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Brilliant read this. A potential YoungBlood entrant I think. Wish I was that good at his age and I like seeing the older minis painted so well and with a great chapter choice.

Though the dice may not be in your favor, what make a player great is that they are at their best when things are at there worst. Win or lose. Some of the best and most fun game are games I have lost. I learn more from them and it makes me take the time to work the things I need to improve. Your sons will learn from their fathers excellent example of gamemenship.

Public Disclaimer! Solar_lion there is the guy who got me started playing 40k 20 years ago.... so he has to be nice to me, because all this (me pointing at thousands of dollars in figures) is HIS FAULT!


There is a certain freedom in knowing you are hopelessly outmatched... you can do darn near anything and not be criticized for it. Also any good that happens, regardless of how futile, is a point in your favor. Those 3 deffkoptas killed 2 tanks, took the other two out of the game (stunning, etc), and made two of his units turn around and go the wrong way to deal with them... I thought that was pretty good work for what... 160 pts? The weaponless truck wandering across the battlefield to challenge his objective and nearly chasing the attack bikes off the table was another high point. (Didn't think it would work... but I thought he just might be so preoccupied blowing things up that he wouldn't see it as a threat, which he didn't. He actually grinned like the Cheshire cat when he read my battle report about how I was going to use the truck... think I might have given him some ideas...)

I was playing a 2000 pt ork army vs. some space marines at the local shop a few weeks back, and was just getting my rear handed to me. A marine squad that I really needed to shoot at was in HtH with one Kan, thus unavailable as a shooting target. In desperation, my near-by tankbusta squad released all 3 bomb squigs at a useless target (drop pod) in the hopes that one would go astray & blow up the killa kan, thus releasing the marines from HtH and making them viable shooting targets for the rest of my army. It didn't work... but my opponent (an experienced player) was impressed at the outside-of-the-box creativity of my idea. And it was just so "orky" that I had to try. Even though I ended up getting crushed... the epiphany of that moment was worth the game.


Just goes to show what you can do if you're creative and don't let the "probable" outcome of the game get in the way of having a good time.


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Short update: Thing 1 finished the white on his termies tonight, I did a bit of touching up on each, but less than I expected. His brush control and patience are improving.

If you'd like to see some of the things I've been working on lately, you can visit the Bad Moon section of my gallery. There's a shot of my metal killa kans (my babies!), one of the new grotzookas I just finished and one of the RLs. Also an old school Bad Moon weird boy from the dark ages that I re-painted and based up for play. Feel free to comment, vote, ridicule me in PM's... I'm just happy for the feedback. Though I will admit that I'm not trying to paint these to a golden demon standard, too darn many of the buggers for that... just tryin' to make 'em look good on the table.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-26790-7283_Bad%20Moons.html

I think I mentioned before that I was planning on re-building my Mantis Warrior army from scratch... well, I got some help from an unexpected source. Someone (probably Thing 1) left my carrying case with the marines in it open... and our young male cat peed in it. Don't know how long ago, I just discovered it. If you have ever owned a male cat... you can guess what my entire army smells like right now, not to mention the case. I'll try to deoderize them, but I suspect any chemical that would remove the smell would also remove the paint... if that's the case, than the die is cast. I'll just strip everything and use them for parts for the re-build...

On the bright side, I'm going to try to get a couple of combat patrol pick-up games at the local shop tomorrow evening. Have a couple of nice builds with orks and SMs (scouts mostly) that I want to try out. My semi-annual performance review is tomorrow... so if I can't find a game it'll be straight to the nearest bar. I'll need to decompress one way or the other.

Hello friends. Thought I would give you an update. Thing 1 finished washing the white faces and power gloves on his terminators... next is the red piping on the gloves. After that I'll paint the details on the faces and we'll re-base them on standard 40mm bases & I'll work with him on proper basing technique. Might have them done in a few days, we'll see.

I've been working on converting a spare terminator into one carrying an (edit) assault cannon (thanks to the generosity of a forum member who donated the gun). This is no small task as the bolt guns are essentially molded directly into the left half of the body. (check the first page of this thread for a reminder of what these guys look like) So I had to cut out large chunks of plastic and then rebuild the body and leg shapes in the newly exposed plastic. I even used a couple of engravers to make some basic lines resembling the imperial eagle wing in the chest. Don't get me wrong... it's a crude job when compared with a lot of the work on this forum, but still... I was happy I was able to install the (edit) assault cannon on the old terminator frame in a reasonably convincing way. I think with a little more cleaning up it'll paint up just fine. I have an idea for a way to hide the scarred area if I don't like the way it looks... only time will tell

Woah I figured you would of put that on one of the black reachers! As for covering up something, purity seals FTW!
Also, assault cannon, not autocannon

Good job there ^__^

Nice conversion. Prime it and paint it, and you prolly won't see a difference.

A very, very inspiring blog.

I wish my dad was remotely interested in 40k.

Anyway I really like what you did with the Terminator and the flags. Sure it's simple but I am now going to be replicating that effect on my Terminators as it's so dang cool.

WM: My dad used to say... "Son, if there's an easy way and a hard way to do something, always choose the hard way. The end result won't be any better than the easy way, but you'll have the satisfaction of knowing it was, well... harder." Well OK, my dad didn't really say that... but if you'd spent your youth helping him around the house like I did, you'd have SWORN that was his life's philosophy! I was going to do what you suggest, but so many people have commented on how cool it was that someone is using those old figs, that I didn't want to break the integrity of the squad (sergeant non-withstanding).

I could use one more of these (I mean this style of termie) for a second assault cannon if anyone blunders into one. Be happy to buy it off you. Otherwise I'll see if I can pick one up on e-bay.

Vlad: I've started adding campaign ribbons to the yellow cord. Each time the unit fights in a battle they get a ribbon... white if they live, red if they die, "vici" if they win, "det" (for detrimentum") if they lose. Green stripe down the centr for a draw and the ribbon gets a gold border if the unit contributes in some major way to the battle. That way my son will have a record of all the battles that unit has been in, and how they did... all "in charachter" so-to-speak on the body of the standard bearer. He's got 1 ribbon now, when he get's a few more I'll post a pic so you can see what it looks like.

I've started working on my Mantis Warriors... so far it's going amazingly well. Really.... better than I expected. I'll start another blog on that project because I don't want to dilute this thread with too much "me" stuff as it's really supposed to be about the boys, but as it'll take a bit of writing to explain what I'm doing... it may be a bit before I get something going. I'll post this one pic here just as a teaser, the rest will wait for the other thread.

These are the legendary Mantis Warrior Tranquility Snipers, one would assume a veteran squad of fully armored marines with special bolt gun sniper rifles. Based on artwork from the 1st Ed rule book. My restrictions are armor that is based largely on Mk VI tech (though not necessarily entirely Mk VI) and the the sniper rifles have a distinct bolt gun look. Either by being based on an actual bolt gun, or by modifying the sniper rifle to look more bolter-like. I'll run them like a normal sniper squad... but WE know what they really are (I was hoping Sternguard could take sniper rifles... but no luck). You can see these are cobbled together from a bunch of different era bits. Very appropriate considering the MW's just came off a 100 year campaign into the Eye are were probably bereft of any material support from the Imperium during thas time.



The final versions of these figures will have a lot more "scouty" detail and customization added, as well as the special "Tranquility Campaign Camo" paint job. These are just the mock-ups to see if my conversion ideas will work.

Vets can take the ammo that lets them shoot 30' if they dont move. Thats pretty snipery, plus they can use the other ammo when they get attacked. Just a thought.

That IS pretty snipey... I'll have to take a look into that. Problem is that they'd lose all their "scout" abilities, but I plan on having a scout heavy army anyway so perhaps I can give up that point. It would allow the figs in many other ways to perform as I'd hoped.

Hmmmm.... thanks.

OH, and we found one more of that old style of termies lying around... so we're good for the last conversion.

Cool. I can't wait to see your mantis warrior blog.

You could use your snipy marines as sternguard veterans imho. They look rugged and ainchent and the sniper bolters could just as well be a modification and could represent their armour penetrating bullet the bolters are firing?? (the vengeance rounds) Just a thought.

I think that's what whalemusic was getting at... and looking through the details, I think that's a nearly perfect fit. The sniper mods on the guns represent their enhanced capabilities, and the "antique" look of the figs matches the source of the unit & fluff (i.e. 1st Ed) and the veteran status matches my role for them in the army. Perfect start for the MW blog... which I will get to.... soon.... hopefully....

'spose I should get into the habit of taking pictures of things as I do them rather than when they're done.

Lining up a 2000 pt battle with the boys which we might get to today... we'll see. I'll keep notes in case the narrative is good...

Battle Report #2: All marine battle... even with an "excuse" as to why two of the Emperor's Finest are slugging it out... we're on turn 3 at the moment... This is a true Mantis Warrior build for me. I don't claim it's the ultimate form... but it is the direction that I'm heading (no tracked or wheeled vehicles). I know, I know... I developed the concept 3 rule sets ago and have no intention of changing it just because GW wants to encourage me to buy tanks. Some deficiencies have come to light already in the course of the game, but nothing I can't address within my own self-imposed list restrictions.


Doom Eagles vs. Mantis Warriors

Scenario
“desperate scavengers” The Mantis Warriors are travelling through unfamiliar regions of space after their epic 100-year deployment and crusade to wipe out their old allies, the Astral Claws who had fled into the maelstrom after the failure of the Badab Rebellion. Critically short on supplies, equipment and with ranks so depleted as to be near the point of total collapse, the tattered remnants of the chapter have been granted special access to a small contingent of recruits from a newly re-discovered feral colony world to replace their nearly non-existent scouting force. From this brief stop, they are been sent across the sector to a forge world for emergency re-supply and upgrading of equipment. Unfortunately, the technological supplies needed by the chapter to complete the last leg of the journey are greater than the small feral world can supply. Mantid command re-directs the fleet to a medium sized Imperial world not too far off their scheduled path, where they will obtain supplies and materials needed for the journey. Being space marines of course, they do not bargain, ask permission or negotiate… they take what they need. Not cruelly or with malice, just with the self-assurance of the galactic warriors that they are, and with the knowledge that the sacrifices of materials and supplies given up by the planet are for the greater good of the Imperium.

“misunderstanding” Doom Eagle command receives a distress call from one of the planets within their sphere of influence. An unknown chapter of space marines, calling themselves the “Mantis Warriors” have invaded the planet and are impressing its industrial capabilities, food, medical and ammunition stores into their service, placing a heavy burden on the planetary economy and straining the resources of the planetary government. Astartes records indicate the chapter was involved in insurrectional activities, stripped of its home world and sent on a 100-year suicide mission to pursue a traitor chapter. No recent records exist. Perhaps these “Mantis Warriors” also fell into chaos and were using the guise of their former status to roam the Imperium freely to pillage and corrupt? The decision is made that no overtures will be made to this new threat before offensive action is made, if warned… the Mantis Warriors might simply slip back into the depths of space and avoid justice, to raid again somewhere else. Their actions are proof enough of hostile intent.

(I also had a little story of why neither of us had any jump packs… but the little, shriveled up, creative part of my brain is toast for the night, so you’ll have to settle for the above as justification.)

Points: 2000

Missions
Primary: annihilation
Secondary: hold objectives (5-2-2)
Tertiary: tactical bonuses -+1 if… if your most expensive HQ unit is not fleeing or dead at the end of the game, if your most expensive unit is not fleeing or dead at the end of the game, if you have more scoring units left at the end of the game than your opponent



Armies
Doom Eagles: (Thing 1 & Thing 2)
HQ: Librarian – jump pack, force dome vortex of doom, epistolary
HQ: Librarian – terminator armor, force dome, machine curse, epistolary
Eite: Dreadnought – assault cannon, missile launcher
Elite: Terminators (10) – assault cannon, hvy flamer
Troops: Scouts (5) – ML
Troops: Tactical (10) – flamer, ML, rhino
Troops: Tactical (10) – plas, hvy bolter, rhino
FA: Attack Bikes (2) – multi melta
Heavy: Predator – auto cannon, 2 x lascannon
Heavy: Vindicator



(Please ignore the Mantis Warriors in the ranks... some of the doom eagle battle brothers left their armor in the wash with their St. Pattie's Day underwear.)

Mantis Warriors: (Dad)
HQ: Master of the Forge
Elite: Venerable Dred – multi melta, CCW
Elite: Terminators (7) – cyclone ML
Elite: Sternguard Veteran (7) – 2xML
Troop: snipers (10) – ML, PW
Troop: snipers (10) – heavy bolter, PW
Troop: tac squad (5)
FA: Land Speeder – multi melta
FA: Land Speeder – multi melta
FA: Land Speeder – multi melta
Heavy: Dreadnought – TL lascannon, rocket launcher
Heavy: Dreadnought – TL lascannon, rocket launcher
Heavy: Dreadnought – TL lascannon, rocket launcher



(Two things worthy of mention... note the unpainted Sternguard/Tranquility squad... man how my standards have fallen. Secondly, note the home made drop pods. Buddy of mine owed me a favor long ago. Knew I wanted drop pods but couldn't afford them (we were all poor as church mice) so he found some plastic cups at the dollar store and built me 3 drop pods from scratch. Doors hinge & as you can see they'll even hold a dred perfectly. They ain't pretty, but they're very special to me.)

May i see a pic of your Master Of The Forge? I am stuck for ideas on what to build mine as and need some insperation.
Thanks in advance.!!

EagleArk.

I'm just using an old tech marine figure. Nothing special really... more of a proxy, just wanted to try out the MoTF rules. I was thinking about that myself though... I have one of the new tech marine figures (still in the box) that I suppose would be the starting point, but I'd think he'd need a lot of creative modification to be a convincing MoTF. I mean his gear isn't any different... but you'd want him to appear different than a normal tech marine. More gadgets, more "modifications".... maybe a cybork head... *grin*

This was an idea and difficult to carry out but the WD subscription model would look okay as a MoF, it would be different to the normal techmarines for sure

I was jus panning to cut up the tech marine model but if anyone else hase one can you PM me the picture.. thank you.

EagleArk.

Special Terrain Rules
The two patches of woods and the ruin are area and difficult terrain. Woods are 5+ and ruins 4+ invul.
Our rule for woods (and we use large, more realistically sized pieces) is that you can only shoot in or out of the last 2” of woods, but if two units are within the woods you can shoot 12” (everyone gets the cover save though).

Pre-game Interviews
Doom Eagles: As expressed in deployment… take the objectives, obliterate everything from afar with the tanks, then smash the MW’s in the mouth with the termies & dread. Librarians serve as a tactical reserve for dealing with the land speeders when they arrive, or supporting the troops in melee’.
Mantis Warriors: As this was the first real run of the MW’s as envisioned by yours truly… I wasn’t exactly sure how it was all going to work together, so I just kinda winged it. Hid my guys in the trees to protect from shooting on the opening turn & secured my objective… and waited for the reserves to start showing up. If I’d realized the vindicator only had a 24” range I probably wouldn’t have hidden like a rat in a hole… but who knew?? Was counting on my outflanking land speeders to deal with the Doom Eagle tanks, while “fire base alpha” (the dreads) were intended to pop the transports and whittle down the termies.

Deployment
The Doom Eagles win the roll off and go first. They deploy in two commands (one for each boy) with all tanks on their right flank. The scouts control their secondary objective (Thing 1 learned this lesson from our last game) and the tac squads are set to move forward to the main objective. The terminators are deployed on the center left and will lead the spearhead to and destroy the enemy. The dreadnought and attack bikes anchor their left. The Mantis Warriors put drop pods, land speeders and terminators into reserve, with the land speeders outflanking. Everything else deploys out-of-sight in the woods, denying the Doom Eagles their opening salvos and waiting for some reserves to arrive.



Turn 1
Doom Eagles: The 10-man strong terminator squad runs forward toward the enemy… power fists writhing with energy, anticipating the slaughter of these new invaders. Tactical marines in their rhino race to capture the strategically important ruin in the center. The attack bikes move to support the center. All others wait and watch. The enemy is here… they know it… but the cowards will not show themselves. Shooting from RL scout and dreadnought kills 1 scout who stuck his head out of the woods.



Mantis Warriors: Fire base alpha (the dreadnoughts) moves out of woods towards the table edge to pour fire into the Doom Eagle’s left flank. The dreadnoughts and lead scouts open up on the opposing dreadnought and scout squad, and nearly every shot, including the twin-linked lascannons… misses. No casualties or damage caused.








Automatically Appended Next Post:
Turn 2
Doom Eagles: The terminators move near the edge of the woods where the Mantis Warriors enjoy relative safety. Tactical troops in their rhino now occupy the central objective. Predator re-positions itself to deal with MW “drop” and outflank when it comes. Attack bikes swing around ruins to support center of table. All is going according to plan. Shooting from dread and scout RL on MW scouts is ineffective.
Mantis Warriors: Because I’d never used drop pods… we screwed up as one of them should have appeared in turn 1 as a “drop pod assault”… but I just rolled for them as normal. Both MW pods, the termies and one land speeder arrive. Speeder comes up behind the dread for a sure kill-shot in the tokkas with the multi-melta. Scouts move up to support the newly arrived terminators with bolt pistol fire into the Doom Eagle terminators. Sternguard targets the attack bikes. In essence, a perfect storm of Mantis Warrior firing results in almost no casualties. My terrible rolling assures that both multi-meltas, the dreds, and nearly every other heavy or special weapon misses completely. Two terminators fall to bolt pistol fire from the scouts (thank God), one to storm bolter fire. One bike is killed by the sternguard srgt’s combi-melta, otherwise the entire squad, including the master of the forge with his twin linked plasma pistols all miss or fail to wound.

Shouldnt your area cover saves be cover saves? Invul is mostly the same (can save almost anything) but there are differances (flamers ignor cover, dreads and tanks would get cover, etc).

I am in love with this blog, I wish someone could teach me when I started (8 years old) it is a great thing to see a father, a proud father I may add take an interest in the hobby.

Well played sir, I will someday spawn some underlings of my own and we can duel!

But keep up the great work I will keep an eye on this =)

I <3 this thread

I am very much liking how the doom eagles are coming along!!! more painting!!!

Do land speeders outflank?? I know that they deep strike and LS Storms can outflank but normal LS???

Otherwise i like the report, interesting to see who wins, it looks fairly balanced so far :/

I assumed they could... have I erred? In my mind I kind of equate LS to like... deffkopta's... but then deffkopta's are scouts aren't they? Shoot. Back to the rule book... At least the only thing they've done is kill the dread (turn 3), I can give that back and give the boys an out-of-turn phase of shooting and probably a movement phase to compensate.

Painting will resume once this battle is over. Sorry, most week nights are spent with dinner, homework and keeping the house clean... doesn't leave much time for hobbies. Even with my ability to stay up late... I haven't been able to do much... just noodling around trying to figure out how to paint plasma guns decently and working on some extra armor bits for one of my Killa Kans (I know it doesn't help them, but I had this neat idea so I'm going to model it anyway).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Turn 3
Doom Eagles: Are totally spastic at the “feast” of Mantis Warriors now laid helpless before them. Transports unload, psychers move forward, terminators prepare to charge. A “vortex of doom” nearly wipes out the MW terminator squad. “Machine Curse” takes out the multimelta on the venerable dreadnought. Bolter fire from the tac squad causes one wound on one of the remaining terminators, who rolls a “1” and dies. Scout squad strips multimelta off of land speeder. Termies kill 6 scouts with fire, sternguard looses 2. Terminators assault the scouts, scout sergeant rolls to 1s to hit with his power sword, others do nothing… the get wiped. Librarian charges surviving terminators.. to make it short, every roll I throw, fails... they die. The only bright spot… the MoTF kills one of the doom eagle librarians (the guy who nuked my termies).

Mantis Warriors: One of the remaining Land Speeders arrives on the right flank behind the dreadnought, while the other, weaponless, flees across the table. The sternguard advance on the tac squad while the dread turns on the librarian. Everything in the MW rear positions itself to shoot/assault the terminators. Land speeder blows up dread, killing one scout in the explosion. Dreads kill 2 termies, MoTF kills 2 tac marines, deathwind ML from a drop pod kills 1 tac marine. The scouts and tac squad assault the terminators, the venerable dread assaults the remaining librarian and the Sternguard assault the rearward tac squad. Mantis warriors assault en’masse. Dice rolling is an issue again. Venerable Dread squishes the last remaining psycher, scouts and tac squad kill 1 termie while losing 3 total between them, tac squad falls back. Sternguard w/ MoTF kills only 1, but wins combat (DE fall back), they do not catch them, so decide to consolidate into cover.

I'm not sure what happened to my photo of the kids half of the turn... if I find it, I'll edit it into this post, but here's how things looked after my half.



This now brings you to the current state of the game... as my parents are visiting tonight, it might be a bit before I have another update... though I will review the rules on the land speeders so that remedial action can be taken if necessary.

No, LS do not have scout, just deepstrike. LSS have both.

Thing 2 will be delighted (it was his dread).

You know the LSS would fit in perfectly with the direction I'm taking the Mantis Warriors in... at least from a theme perspective. Now that they're "back" they'll need lots and lots of recruits in a hurry to re-build the chapter. Lots of scouts... might be fun to have an army where pert' near any full marine is considered a veteran. Have to think about that... need to fool around in Army Builder for a while & see what I can come up with.

If you don't want to worry about redoing turns in the game, just say it DS where you placed it when it outflanked... kinda a cop out, but saves the headache of redoing turns and such.

This is easily one of the most interesting threads I have seen. Love hearing about the updates and how the kids are coming along. Keep it up