I think), storm boyz (20 I think), and a battlewagon filled with 'ard boys (20ish). I may not have his list exactly right, but this is pretty close. No matter what he had a freakin' lot of stuff on the table; about four times as many units as I did.

Mission and Deployment. Seize ground and spearhead. One objective in the corner of his deployment area, and one near the middle. He takes first turn.

Turn 1. Orks run forward toward the center of the board. He has them spaced out around mechboy with boyz as wings, kans and dread in the front, and storm boyz looping around to my left flank. His shooting kills one or two terminators, but thanks to luck rolling no more. I move back a little bit to get out of loota range, and form a sort of denied flank, with four squads bunched up toward the center of my board edge, one spread out in a skirmish line to the right, and the command squad behind that. I then shook krak missiles at the kans forgetting that they all get the KFF cover save taking one of the template weapons.

Turn 2. More orky shooting, still not that effective. Everybody moves up, getting into position, and I think I loose another one or two terminators. One typhoon comes in on far left flank. It and Deathwing decide to ignore the boyz and focus all fire on lootaz reducing them from 20 to seven or eight.

Turn 3. Snikrot and the Green Baron arrive. Green Baron kills my typhoon. Snikrot jumps in between the charging ork line and my guys, and then after some more relatively ineffectual shooting charges him along with warboss and commandos, and 20 stormboyz into two terminator squads composed of seven men. Amazingly I win combat. After taking only a single casualty, the other six terminators have hammer time, and kill around 10 orks. The commandos are devastated, leaving snikrot, warboss, and just a few commandos, but the storm boys stay in combat. On my turn, two unengaged terminator squads charge snikrot, warboss and fleeing commandos, who fail their regroup test, and are wiped out. Belial and Co. charge 30-man boyz squad, they do a lot of damage, but remain in combat.

Turn 4. Truck comes in with 'Ard Boyz and heads to his objective. Lootas kill the other typhoon. He backs up a few inches with everyone, but charges three Kans and dred at two enengaged terminator squads (if he didn't charge me, I was going to charge him). Dred dies, and two of three kans are hammered. Storm boyz are wiped out. Enengaged terminators move up, and Belial and friends finish off the 30-man squad. Assault cannon speeder continues hammering lootas, killing a few more.

Turn 5. He shoots, but it is much less effective. I run forward toward the objective.

Turn 6. I charge his kans in front of the objective, killing some (or all, can't remember), but not enough to make a difference. I can't push them off the objective in time. He holds one and is disputing the other for a solid win.

Analysis. It was a fun game, but went as expected. I should have charged right away. I could have been there turn one, and It would have been a lot more effective in the end. Based on the composition of his army I could probably have pulled out a tie, but there is no way I could have won. I also could have Deathwing assaulted one squad to get them in his backfield, and cause havoc and maybe even contest that objective.

I think I overestimated the individual potency of ork units, but his army as a whole functioned about as I expected. It was a fun test of my army against hordes, but I think that I will have to expect a loss against orks if I am paired with them at the NOVA open.

40K BBQ!

2011-08-02T17:15:00.000-04:00

This past weekend we decided to get the whole gang together and enjoy the nice weather with a little 40K and a few beers.

We had 5 tables in the yard and gamed right until sundown. I highly recommend gaming barbecues to any other game clubs out there, we've done 2 of these now and will probably try to do a few more while we still have the nice weather.

And some non 40K entertainment for "civilians".

A few shots of the games from that day as well.

Some Battle Reports to follow soon:
- Deathwing vs Orks
- Grey Knights vs Daemons

Deathwing vs. Guard Battle Report

2011-07-29T12:24:00.000-04:00

I played Guard at 1500 points last night. This was my first game using the Deathwing that wasn't NOVA focused. My opponent wanted to do a smaller game so I pared my list down and went for it.

The first thing I noticed was that my army is actually competitive at that level. I didn't think that it would scale well, but it remained quite effective. I fielded Belial, an upgraded terminator squad with an apothecary (minus the +1 attack banner that I usually take), four standard thunderhammer storm shield terminator squads each with a cyclone missile launcher, and two Landspeeder Typhoons. My opponent had a Leman Russ Executioner, manticore, four troop squads in Chimeras, a vet squad in a Chimera, and an empty Vendetta. I think all of his troop squads had las cannons and melta guns.

The second thing that I noticed was that thunderhammer storm shield terminators are quite good at surviving shooting that is designed to kill marines, and are equally skilled at wrecking vehicles. Go figure.

Mission and Deployment. Capture and control (five objectives), pitched battle. He won the roll off and deployed about a foot out from his table edge. Most of his force was concentrated near the center, with the Executioner on the far left, and the Manticore in the far right corner. My squads were spread out in a line as far forward as possible, and the speeders were reserved. The five objectives were placed around the center of the board, with three closer to his table edge and two near mine.

Turns one and two. I stole the initiative and started running my terminators across the board, not bothering to shoot missiles. My plan was to put thunderhammer to vehicle as quickly as possible. One speeder came in on turn two and stunned the Vendetta, which was hanging out on the left side of the board. His turn one shooting killed two or three terminators. Turn two he whittled another squad down to one model.

Turn Three. My terminators got to his lines, and started walking through his vehicles like they were made of wet paper. Belial and the command squad multi-assaulted two Chimeras at the center of his lines, wrecking both, sending one squad fleeing off the board, and making the other fall back close to his table edge. My opponent learned that he had to take pinning checks for his exploding vehicle, and still had to take morale at the end of the phase for casualties from the same explosion. My speeders stunned the Vendetta again, and took the main gun off the Executioner. His shooting was ineffective, and I think I only lost a single model.

Turn four. The Executioner ate it to thunderhammers, Belial and the remnant of his squad chased down a Chimera and Vendetta, crushing the latter, and causing a nearby squad that had been falling back to run off the table. He charged his leftmost Chimera forward, past Belial and associates, and took an objective near the center of the table. Belial and his squad took shots from the veteran and troop Chimeras that rushed in from the right to greet them, and lost a few guys, reducing them to two (Belial and missile launcher).

Turn five. Belial and friend each assaulted a Chimera, killing the one with the troops, who then ran to a nearby objective. The other dumped its vets, who assaulted, lost combat, and fell back. On the other side of the board the squad that killed the Executioner, and a single (cyclone missile wielding) survivor from another squad, wrecked the troops that had run to the objective the previous turn.

Turn six. I did some shooting reducing his remaining squad down to around five models, and we decided to call it. I had one objective, and he had another, but Belial his buddy were about to assault, and and I would have very likely won, or stayed in combat and contested.

Analysis. Thunderhammer storm shield terminators are good at wrecking vehicles and surviving shooting. I should have been more attentive to objective placement; putting mine closer to his table edge could have helped to secure a more solid win, rather than a last minute steal. He could have moved his vehicles to deny auto-hitting thunderhammers (although it would have cut down on his shooting). I think it would have helped if he deployed closer to his table edge, shot for another full turn, and then moved away as I got close. Objectives in either table corner would have helped him; he could have retreated to the board edges, which would have forced me to split my force and taken advantage of my lack of mobility and my small numbers.

Speeders in reserve was definitely the way to go in this game. They would have been toasted early on if they started on the table, instead they charged in and did damage later in the game, at a time when killing terminators was more of a concern.

Interestingly, my opponent (and pretty much every stranger that I play) assumed that I would deep strike. I think this influenced his deployment, and objective placement. I assume this is just basic unfamiliarity with Deathwing, an advantage that I should not count on, especially in a tournament setting.

Iron Hands - First Squad Complete

2011-07-29T10:29:00.002-04:00

My first squad of tactical marines is complete. Here is a picture of the meltagunner and a tactical showing their stuff.

Love those purity seals!

Iron Hands Progress

2011-07-27T22:55:00.002-04:00

Well it's starting to look like these guys will actually be done for the NOVA Open in August. It's a good feeling. Here are some photos to back it up...

Counts-as Master of the Forge

aka "The Terminator"

Showing off his forge world power fist

Librarian

He's also got some forge world bionics

The librarian blue is on the cape

I think I'll call him Sergeant Awesome

Sporting a forge world combi-flamer

He's actually backup - in case I want to swap a flamer for a meltagun

Grey Knights are painted

2011-07-25T13:37:00.001-04:00

But I still have lot of details to go. I'm going to assembly line a lot of the details and try to get everyone fully painted for the nova open.

Painting and a display board for the NOVA Open

2011-07-19T11:13:00.000-04:00

I've been doing quite bit of the tedious work lately but here's a lump of progress I've made toward the greater goal of having a fully painted army with a display board.

I've done LOTS of airbrushing to get nearly the whole force done to a base standard. All have a P3 Greatcoat grey base color and black shading with Astronomicon Grey highlights.

Here's a not so dark shot of the force as it stands now. They're not all on bases yet, but since the big airbrushing is done they are going to get glued down so they can see more action on the table.

Seeing paint on the Dreadknights has me pretty excited to get busy on them. Painting vehicles is my bread and butter and I can use a lot of techniques that may not work as well on infantry on the large areas and engine-like components of these guys.

I've also begun working on the display board for my army. I was up in the air about it for a little while but I've decided to power through the pain and do it. I think it will tie the whole army together really well and may hide anything small I can't get done in time on the troops.

I'll be trying to really crank this thing so hopefully I'll have a lot more progress to post in the next week or two.

In other news I've been getting a lot of games in lately, including a close loss to Dark Eldar, a loss and a win against Deathwing, a total annihilation at the hands of an Ork horde (I was tabled) and many more to come. I'm happy with how the list has been playing and while some of my choices are not the most efficient use of points, like 2 teleporting Dreadknights, they're fun and compliment my terminator heavy theme well. I'm also using 3 Strike squads in twin-linked heavy bolter Razorbacks equipped with psybolt ammo and I'm really enjoying the strength 6 shooting combined with the psychic pilot, tough nuts to crack.

I'll be trying to get the whole army on bases for this weekend and then back to refining the vehicles and just painting troops until my hands ache.

Blessed by Nurgle

2011-07-18T21:46:00.002-04:00

It turns out what I thought were terrible allergies was in fact a cold. Luckily I took my Iron Hands out for their maiden voyage (battle?) on Friday, before being ~~blessed~~ struck down. The Iron Hands acquitted themselves well, earning a draw (and a near win) against the Death Guard. Which might explain this cold...

Made progress since this one

Everyone is queued up

I did use the down time to do some basing and painting, the score is basing material on everything, one razorback and five dreadnoughts primed/base coated using black gesso. Also made some plasticard rhino, landspeeder and dreadnought shaped terrain.

Landspeeders

2011-07-14T10:40:00.003-04:00

Here's a quick work-in-progress photo of the two landspeeders I've completed so far.

Landspeeder Typhoons

The one on the left is basically stock, the one on the right has the pilots' heads from the razorback kit. Both have about 16 magnets so they can be set up in any configuration. You can see the small magnets I used on the doors so they stay shut when they're not running as typhoons.

My plan is to cut down the windshield on the third and use a pilot with a full helmet. Hopefully pictures will be available tonight, my plan is to have all three complete so I can take them to the local game store tomorrow. It will be the trial run of my marines.

Tau Lists

2011-07-08T18:23:00.002-04:00

As a result of the comments on my mathhammer post here are some examples of the Tau lists I've used.

My current Tau list (that all of the mathhammer is based on) is here.

And here is one of the old army lists I was fooling around with, and yes those are vespids, no they never worked well. I made some nice counts-as jump pack firewarriors that I wanted to use.

Jump pack firewarriors (my counts-as vespids)

Finally, a reconstructed list I experimented with, trying to get all of the Crisis suits possible in a non-Farsight list. I think I started using the Deathrain because I was trying to get all of the suits shooting at BS4 and applying the principal of bodies over upgrades. Now I think that having drones in the squads helps them last longer and is worth doing.

Deathwing Tactics, or The Evolution of My Deathwing List

2011-07-08T12:21:00.000-04:00

I decided to throw this into a post rather than writing a ridiculously long comment-reply to Slate Blank.

My list started out as doublewing, pure and simple. Three units of terminators, three units of bikes, and both Belial and Sammael. I wanted to play these guys at the NOVA Open, so I only bothered building it at 2,000 points. What I learned very quickly was that Deathwing assault is good, but only two terminator squads arriving on turn one is not enough. The second thing was that the ravenwing upgrade squad is not nearly as good as a space marine bike command squad. Oh, and also that Sammael is not an independent character. That blows.

That first list had one six man bike command squad that would run alongside Sammael, with an apothecary, +1 attack banner, and a pair of meltaguns. The other two squads each had three men and a pair of meltaguns. All three squads were bought with a multi-melta attack bike, which then functions as an independent unit for the rest of the game. I had fun with that list, it was fluffy as hell, but it wasn't that effective.

The next evolution involved dropping Sammael and his upgrade squad, and buying more terminators, three more squads. I was running six thunderhammer/stormshield terminator squads, each with a cyclone missile launcher (one of which was Belial's upgrade squad), and a pair of three man bike squads, each with two meltaguns, and the obvious multimelta attack bikes.

I largely abandoned deathwing assault at this point, shooting all six missile launchers on turn one was always more effective. That number of stormshields makes it entirely possible for the army to survive a march across the table (HERE is a great video by The 11th Company demonstrating the ability of large numbers of thunderhammer/stormshield terminators to cross a table and remain effective). In this list the attack bikes were always worth their 50 points, but the other six bikes, which end up costing around 40 points each, were not so great--they have to be within six inches to be truly effective against vehicles, and would typically not survive the aftermath. I realized that if I moved to landspeeders, I would be able to get more functional and versatile shooting, which would function throughout the game, rather than occasionally... if I got lucky... maybe. If I had the option, as C:SM allows, I would take all attack bikes, but in the Dark Angels codex they are saddled with the dead weight of the standard bikes, I'm running two typhoons, and one assault cannon landspeeder. I've opted to put multi-meltas on all of these, which is not the optimized configuration, but my army needs melta for anti-armor. I didn't want to risk loosing my essential fire support by equipping them with the popular melta/flamer combo, and getting their paper thin armor within assault range of anything. The two typhoons hang back, and the assault cannon hovers at around 24 inches, unless there's armor to deal with, in which case they only need to be within 12 inches to crack armor, and if they can get in at combat speed they can add krak missiles to the mix.

The other thing that I added after removing the bikes was an Interrogator-Chaplain. This Dark Angels HQ choice is superior to the standard C:SM chappy; he's got a captain stat-line (WS 5 in the Dark Angels Codex). Having an additional three-wound model is really helpful for keeping squads effective; he and Belial often function as wound sponges to keep missile launchers alive. Its also nice to be able to field them both in the command squad, it makes that unit last a lot longer against other powerhouse (or just large) units. Re-rolls on the charge, I 5, and a combi-melta are also nice for only 150 points.

I am still feeling out this most recent, and hopefully final, variant. It has performed well so far, although I'm still pretty new to assault-oriented, foot-based gameplay. Deathwing is an entirely different beast from shooting marines, it has been a nice change, and hopefully will be a fun list to use for the NOVA Open.

The Tau of Mathhammer

2011-07-07T21:25:00.002-04:00

In response to the post 40k Theory: It's All About The Numbers by Nikephoros I decided to do the same calculation for my Tau army list.

It was interesting to me because I had performed a similar calculation to compare the efficiency of various Crisis suit configurations at killing terminators (TEQ), marines (MEQ) and humans (GEQ). For a while I'd been using the twin-linked missile pods with a targeting array (referred to as the "Deathrain" configuration by Tau players). This gives 2 shots with a 36 inch range at BS4 and it's twin linked, so it's great for killing light transports. With this configuration a squad of three suits would reliably hit with 5 out of 6 shots, however that also demonstrates it's weakness - low rate of fire. Tau armys rely on the Crisis suits to do most of the killing for the army (foreshadowing) and Deathrains aren't very good at killing marines. The other popular Crisis suit loadout is the Fireknife, it has a missile pod, plasma rifle and multitracker so it can shoot both in the same turn. To figure out if the added low-AP shots from the plasma rifle was worth the higher points and lower BS3 I decided to whip out some mathhammer.

My results are that a squad of three Deathrain suits (at BS4) should kill 1.5 MEQs to the Fireknife's 2 MEQs (which goes up to 3.3 MEQs in rapid fire range). If you use markerlights to bring the Fireknife BS up to BS5 they should kill almost 3.5 MEQs at range.

Whoa mathy, on to Nike's numbers... (Read the article and the 8 or so follow-ups to understand what this means)

Unit / DMS / DMCC / DRPG / DLRPG

3 Units of 3 Crisis Suits (w/ 1 HQ) / 11.39 / 2.33 / 22.97 / 0.00

12 Gun Drones (+3 SD CC) / 1.32 / 1.66 / 0.00 / 0.00

2 Devilfish / 0.66 / 0.00 / 0.00 / 0.00

1 Piranha / 0.55 / 0.00 / 3.03 / 1.92

12 Firewarriors / 2.64 / 1.33 / 0.00 / 0.00

10 Kroot / 1.65 / 2.50 / 0.00 / 0.00

13 Kroot, 2 Hounds / 2.15 / 3.75 / 0.00 / 0.00

8 Pathfinders (2 squads of 4) / 0.88 / 0.88 / 0.00 / 0.00

3 Broadsides / 4.40 / 1.00 / 11.00 / 6.60

2 Hammerheads / 3.15 / 0.00 / 5.50 / 3.30

Total / 28.79 / 13.45 / 42.49 / 11.82

If the pathfinders use their markerlights to raise the Crisis suits to BS5 the numbers change to:

Total / 34.91 / 13.45 / 60.84 / 11.82

The numbers don't look too bad (except for CC), but Tau rely on the ability to kill the opposition at range and the proliferation of army's that either move fast and assault or deep strike make life very hard for the Tau player. Also, any opponent who is experienced in playing Tau knows to kill the Crisis suits first, the numbers above show why that's so important.

The numbers are not bad at killing marines or mech, but pretty weak other than that. Despite the reputation for long range killing power AV14 is still a problem because there are only so many railguns available (the answer is 9 maximum), and doing that limits the number of horde killing templates you can take. That's why I started building marines.

Accessorize!

2011-07-05T23:10:00.002-04:00

The Librarian needed a little something to set him apart so I decided to give him a psychic hood/roll-bar. He may get an "It's a Jeep thing" bumper sticker if he's not careful.

Libby

I also upgraded one of my terminators to cyclone duty.

Can't have too many missiles...

Deathwing for the NOVA Open

2011-07-04T23:18:00.000-04:00

Its been a while.

Thanks to a fire that completely destroyed our apartment, my girlfriend and I have relocated from San Francisco to Boston. We are in the process of rebuilding, and for me, that means getting my Dark Angels back on the table. A number of my miniatures were damaged in the fire, and although most can be touched up, or repaired, I've decided to expand upon the portion of the army that my Battlefoam bag (which must have a 2+ invulnerable save) kept in pristine condition.

DEATHWING!

Interrogator-Chaplain, large and in charge
with Forge World-based crozius, Warhammer
Fantasy chaos knight head, and combi-melta.

...waiting patiently for a painted standard.

Since I'm competing in the NOVA Open in August, I wanted to have a good looking army that is easily transported, and can be in good shape within a few months. The obvious answer was to expand upon my existing doublewing army. As it turns out, Dark Angels bikes are very expensive, and not that good. I slowly eliminated them. Now I'm running six squads of thunder hammer/storm shield terminators with cyclone missile launchers, Belial, and Interrogator-Chaplain, and three speeders. I am that guy. I walk my terminators on, and they shoot missiles as they stomp toward they enemy. The army is durable, and can provide a lot of *SMASH*, but it takes a surprisingly gentle touch to get it to perform well against competitive lists. Foot terminators are not particularly mobile, so I have to be careful with deployment, target priority, and movement, or the precariously constructed invulnerable-save-house-of-cards comes crashing down around my ears.

I've been airbrushing like crazy lately, using zenithal highlighting techniques to get the terminators in base colors, and ready for detail. I am using a mix of wet blending, and hard edge highlighting in what was supposed to result in an expedited "tabletop" level of detail. I was hoping this would speed the process along, but yesterday I apparently spent a whole day working on one terminator (not even an HQ). I seem to have screwed up the whole "faster and easier" thing...

Anyway, prepare yourselves, more photos are incoming. If I can remember I may also create a step-by-step for the detail work, and for the display board I'll (hopefully) be constructing. When it rains it pours, baby--I just looked at the sky and it looks cloudy, with a chance of terminators!

***

By the way, you may have noticed some other people posting on The Lazarus Effect recently. Weird images of dirty xenos, imperial meat-bags, and grayish demon-nut-kicker guys have begun appearing, burning their awesomeness onto the collective retina of the internets. I'd like to thank my brothers for joining in, and picking up the slack while my army convalesced. If not for their efforts this now-very-aptly-named blog might have fallen into indefinite obsolescence.

Iron Hands Progress

2011-07-04T20:50:00.002-04:00

Lots of progress on the Iron Hands, dreadnoughts, Razorbacks, and a Typhoon.

Heavy Support and Elites

There are 5 Tactical "Shooty" Terminators (Black Reach) one of those guys is going to get a cyclone when I get the bits for it. Five dreadnoughts (2 Elite, 3 Heavy Support), the Elites are a multimelta, and an Ironclad with a meltagun, the Heavy Support all have assault cannons. All of the dreads have heavy flamers and extra armor.

Razorbacks

The two Razorbacks each have twin-linked lascannons. I was thinking of going with the las-plas, but because of my Tau experience with Deathrain Crisis Suits (twin-linked missile pods and targeting array) I decided to stick with the twin-linked las for reliability. Also that configuration is included in the box and I'm in a hurry.

Landspeeder Typhoon

Magnets!

There are 16 magnets in that landspeeder - I wanted to be able to change the configuration as needed. In this list the landspeeders are my fire support and will be Typhoon's with the heavy bolter. This is the first of three.

TWINS!!!!!

2011-07-04T13:10:00.000-04:00

I had twins, they weigh 3 ounces each and have two nemesis doomfists and a heavy incinerator. I plan on running them with personal teleporters since they will be providing a fast support role for my army.

Here are the Dreadknight boys doing a jig.

I constructed this guy first, and did a little reposing of a leg to add some element of motion (since the kit doesn't really afford you any). I also magnetized the fists and the Incinerator barrel so I can swap out some of the weapons. Looking at the way the Heavy Psycannon attaches to the arm, I decided to not bother with the whole weapon and just do barrel swaps if I want to run something other than the incinerator. I've fallen prey to over magnetizing in the past and don't want to end up having a model fall to pieces every time in need to move it.

I did this Dreadknight over the last few days and I found it difficult to get a good pose that didn't look exactly like the first one. In the end I trimmed the toes on his left foot so that the heel is rising off the ground. Once he's on the the base I'm going to turn him so he looks like he's winding up to throw a punch.

Despite all the sass that people have given this kit since it's release, I really like it. I hated it at first but it grew on me quickly, and while it lacks some of the possibility that would make it look unbelievably dynamic, a little bit of TLC gets it looking a lot more interesting than GW's sample build.

All Paint and no play makes Mark something something...

2011-07-02T16:38:00.000-04:00

I've finally got a rhythm going now on my Grey Knights terminators. I'm working on the first 5 of a total 20, but now I'm making good progress. I tried a few new techniques such as object source lighting (osl) on eyes and psychic hoods and a metric crap ton of gold shading and highlighting.

Here are a few shots of the near finished products.

I'm going to get the whole squad almost totally done then move on to force weapons.

Iron Hands New Recruits - Librarian and Sergeant

2011-07-02T00:55:00.002-04:00

WIP photos of a couple new Iron Hands recruits. He'll round out the HQ, now I just need a few special and heavy weapons tacticals and the troops will be complete too.

Iron Hands Librarian

Librarian

Tactical Sergeant

Xenos Invasion (here come the Tau)

2011-07-01T09:44:00.002-04:00

This post has been a long time coming. Just over a year ago my brothers (the other contributors to this blog) conspired to get me into 40k. I folded.

Shortly thereafter I bought a nearly complete Tau army from someone on craigslist.

A portion of the original army

Since that time I've been painting and modifying the army, and now it's nearly complete. Part of my inspiration was due to my decision to attend the NOVA Open, last fall I moved nearby and it seemed crazy not to attend. Here are the requisite army photos:

Prototype paint job on a Devilfish

My only Piranha

Jump-Pack Firewarriors (counts-as Vespids)

"Red" Kroot

More "Red" Kroot

Broadside getting upgraded to plasma rifles (Relentless!)

The requisite Firewarriors (I have 48 organized into 4 squads)

"Blue" Kroot

Devilfish work-in-progress

Magnetized Gun Drone (goes with the Piranha)

Devilfish

Gun Drone with battle damage

Hammerhead

So that's basically it. Pardon the quality but these were mostly work-in-progress pictures. Also, I realized I don't have many photos of the backbone of any Tau Army - Crisis Suits. I have 15'ish, but currently use a Shas'El and 9 suits all equipped with plasma rifles, missile pods and multitrackers (aka the "Fireknife" configuration).

In the past I used twin-linked missile pods with targeting arrays (+1 BS), but found they didn't have what it takes to reliably take down power-armor, so in preparation for the NOVA Open I converted 9 into Fireknives - also the Broadsides got upgraded to plasma as well. But I can cover my list later.

Which leads to...

Iron Hands

I think I'm going to try to finish my Iron Hands for the NOVA Open.

Iron Captain (counts-as Master of the Forge)

We'll see how far I get.

2011-06-30T03:07:00.000-04:00

I received my bases form Dragon Forge Design today and couldn't resist getting right into them.

After reading through Forgeworld's Tanks Masterclass book, I picked up what is now an obvious technique. I used double sided tape to hold all of the bases on a piece of cardboard and did all my painting and prep work there.

I primed the bases with P3 white primer and airbrushed them GW Graveyard Earth and applied a coat of Testors Glosscotte. I then took advantage of the capillary action of diluted oil paint to wash the crevices of the bases. Once they were dry I drybrushed GW Bleached Bone followed by a small amount of GW Astronimicon Grey. I added a few spots of Mig pigments; some black blast marks since these guys are only going to be in warzones and two different colors of rust on the few bases with metal items. Finally I gave them a coat of Testors Dullcotte and ended with this.

Back to the terminators now I guess.

Grey Knights progress: Strike Squads and Transports

2011-06-27T16:42:00.000-04:00

I've begun assembling the 3 strike squads that I'll need to field my grey knights list at the NOVA Open. I'm going to use about 10 of the old metal GK models and another 5 or so of the new plastic marines. I like some of the elements of the old metal models so I'm going to try to get the new plastic guys to match. Mostly I just like the ammo belts that run from the stormbolters to the backpacks on the old models so I've used plasticard to try to recreate them on the plastic guys. I don't want to spend too long on them so this is what I've come up with.

I've also begun painting my razorbacks to be interchangeable with Inquisitorial retinues, so they're going to be more inquisition colors and a lot less Grey Knights. I'll be doing quite a bit of weathering on the vehicles to make them look well worn and I've magnetized the razorback parts so it can be outfitted easily as a rhino.

Coming Soon: Terminator Painting Progress.

Grey Knights for the NOVA Open

2011-05-25T13:40:00.000-04:00

After a long struggle, I've finally decided that instead of Imperial Guard I'll be bringing my much more manageable Grey Knights list to the NOVA Open. The only problem with this is that I have to get 20 Terminators painted so I'm going to try to use airbrush techniques as much as possible to save time and get a good realistic zenithal lighting effect.

I've Primed the model white with P3 white primer then airbrushed P3 Greatcoat Grey evenly on the entire models surface.

After That I airbrushed Citadel Chaos Black from below creating a solid black coat covering all of the downward facing surfaces. I also touched up a few spots that would require a shadow but weren't visible from below the model.

I finished by airbrushing Citadel Astronomicon Grey From above covering all of the upward facing surfaces. Just like with the black shading, I made sure that the highlight was pure Astronomicon Grey. This creates really extreme contrast that's visible from a distance, so these guys should look pretty dynamic on the board.

So here is the final product, I still have a lot of work to do on these models but hopefully a little less than the seven IG tanks I was working on.

I'm probably going to be going for some silver metallics on the engravings in the armor instead of the classic gold and some warm colors for the force weapons. We'll see how fast I can crank these guys out since I'll still need to paint Inquisitor Coteaz and three of his retinues. My ultimate goal at the NOVA is to have some fun and I think the Grey Knights list will be laid back enough with plenty of padding for my amateur mistakes on the table.

Valkyries, A lifetime achievement award

2011-05-05T18:04:00.000-04:00

I've been playing with half painted Valkyries for months now and recently decided to take action. Since we all know that painted models perform better on the table I had to finish the job. This isn't a tutorial but I took a few pics along the way so I'm going just mention my progress.

Here is a shot of one of the valks following the initial Tamiya "rattlecan" basecoat from around Christmas time.

Since then I've used sponges from blister packs to apply a chipping effect.

After I had completed the chipping I applied a glosscoat to the model and used oil paints to wash areas filling in cracks and rivets. Following that I did some streaking giving the whole model a weathered look and creating a sense of movement.

In this picture you can see the difference between the Valkyrie with the oil paint (right) and the one without (left). Oils can work well to fill in all of the crevices on a model but they work best on a gloss surface.

The next step was to mix some "Future" acrylic floor polish with GW brown ink and airbrush it onto spots of the model sparingly. This makes certain areas (engines, hatches, etc.) look like they have oil or fuel spills and leaks. The Future gives it a very realistic sheen and really allows it to flow naturally. After the future was dry I airbrushed a bit thinned black paint onto and behind the engines to show exhaust stains. I did the same on the small fin that sits behind the engines and on the small wing tip engines as well.

So their you have it, Valkyries very nearly completed. Plenty more to get done before the NOVA open. Next on the docket, Tanks.

Standards and Practices

2011-02-06T19:08:00.000-05:00

New Deathwing and Ravenwing standards to give my bikes and terminators +1 attack!

Functional storm shields and cyclone missile launchers have made me totally re-evaluate the old codex. My second army? Dark Angels.

Zenithal Highlighting on Rhinos

2011-01-16T15:42:00.000-05:00

I've been experimenting with my airbrush, and have begun applying zenithal highlighting/shading to my vehicles beginning with my rhinos. Although still new to the technique, it never ceases to amaze me how quickly I can achieve the results I desire, and how easy it is. The airbrush is the ultimate force multiplier for the 40k hobbyist; the below results took a total of about three hours total to complete on my four rhinos, and and to apply the initial dark angels green basecoat on two predators.

Here's an example of how the rhinos are coming along:

Applying that sort of shading with a brush would have taken me all day for each vehicle. Now I need to begin all the detail work, and then its on to weathering. The job is not yet done yet, but is coming along nicely, its heartening that I will be able to complete my vehicles in a reasonable amount of time, and move on to something else. I don't feel so bad about spending twelve hours on one tac marine now...

Bikes and Shrikes

2011-01-09T19:04:00.000-05:00

Well, I've finally done it. Gone off the deep end; finished my bike command squad. I know I've talked it up for so long that it can never really live up to expectations, but they are done. Done and magnetized, and I ain't never lookin' back.

I also built up my bike commander, who I plan on running as Kor'sarro Khan.

And last but not least, I finally built a Kayvaan Shrike counts as.

So that's what I've accomplished this weekend... I'm making a concerted effort to build all the models I've got sitting around. Christmas generosity left me with a massive stockpile that will require a great deal of attention if I'm ever going to get to the part I really enjoy: painting.

Happy New Year!

2010-12-31T14:52:00.000-05:00

I have been remiss in my posting duties for the last month or so, but I am back with a vengeance:

First of all, I have made a concerted effort to paint up my tactical marines, and have completed ONE WHOLE SQUAD. I know, its impressive, 10 space marines in two months, but hold your applause; I also painted one additional sergeant. In my defense, I have been spending an inordinate amount of time with zenithal highlighting/shading, and trying to perfect my wet-blending techniques. This results in an average paint time of 12 hours per marine, usually over the course of three days or so.

I started out with the Henry Ford process--an assembly line that cranked out finished, but uniform, models--but wasn't really satisfied with the result. I slowly added more and more wet-blending, and was eventually forced to reconcile the fact that if I am to be happy with the outcome, I need to paint each model as well as I possibly can.

The dearth of highlighting on models in the back
transformed into an inordinate abundance by the time I
made it to the fellas up front.

As you can see I've also been experimenting with battle damage, mostly on shoulder pads--usually to cover up imperfect decals.

Moving on...

I received a fantastic present for christmas from family and girlfriend; I am now the proud owner of an impressive Harder & Steenbeck Infinity airbrush (and amazingly silent Iwata compressor), so I'm experimenting on something I don't use very much (but depending on how they come out, maybe I'll start).

Arms are all magnetized on these guys so they can be
switched to lightning claws

Graveyard earth base-coat for what will eventually be
bleached bone Deathwing termies

...and since I started on those guys, I thought I might need this:

And then, on a whim, I decided to use some spare parts to put together some objective markers:

From left to right: teleport homer with servo skull,
decorative holy book and stand, las cannon-based
searchlight, and field communication set up.

So that's it for now... well, actually, there is one more thing. All this work has been focused by a secret and insidious goal for 2011:

The shape of things to come...

Chaplain Fever

2010-11-06T17:10:00.000-04:00

In an attempt to positively influence my dice rolling, I'm making a concerted effort to have a more fully painted army (I think we all know that the efficacy of dice rolling is DIRECTLY related to the amount and quality of paint that covers an army).

In our Planetary Empires campaign at Endgame we are required to use one special or unique character; bereft of my precious 100 point librarian, I have shifted over to the 125 point Chaplain Cassius. I didn't have a Cassius model, so I've been subbing in my ol' faithfull libby.

Big mistake.

Apparently I offended the Model Spirit of my libby, and possibly the unformed Spirit of Cassius, as a result I was rewarded with even more amazingly unfortunate dice rolling. It got to the point that I started to think I could not take blast weapons anymore, because they would NEVER hit. Never. What was I to do?

In a last ditch effort I decided to do the unthinkable, the thing I should have done all along: build a Cassius miniature.

I used a servo-skull for his head, the aquila that topped one of my standards for his Crozius Arcanum, and a Dark Angels Mechanicus shoulder pad with all the geary bits filled off. His combi-flamer is a straightforward conversion using the front of a flamer (I am particularly fond of the highlighting on its red shroud--I'm not sure how well it shows up in the pics).

I used very little zenithal highlighting on this guy, as it does not work well with blacks, there wasn't enough exposed green in the shoulder pads for it to really be noticeable, and because I wanted to get him done in one day (granted, a very long day). The black parts of his armor are highlighted on the hard edges using three (quick) layers: the first is a big fat highlight of 50/50 black and adeptus battlegray, follwed by a more delicate coat of straight adeptus battlegray, finished with a very fine highlight of codex gray.

Hopefully this newly minted Cassius will inspire some improved dice rolling on my part, who knows he might even find his way into my regular list rotation.

Now on to some vehicles...

Some New Updates

2010-10-18T01:22:00.000-04:00

So I've been bust with real life lately, but here is some progress finally. Here's a new hellhound I'm testing oil paints on and a Leman Russ I've revisited to make look a little but better. I'm trying to get my tanks closer to a military modeling standard so I'm trying new techniques, but it looks like I really need an airbrush next.

I took a class with Mathieu Fontaine over the summer, so now that I finally have time I'm trying to apply some of the techniques he taught (mostly dealing with wet palettes and zenith lighting).

Why kill the alien?

2010-09-11T19:37:00.000-04:00

...why not?

I was fortunate enough to be sick a few days last week, so I was able to catch up on my painting.

Kill Team!

Deathwatch Pedro Kantor

Final version of battle-damaged captain

UPDATE

2010-09-06T16:21:00.000-04:00

Spent a little time yesterday building assault cannons for my land speeders, and magnetizing their stands. A great improvement, but I can't claim credit for it: http://fromthewarp.blogspot.com/2010/03/black-templar-land-speeder.html

I used two magnets instead of the screw that Ron shows in his demo; I packed a bunch of green stuff into the hole so the magnet didn't get lost in the body of the speeder, and everything lined up just right.

The assault cannons are magnetized too; a magnet glued to the bottom of the land speeder's nose, and one in the weapon mount, nothing fancy.

I also used a heavy bolter belt, and a little greenstuff to give the Deathwatch Kantor a feed belt for his storm bolter. It looks pretty simple, but was something of a pain to line up. I guess I need more green stuff practice.

Bikes and Plasma and HQ's, oh my!

2010-09-05T13:32:00.000-04:00

I know, I've got a thesis to finish editing, but dammit my army need some attention!

I've been working on my bikes and HQs lately. My army tends to lean toward mech/gun line, with sternguard elites, but I've been experimenting with a plasma command squad just to mix things up a bit. I also have been using more and more bikes and land speeders, and I think shortly my gun line will transform entirely into Ravenwing. Well, at least I'll have options.

Recent additions.

I had to build up my bike squad a bit--I was running the six that come with the Ravenwing box set, but using the standard Space Marines codex, so I was loosing out on the whole combat squad option. That should not be a problem now.

Enough bikes to flesh out my fast attack slots.

I also can't shake my love of sternguards. I've painted three out of the five Deathwatch styled models so far, with the parts for another five as soon as I have time. To that end, I built a "counts as" Pedro Kantor, who will be painted in the panoply of a Deathwatch commander to continue that theme.

I will post photos of all of my full kill-team when they are completed.

"Counts As" Pedro Kantor HQ.

I'm not really sure how I feel about this command squad yet. They could fit into the right kind of gun line, but right now I'm really more into the whole bike scene. I'm thinking of creating a Kor'sarro Khan lead bike-mounted command squad, and not wasting the Captain's close combat potential by pairing him with a shooty squad (or leaving him to run around unprotected without any close combat support...). I may be ripping off my gaming buddy Pierre, but I would like to try storm shields and power weapons all around, with meltaguns for anti-mech. Combined with Kor'sarro Khan's Furious Charge, and Hit and Run special rules, I think that would make for a lethally effective unit.

Command Squad

New Stuff, and Improved Stuff

2010-08-09T02:45:00.000-04:00

Since my last post I was able to participate in a painting masterclass taught by Mathieu Fontaine, AKA Akaranseth; I highly recommend attending if one of these if any are scheduled in your area, or organizing one if not. It was an extremely educational and motivating experience, and although many of the techniques take time to perfect, it would be nearly impossible to come away from such intensive instruction without seeing some immediate improvements in your painting game.

I also visited my family in Massachusetts for two weeks, and was able to get in a number of games with my younger brother and a friend, pitting my marines against Dark Eldar and Imperial Guard. We also successfully swayed my older brother to get into the game, and he is currently in the process of collecting a Tau army.

My brothers 5-x-8 ft. table; space marines vs. dark eldar.

While relaxing in the old country I was able to do a fair amount of painting, and a bit of building as well. I finally finished my terminator Librarian, fully painted my Deathwatch/Sternguard Sarge, got some green on all my vehicles, and built and primed a deuce of land speeders. I was able to implement some of the skills I learned at the masterclass, and have definitely improved the quality of my tabletop painting.

Terminator Librarian, completed at last.

Deathwatch Sternguard Sergeant.

Speeders, primed and ready--to sit around
until I can find the time to look at them again.

I also went back to my battle damaged Captain/Company Master and am beginning to shade, highlight, and generally improve him.

A little hand-painted Dark Angels symbol action.

The start of his updated, battle-damaged, armor.

That's all for now, but I will be at Endgame in Oakland on Tuesday night, so hopefully I'll be able to put up a battle-report this week.

Battle at Endgame

2010-07-08T04:23:00.001-04:00

Finally took my space marines out in public!

Endgame in Oakland, Tuesday night, Space Marines vs. Tyranids:

I was a bit nervous, as it was my first foray out onto the public tabletops of an unfamiliar game store, as well as my first face off with Tyranids. I was, however, heartened by my opponents reaction to the unboxing of my army: "Thats a lot of vehicles...and lascannons."

It turns out I had inadvertently designed the perfect army to face-off against his horde.

My Army:

Dark Angels (using 5th Ed. Marine Codex)

HQ
--Librarian (Null Zone; Force Dome)

Elite
--5x Sternguard in HB Razorback (Sarge with powerfist and combi-flamer; 1x combi-flamer; 3x combi-melta)

Troops
--10x Tac Marines in Rhino (Sarge with powerfist and combi-flamer; meltagun; Lascannon)

--10x Tac Marines in Rhino (Sarge with powerfist and combi-flamer; meltagun; Lascannon)
--10x Tac Marines in Rhino (Sarge with powerfist and combi-flamer; Flamer; Missile Launcher)

Fast
--6x Bikes (Sarge with combi-melta; 2x melta)

Heavy
--2x Predators (Autocannon turret, lascannon sponsons)

His Army-more or less, I'm no xenobiologist...:

Tyranids

HQ
--Hive Tyrant with body guard guys

--Tervigon

Elite
--3x Zoanthropes

--2x Venomthropes

Troops
--3 or 4 squads of Termagaunts

Heavy
--2x Carnifex

--Trygon

Setup: 1500 points. Capture and Control, Spearhead. Objectives placed in opposite corners. Opponent won initiative

and decided to move first.

(Not going to do a turn-by-turn deal here, since I really can't remember the details)

I spread my army out in front of the objective, on the left hand quadrant closest to me, with predators atop two small hills, one squad of troops on the objective, one placed between the two predators, and one following my razorback (with sternguards and librarian) toward the right side of the board. Bikes started near the top left.

I immediately raced the bikes toward his table edge (top-left) in an attempt to flank, and sent the rhino and razor back to the right in the hope that I would be able to either draw some of his army away, and eventually seize his objective. Shot a few lascannon blasts from across the board and I wounded a carnifex and took out a hive tyrant guard.

He ran everything, except the one squad he planted on his objective.

'Nids are pretty quick, so my bikes ended up forming a gun-line at the top of the board, between a hill and the table edge, where they mowed down a squad and a half of charging termagaunts. Unfortunately the tervigon was right behind them, and kept excreting gaunts as fast as I could kill them. The bikes were soon overrun, and lost combat. I decided to fail the morale check and sent them charging back to my table edge.

Meanwhile, the hive tyrant, his guard and a carnifex, were getting dangerously close to my razorback and rhino. I chose to disembark and make a stand. A carnifex, hive tyrant (and his guards), and a venomthrope charged toward the sternguard, tac squad, and a nearby predator. I shot everything and put a bunch of wounds on the carnifex, killed off the tyrant guard, and wounded the tyrant. He assaulted my predator with a carnifex, eventually killing it, and my tac squad with his hive tyrant, while the venomthrope hung back. Long story short, the tac squad was raped, although the power fist sarge did some damage, but as soon as everyone was out of close combat, my razorback and sternguards mowed down both the tyrant and the carnifex, and shortly thereafter the venomthrope. Hellfire rounds are tits against Tyranids.

Meanwhile, near my objective and the fleeing bikes, his Trygon popped out of the ground. Bikes melta'd and wounded him once before he charged them and wiped them off the board. The Marines near my objective, and the other predator opened fire on that frightening motherfucker. Two turns later he was nothing but a bad memory. Unfortunately a pack of termagaunts and three zoanthropes were coming fast down the middle. The Zoanthropes went for the squad of marines I had placed between the two predators, and took them out pretty effectively with their powers, but the sarge survived, charged them, killing one (and tying them up for a turn) before he died. As the end of the game neared they were too far away from the objective to make it in time. My predator sniped a second one away, and the last could only watch the carnage that was occurring at the objective.

I moved a rhino so that the 'nids had to squeeze through a narrow gap to reach my objective, and the marines that were guarding it spread out. four squads of termagaunts made it to the rhino but were bottlenecked. Two made it in and assaulted, one after the other: the first was wiped out, and the second was sent fleeing in turn six.

At the same time my sternguards and and razorback charged toward his objective, and although they couldn't make it there by the end of the game, did manage to kill enough of the gaunts guarding it that they fled off the board...

The game ended after turn six, leaving me controlling one objective, and him none.

Victory for the Imperium! The filthy xenos were stomped into the dirt under the adamantine, power-armored, feet of the Dark Angels. The only trace of their passing, a blackened filthy stain, faded quickly into the earth.

Praise the God-Emperor!

The Big Picture

2010-06-14T01:23:00.000-04:00

Here's everything I have assembled so far...

Jesus, what have I gotten myself into.

Both my Predators:

Ravenwing bikes:

Some more stuff:

What? More new stuff?....Yup.

2010-06-10T15:09:00.000-04:00

I made a Stormtrooper Sarge out of some Elysian Bits and a Spacewolf Scout head. I also decided to make him a stowed Hellgun.

While perusing the GW site I discovered the Sergeant Harker Mini and became enamored with him. Fortunately his rules aren't terrible because I'd end up using him either way, but here is my veteran infiltrator squad. I used three Elysian plasma guns as well.

They're a work in progress, but coming along.

I built a pair of Sentinels with magnetized weapons. After a bit of thought I think I'm usually going to field them as Scouts with Autocannons, and maybe try out missile launchers as well.

I made some progress on my mostly scratchbuilt tank.

It's almost ready for paint, a little more detail and I'm there.

Well I've built a lot of stuff

2010-06-10T14:43:00.000-04:00

So here is a bit of the business i've working on for the last 3 months or so.

BANEBLADE!

I was impressed with a thread I found on Warseer for a totally amazing IG mechanized army and decided to join the ranks of Baneblade owners. I liked this guys building and painting style even though it's totally out of my league so I'm going to steal a lot of totally awesome ideas.

I also like the Forgeworld track guards but don't like paying for that crap so I made some.

Here is some dude crawling out of a hatch dangerously close to a Demolisher Cannon.

Some realistic stowage.

A spare track link and a little brass rod.

I thought guns with cameras on them made sense too.

An armor plate for the pintle mount stubber.

Some more brass rod stuff.

Finally an engine compartment shot.

Remember when I said I would build you last?

2010-06-05T23:04:00.000-04:00

I lied.

I've never really been happy with my sternguards, and I've always wanted to build a Deathwatch kill-team, soooo...

...it looks like the Dark Angels Deathwatch conscripts are back in town, and it looks like they are my new sternguards.

I've gone with three combi-meltas, and two combi-flamers--seems like a pretty well rounded loadout for handling armor, or hordes. I ditched the combi-plas; they're cool, but my marines are too expensive to risk a one in six chance of frying themselves with each shot.

been a while

2010-05-09T20:35:00.000-04:00

I've moved and i've been busy in school but i've still been modeling.

Now I have a Baneblade. It's huge, almost twice the length of a Leman Russ.

Here are some other shots of the details, still a lot more work to do.

Also working on Sgt. Harker and his veteran squad with three plasma gunners.

I got Elysian Plasma guns off of Bitz Barn, that site rocks.

And Finally a Forgeworld and partially scratch built Stormtrooper Sarge.

More to come soon.

Librarian Update

2010-04-27T21:08:00.000-04:00

He's coming along. Started using Gryphonne Sepia for parchment; its absolutely perfect, and now I have to go back and touch up all of my purity seals.

By the time I finish my army, the retouching is going to be like painting the entire thing all over again.

Magnificent Bastard

2010-04-24T19:59:00.000-04:00

Here is the Space Hulk Librarian Terminator I recently adopted:

He is all man. I'm actually glad GW discontinued the other one I ordered; this badass cost less, is way cooler, and is plastic, so he's easier to work with, and I won't have to kill myself if I ever drop him.

If you are in need of an individual terminator, especially to modify or use as an independent character, spend the fifteen or so bucks on one of these puppies, you'll be glad you did.

If anyone cares the colors for his armor are:
Necron Abyss (base)
Regal Blue
Regal Blue/Ultramarines Blue (1:1)
Ultramarines Blue
Ice Blue (highlight)

It was actually surprisingly easy, it just took a little self control to not rush through painting the armor so I could get to all his decorations.

I'll put up some more pics when he's done.

Painted vs. Unpainted

2010-04-21T02:06:00.000-04:00

Plus the five tactical marines I built after taking this.

Sergeant... Rambo?

2010-04-19T01:41:00.000-04:00

If John Rambo was a Dark Angel Space Marine, he would be this guy.

Yes, that is a vehicle storm bolter.

ScoutsScoutsScoutsScoutsScouts

2010-04-18T23:02:00.000-04:00

Here they are, done at last. Fuckers took me longer than any of my marines.

My custom Sergeant Telion is a standard sniper scout with a green stuff beard, and a hacked up bolter. Easy to build, looks pretty good, and costs way less than the metal variant.

New Additions to the Family

2010-04-03T16:15:00.000-04:00

Razorback (one of two), a second dreadnought, an assault chaplain, to melta marines, a veteran sergeant with a storm bolter, and a veteran devastator sergeant with a signum.

Sniper scouts are almost done, as soon as they are pics will go up...

Camo Cloak Action

2010-03-27T17:12:00.001-04:00

Working on my scouts.

Dready McDreadnought

2010-03-25T22:27:00.000-04:00

After months of procrastinating I finally managed to whip myself into enough of a painting frenzy to complete my first dreadnought. The impetus behind this venture was: (1) I got off early from work, and (2) I bought another dreadnought, so I had to have at least one completed.

(I did a little washing and touching up after I took this; I'll put up a few more shots as soon as I get a chance.)